Social media posed a problem for journalists that had little to do with the tools: it blurred the line between the personal and the professional, and gave no obvious guidance on where to put that line. The useful question was not whether to take part but what a journalist was trying to achieve, and which tool suited it.
A Harvard Business Review piece by Soumitra Dutta offered a framework that transferred well. Dutta divided activity along two axes — personal or professional, private or public — producing four quadrants: personal and private, for family and friends; professional and private, for colleagues; personal and public, for society at large; and professional and public, for peers.
The last two are where journalists had most to gain. A personal-and-public strategy let a journalist become known for their ideas by sharing knowledge through blogs, YouTube and Twitter, and by engaging with the arguments that came back. A professional-and-public strategy — LinkedIn, Twitter, and the journalism communities that had formed online — built recognition among peers and surfaced new work.
Which leaves the question in its proper form. Not whether to engage with social media, but why, and in a way that actually serves the goals the journalist already has.