This may be ... ahem ... the future of journalism

If you haven't heard of Matthew Keys, he's the former Reuters employee fired for (rather stupidly) giving hackers passwords to the servers of the L.A. Times (an act which accomplished absolutely nothing noteworthy).

He's gone on to do what I think a lot of journalists who find themselves out of work will do -- here: http://matthewkeyslive.com/

I say this might be the future of journalism because recent polling suggests that consumers of news are becoming less loyal to what we call "legacy brands" (i.e. anything from the Times to CNN to National Public Radio) and connecting more and more, via the Web and social media, with individual journalists who cover topics their audience cares about and who have won the trust of their audience.

(Full disclosure -- I have quietly taken steps to build my work as its own brand, in case my "legacy" employer goes teats up or lays me off.)

What do you think? Are there any individual journalists you follow on Twitter, etc.?

Interesting side note -- one of my favorite authors, Cory Doctorow (of whom one reviewer said "He doesn't just write about the future, I think he lives there") had a reporter doing exactly this in his 2009 novel "Makers." Which you can read for free: http://craphound.com/makers/Cory_Doctorow_-_Makers.html