In January 2010, I was asked by the Public Relations Society of America, Hoosier chapter, to pen a guest column for their February newsletter.

This was a fun assignment.

Here's what I wrote:

Do-It-Yourself News By: Tom Spalding

On Jan. 12, at Kilroy's bar in Downtown Indianapolis, a jubilant bunch of sports enthusiasts gathered for a 3 p.m. announcement about the Circle City's chances of landing a World Cup, soccer's most prestigious event. It was a big deal for Indy not Super Bowl 2012 big - but a breaking news story worth pursuing certainly.

The Star had a reporter at Kilroy's to cover the event, but as a 21st-century version of the disc jockey -- grab news and spin it into a story for our Web site, IndyStar.com -- my job was to watch for a simultaneous e-mail about the announcement. When it was learned that Indy was picked in the final 18 out of 27, I immediately went to Twitter.

I was third to make the announcement.

No other media beat me to it. It was a bunch of fellow Twitterers from that emerging social media service. Worse, it wasn't another scoop-minded reporter, but the media relations coordinator from Conrad Hotel Indianapolis (good job, Morgan Greenlee) and a couple of others. When I saw THEIR posts, my first reaction was, "Hey, that's my job." You know, the old school way -- source-to-reporter-to-audience. You tell me and then I spring into action, taking 20 years of journalism experienced learned in J-School at the University of Kentucky and crafted at newspapers in Sarasota, Fla., Indianapolis and a few other stops.

Not so. Scoop is a term that used to be limited to just the broadcast and print media, and a twinge of angst is felt every time the IBJ or another competitor gets a heads-up on an event we don't have.

But now the masses are on equal footing. Part of the blame lies on us. We taught folks they could do it themselves by having them using a service on our Web site that has been in place at the Star long before Twitter emerged. With shrunken staffs unable to respond to every request for news coverage, we turned to a kind of Matador approach.

If you get the facts right and names spelled correctly and it doesn't come off completely ad like, it's all yours to "post" on our site. No it's not the same as having your client land on A1 or one of our news section covers. But I hope that it's going to be easy to adapt to, because that's the future.

Here's the web version of the newsletter with my article in it.