As a young journalist at university I can attest to and agree with what Adrian says. It is your presence online, your “digital calling card”, as he puts it.

My website allows me to showcase my work through the portfolio page and what subjects I’m interested in via my posts, tweets and favourite links on Delicious. Anyone reading this site will now I’m a bit of a football fanatic that loves to write about the beautiful game.

I can also contact fellow journalists and readers and strike up a dialogue with them. It’s definitely been a worthwhile investment of my time.

What initially put me off was my lack of coding knowledge, and I think that is the case with a number of my colleagues on my course. The first time we covered it in Convergent Journalism I did do a slight double-take I will readily admit.

Luckily for me, my friend Nick (who admits himself is a bit of a geek) knew plenty and spent a significant amount of time making this site what you see today and showing me the ropes.

Invest a bit of time learning some coding and it will pay off. I’d recommend having your own personal website to every journalism student.

But it seems as if I am of a dying breed.

With newspapers making their entire contents available for free on the internet, people of my generation will most probably boot up their Mac or PC and get their news that way. Or switch on their TV.

The market for news has become fragmented. There are just so many different ways you can get it. Over the years, newspaper circulation has been declining.

What struck me as I made my into work this week was the lack of people clutching a paid for newspaper. In the morning carriages full of people thumbed through their copy of the Metro, and in the evening it was either the London Lite or London Paper that they perused. I could literally count on one hand the number of people who were the exception to this rule.

Why do I continue to pay for my news? This article caught my eye a few days ago and advances some arguments that strike a chord with me.

To tweet or not to tweet?

That is the question facing many of today’s journalists. With increasing numbers of people keeping their followers up to date with what they are doing, hacks are starting to examine the opportunities this latest social networking craze offers.

It is a question that has also sparked a healthy debate on the Centre for Journalism (the website of my university course) a few weeks ago.

For the uninitiated the premise behind Twitter is devilishly simple: tell the world what you’re doing, in less than 140 characters.

Some argue it is simply a chance for people to post trivial updates about the mundane occurrences in their daily life. For example, Joe Bloggs could tweet that he is currently (stop the press) eating a piece of toast.

Others argue that it has its uses for journalists. I fall into this camp.

Of course it can be used for trivial nonsense that no one outside of your circle of friends will be interested in, but there are many ways journalists can utilise it to their benefit.

You could use it to quickly check the latest headlines. Media organisations are already establishing a presence on the platform. Sky News, BBC News and the Guardian all have Twitter accounts which are updated with the latest articles from their websites, with a link provided to the original piece.

A whole myriad of organisations, companies and personalities (most notably Stephen Fry) have Twitter accounts. The afore mentioned media organisations are paying attention to the opportunities Twitter offers and clearly wouldn’t be dabbling in it if they didn’t think it was of some use to them.

Although it might not be feasible for us to have one, the Twitter wall idea featured in an article from Ian’s (one of my lecturers) Delicious feed is another way the media can use Twitter to their benefit.

Since I started my course in September of last year, there have been countless examples of Twitter being put to good use.

The first picture of the plane that crashed into the Hudson river was posted on Twitter.

Sky News’ used Twitter to keep users of the channel’s website updated with the scene outside Jade Goody’s home after she died, and also during her funeral.

The channel also utilised the service to cover the G20 Protests. The length of Tweets proved perfect for quick updates on the latest developments in the protests, such as the windows of an Royal Bank of Scotland being smashed.

I first found out about the shooting of PC Steven Caroll in Northern Ireland via Twitter. I just happened to check the Twitter app on my iPhone before I went to sleep.

The death of Michael Jackson led to an absolute explosion of the amount of tweets on Twitter. The ‘trending topics’ (the most popular subjects of the tweets posted on the site) were dominated by the King of Pop.

I can also use Twitter to alert people when I post something on my blog, which is a handy way of directing more traffic to the website.

So to sum up, I think Twitter can be used by us journalists to help us do our jobs.

Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

They write: “Today’s journalism students are entering an industry that’s facing a crossroads. These days, newspapers and media in general are adapting and growing at a rapid pace, and it’s essential that students keep up, or they’ll be left in the dust. By reading these blogs, you can keep an ear to the ground on the latest developments that matter the most to journalism students.”

The list is broken down into various categories, including investigate and photo journalism, as well as more general sites.

One omission from the list, however, is Journalism.co.uk, a site I have found eminently useful for news, tips and analysis.

“This list is doing the rounds ‘100 Best Blogs for Journalism Students – Learn-gasm‘… and we’re not on it. Nope, not even a smidgeon of link-love for poor old Journalism.co.uk there,” they lament.

In response the site has added some of its own suggestions, including a certain Centre for Journalism.