We've talked about "following the news" far longer than following anyone on twitter, but when I read an article that's clearly part of an ongoing story, there's no way for the author to send me updates. There needs to be a feedback loop between newsrooms and readers that's more substantive than click counts and more scalable than letters to the editor. Combine this with a newsroom that takes itself seriously as the first draft of history and 1) cites its sources better 2) compete's with wikipedia for those controversial topics that break wikipedias editor model.
This is similar to "editors picks". I think this is one tool that is not out there yet - a means for journalists / editors to say "this is worthy of interest" in a maintainable, curated manner of link pages (aka HN) and in producing their own work.
I suspect this will look a lot like modelling software - as in this is how much trade is going between these countries in a nice graphic, but the raw data can be modelled / interpreted to show the editors world view.
