In a slight turn of events, The Financial Times is showing social media the value of legacy news brands.FT Antenna, the financial newspaper’s newest service, aggregates and curates the most important news from Twitter in which FT readers might be interested. An algorithm makes sure each tweet is “double whitelisted” – i.e., from a trusted source and links to a trusted website, according to an article on The Media Briefing.In essence, The Financial Times is providing the public with reliable, trusted news by validating and fact-checking its sources, which in this case, are Twitter users. It’s a stroke of innovation that stays true to journalism’s roots but provides those reliable, trusted sources and news via a delivery mechanism more suited to the modern-day reader than text-heavy articles on pink paper.Here’s a screenshot of FT Antenna:

Whether FT’s readers are paying subscribers or prospectives, the new service is sure to not only boost engagement, but also the brand’s reputation and “good will” (to use an accounting term), making it a more trusted source of news. And in a crowded Internet, consumers will be more likely to pay money for trusted information delivered in a convenient format.Other information publications should sit up and take notice of this. And maybe even copy it.