Spot.us, David Cohn's community-funded journalism project, published a story today about politicians and their use of social media. The story asks whether these tools--primarily Twitter--are allowing elected officials to better engage with their constituencies, or are just another way to campaign:

So to some degree tools like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are being used to directly address voter questions and concerns, and also offer a little insight into the lives of our elected officials. But policies on disclosure and accreditation vary widely, and while it’s one way to reach a certain segment of constituents, many more are left out. And whatever public value it offers for conducting public business has generally proven minimal compared to the personal value for politicians chasing publicity, donor contributions and votes on election day.

Is anyone surprised? Were we expecting politicians to voluntarily adopt a service that will make them more subservient to the public? To politicians, something that lets them broadcast sound bites to many people at once is a wonderful campaign tool. Cleaning up politicians by engaging them directly is not the political destiny of Twitter. Twitter's political power lies in its ability to quickly organize people and spread a message. And sometimes, that message will be lame, but such messages usually don't get far.

When we find a social networking tool that effectively ferrets out political corruption, the corrupt will not have to opt-in.