Which journalists should blog? And why?
Howard Owens: Every journalist should blog
Bobbie Johnson: Why NOT every newspaper journalist should start a blog
Both links via Andy Dickinson.
Both Owens and Johnson make some excellent points, so probably you should read them both (neither one is very long) and mull it over.
My two cents: If you (a) want to blog, and (b) think you can post once a day, Monday through Friday, indefinitely — give it a whirl. Why not? It’s free. You already know how to write. Try it and see.
After a while, as you get into Technorati, FeedBurner, stats, etc., you’ll find out if you like it — and whether you are able to build an audience. If you can’t build an audience, give it up.
I require my journalism students to blog just so they can find out, firsthand, what it’s like to write every day. To try to find something meaningful to write about. Every day. To try to get people to pay attention to you. To plug into conversations and informal online communities. Some of them find out they really like it. Others discover the opposite. Some of them are terrible at it. Some take to it like little ducklings tossed into a pond.
Technorati tags: blogging | journalists
Great post. I recently interviewed Matthew Padilla, the mortgage and real estate reporter for the Orange County Register about his blog for my podcast interview series, and we spoke at length about how his blog and the comments he receives actually drives his coverage of the current mortgage crisis. I thought it was a very interesting look at the intersection of MSM and blogging. His conclusion was that every business writer should have a blog. I have to agree - the fact that what he reads in the blogosphere influences how and where his attention is directed is an important shift in the MSM.
The interview is at http://www.blownmortgage.com/blownmortgage_blog/podcasts/index.html
June 2, 2007 at 6:05 amWow, that’s a very interesting interview, Morgan (link here). Also, your blog, Blown Mortgage, looked initially to me like it was some spam-blogger junk (being about mortgages, the subject of much of my postal junk mail as well as online spam) … but on closer examination, I saw it was actually a serious informational blog. Nice work.
I think you need a better mic for your podcasts, though. The sound quality isn’t too bad, but the pops and hisses kind of bothered me.
June 2, 2007 at 4:17 pm