The River

The personal professional blog of Pamela Parker -- musings on marketing, advertising, media and technology.

Blogging

Journalist + Blogger?

by

Interesting piece in Wired News about journalist/bloggers, like myself. A few thoughts:

  • On Scoops Of course I can’t scoop ClickZ on my blog. I’m paid to manage and write for the site full-time, therefore I must make it my first journalistic priority. This might be a bigger issue for print journalists (esp. magazine), because it’s fairly easy for us to publish something relatively quickly, and then I can link to it from my blog. It’s be tougher, psychologically, to sit on something while waiting for a monthly to come out.
  • On Objectivity I’m in a bit of a different position than some because while I write news, I also write opinions for ClickZ Experts, therefore it’s not entirely out of the scope of my role to be a person with opinions. However, I wouldn’t blog in an opinionated way about something I’d written as a News story.
  • On the Role of Blogging, for Me I try to make it clear (with my disclaimer on the site) that what’s on the blog are my opinions, not my employers’. To some extent, I blog about things that wouldn’t be appropriate for ClickZ (gecko/salamander sightings and other personal stuff). And as readers have no doubt noticed, I’m not a big ranter on my blog — at least not about things that we cover — and part of that is by design. If I didn’t have the regular news and column outlet, I might be more aggressive and depend more heavily on my blog.

    I think the steps Chris Allbritton (fellow alumni of my j-school) has taken to shift his blogging behavior after being hired by Time magazine — as described in the Wired News piece — are entirely appropriate.

    • Real People and Blogs

    by

    Interesting discussion going on now on KFOG radio about blogs and their merits. (Am overhearing this on my colleague’s radio in the next cube.) Great to hear "real people" on mainstream media talking about blogs and how they fit into their lives. RSS feeds even came up. The whole discussion sprung from a news report about the recently released Pew Internet and American Life project study.

    BTW, missed blogs immensely upon hearing of the tsunami disaster while stuck in the Piney Woods of E. Texas without Internet access (not even on my phone!). I returned to find an Australian blogging "friend" (who probably doesn’t even know I read her) writing about the desperate search for her Achenese (sp?) husband’s family.  She usually writes about diet and exercise, but obviously that wasn’t what her life (or her blog) was about at that moment.

    Closing the Blog/Journalism Gap

    by

    The gap between blogs and journalism are closing fast. Bacon’s, which provides info on journalists and publications for PR pros, is developing a blog monitoring service to launch next year.

    "The news cycle for a story sometimes originates from a blog and can on occasion find its way into the mainstream media," says Ruth McFarland, Senior Vice President and Publisher for Bacon’s.

    "With today’s information overload from often irrelevant or dubious sources, our aim is to help our clients by filtering the communications clutter. Bacon’s will therefore focus on blogs run by reputable, credible professionals. Initially, these will be blogs of active journalists, but as our in-house researchers scrutinize and approve additional news-related blogs, we will add to the scope of our coverage," says McFarland.

    Next, bring on the blog e-mail "press" lists. Aargh.