In the rush to seem with it or hip, journalism companies have been adding blogs by the bucket full.
Often editors go around asking who wants a blog, and will accept just about any idea for a blog from a staff member. Maybe they’ll even allow them to have a blog with no real theme or vision. They’ll allow those staffers to post about whatever.
That’s what we call lack of a concrete strategy. People don’t like blogs because they are blogs. People like blogs because of the content and the two-way communication.
People like bloggers who connect with them. People like blogs with a specific purpose that fills a niche. In short: people don’t like random blogs.
Any newspaper or journalism company should only be adding blogs that fit a journalistic mission — their specific journalistic mission. Journalism is what we do. Writing about whatever isn’t journalism — it’s a journal.
And if people want to read random online journals they can easily go to MySpace or Live Journal. Blogs can be very powerful and popular at traditional media outlets, but they have to be handled with grace.
You need to have a vision and plan to really make blogging work, and just adding blogs for the sake of having blogs does not impress anyone. Blogs are everywhere. Little kids to grand parents have blogs.
You need to offer a blog that others can’t offer. You need to harness your niche, which should be owning the stories and news in your coverage area. If you’re a local newspaper, don’t write about national issues that don’t directly affect your readers.
Here are a few blogs that I have found that I like and dislike.
The good:
Stars and Stripes Pacific Sports Blog
This is a blog at my paper run by our Pacific sports beat writer, Dave Ornauer. Basically, he uses the blog to augment his coverage and seek reader feedback.
For instance, there was a recent controversy where the Department of Defense in Europe instituted a policy where coaches could not report to the media a high school football score that had a scoring differential of more than 39 points.
If a team won a game 50-0, it had to be reported to us 39-0. We refused to run those scores unless we could independently verify them. Obviously, this was a good blog topic for us to tackle, because it was an unpopular decision with fans — both the the 39 point rule and our decision to cease running scores.
We had gotten a lot of letters about this, but a blog provides a much stronger back-and-forth between readers and between readers and writers. Without a blog (our Ombudsmen also tackled this issue in his blog), our readers wouldn’t have had the same sounding board.
Dave has used his blog several times to ask readers how they felt about controversies. The best blogs look to readers to lead the way.
The bad:
The Reading Eagle
It’s hard to pick just one blog over at the Reading Eagle to single out as being poor. Here is a paper with a sub-50,000 circulation that has more than 40 blogs. Any stupid idea that a staff every had was apparently accepted.
What makes it even worse is that on the top of their blog index they are asking for more bloggers. They need less bloggers and better bloggers.
Here is the description of one of their blogs:
Al Walentis, multimedia projects coordinator for the Reading Eagle, leads a lively and irreverent conversation on world and local events, stuff going on around this site, online trends and the occasional rant.
Basically, he writes about a bunch of stuff that he has no authority on. I’d much rather read about world events from Thomas Friedman and local events from a prominent community member or beat reporter. And why is this guy an expert on online trends?
And spare us your rants. This is a professional newspaper! What makes the majority of the frivolous, MySpace-esque blogs more egregious is that the Reading Eagleactually has some good blogs from knowledgeable people.
Holly Herman, a 15-year veteran reporter covering state and federal courts, will be there to share with you the legal wrangling, the human side of the men and women in robes, and the tragedies victims endure as they wait for justice.
Legal matters are often hard for citizens to fully understand. Having a blog by someone who understand the local legal landscape is a great idea. Why can’t the rest of the blogs be like this?
Those other blogs dilute the power of the good blogs and frankly hurt the Reading Eagle as a whole.
Conclusion:
You shouldn’t go around asking everyone and anyone if they want a blog. Blogs aren’t candy. They’re a tool.
A tool if used properly that can really augment your newspaper’s coverage. A tool if used poorly can dilute your brand and hurt your standing with readers.
Each journalism outlet should have a clear vision of what it wants to accomplish with its bloggers. Don’t over load on too many staff bloggers. Often the best bloggers come from outside, especially those that are experts in certain areas.
I once saw a blog by a local “pet lover,” giving out advice to readers. A blog from a local veterinarian would be infinitely better.
Don’t add features like blogs, pod casts, talk back, etc just because you heard other places were using them. Add them because it makes your coverage better in a meaningful way.
Everything you do on your Web site should be to further your journalistic mission and to better connect with your readers.
They are countless places to go for random blogs, but there are very few places to go to get insightful blogs about local issues.