MySanAntonio.com has a blog dedicated to helping staff bloggers blog better.
What a novel idea! Instead of just telling staff members to blog blindly, they are providing staffers with a resource on what this new medium is and how to utilize it well (and I’m sure blogging is a very new concept to many of their staffers). The blog tackles big and small issues ranging from how to post or edit an entry to discussing ideas about how to improve blogging and integrate better with the newsroom.
A resource like this seems like common sense. Hell, it is common sense, but how many other papers have a public blog where they help their staff bloggers get better? Some news organizations, like mine, give bloggers a Word file with some rules and guidelines.
Blogging is an interactive medium. It’s a two-way conversation. Blogging is ever evolving.
A Word document is none of those. A blog is a fantastic staff resource because it is interactive, it allows for (public) feedback and it is ever evolving. Just as news organizations need to evolve, so do staff resources.
Every news organization that has bloggers should have a resource like this.