Commenters in blogs often provide what I think of as the second of three narratives to a story.

First is the story the reporter writes, based mostly on authorities and some eyewitnesses or family members, but incomplete because no one knows the whole story.

Second is the story the commenters tell, from exes, old high school classmates, feuding neighbors, etc., like a docu-drama where parts are true and parts aren’t, but you’re not sure which.

Third is the much better story a reporter can tell after following all those leads.

When a soldier from the area died in Iraq, one of the comments on the story was from his best friend in the unit, which led to a fuller, richer story on the follow-up.

I’ll be keeping on eye on Kent over these next few months to see how his beat changes. He has some pretty cool ideas.

Sorry for starting the discussion here instead of beat blogging.

I didn’t realize Kent is spending less time writing for the print edition, so this makes more sense now.

There are better ways to get comments than “just calling up random people.” If you can’t figure that out, then it’s time to leave the newsroom.

First, I agree with you that Twitter, blogging and other online forms can be a much more efficient way to troll for comments. I agree with the post you write, but I really think we have to begin thinking of print and Web as vastly different mediums. And if we do, we won’t be duplicating content.

If you check out the original Beat Blogging post you’ll see the graphic Kent created explaining what he means. I don’t think my headline is inaccurate, because Kent simply writes less print stories today, and I don’t think “man on the street” stories/comments have a place in print.

Yes, it’s true that in theory this wouldn’t save Kent time if he still had to write for the print edition in the same, old fashion that he always has, but Kent does spend more of his time on his blog than the print edition (and sometimes goes a bit of time without writing a print story).

As, I said in my previous comment, this wouldn’t be much of an issue if there was greater synergy between the two formats. Why duplicate work? Why would you ever do a “man on the street” story for print? That only allows a few men or women on the street to comment, and it completely ignores the power of two-way communication that the Web excels at. With the Web, everything can become a conversation.

I wouldn’t recommend writing long, in-depth analysis pieces for the Web. Those are strongly the domain of the print edition. It’s all about rethinking what we do for both online and in print. Kent has only been doing his blog for about 6 months, and it stands to reason both his work on his blog and off of it will be changing over time.

My paper (the Orlando Sentinel) also prints reader comments from the Web, some of which have full names, some have first names, some have handles.

Kent - Thanks for the examples and the clarification. Not to slam Pat, but perhaps the headline of the post is misleading? I think the beat blogging is great, but as Kent points out, since editors still want the man on the street quotes for the print edition, he’s not “trolling for comments” any less than he used to.

So while blog comments may not yet translate into “average joe” quotes for the paper, I think that what beat blogging and Twitter do is give us another method to “troll for comments,” one that’s often more efficient and quicker than older methods.

I elaborated on this in a post I wrote on my tech blog about why journalists should use Twitter.

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/etan_on_tech/2008/04/why-journalists.html

I believe Kent’s exact words were, “I’m working two jobs now.” Kent is, however, angling to be an online-only reporter. He has some big plans for the future to take his blog to a whole new level.

It sounds like the problem is that there isn’t a lot of synergy between print and online at many papers. Kent is often asked to duplicate his work for print or try to repurpose his blog for print. That makes no sense.

What works online often doesn’t work in print and vice versa. They are different formats with different strengths.

It makes more sense to write pieces for print that are more big picture, analysis types. Maybe once a week. Something like that.

http://dallasisdblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/06/the-200809-budget-all-the-docu.html
http://dallasisdblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/06/the-200809-budget-who-wins-who.html
http://dallasisdblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/06/the-200809-budget-does-money-m.html

You can see how, by the third post, a reader had taken my work and added to it. I believe we’d have had more comments/input on the budget but the district is currently on summer break.

And to answer Etan’s question: Very few of those blog comments make it into the paper. In that respect, blogging doesn’t save me time and/or effort for the print edition. Pat and I talked about how blogging only adds to my workload; it hasn’t yet proven to have made my for-print job easier.

I understand the concern that using screennames may not make comments seem as reputable as using a person’s “real name,” but at most of today’s papers, no one would know if sources gave names other than their own…how much fact checking is really done? I could easily give my neighbor’s name and address and no one would know the difference … is a screenname less legitimate than a birth name?

Interesting post. I too use my blog and Twitter to find sources for stories.

But I have a question. How often do the quotes on Fischer’s blog make it into his stories? I see from the beatblogging post that since he doesn’t use anonymous sources in the paper, that disqualifies many of the comments.

But do any of the comments make it into the paper? I imagine his editors still want real people quotes for the print edition, regardless if they come from blog comments or man on the street interviews.

I’ve often had trouble convincing people to allow me to quote them in the print edition even when they are all over the Web (blog comments, Facebook, Yelp etc) posting things under their real names. People still seem to to think of “being in the paper” as much scarier than being active online. Perhaps it’s because they realize their parents or bosses would be more likely to see their quote in the print edition than online?

Etan