Before you wrote your first news story, you read other news stories. Knowing the form of the medium is essential to understanding the fundamental components, such as the lead, the nut graph and the walk-off. So it is with blogs.
You should read blogs in order to write an effective blog. Finding the right ones to read will take a little searching, but is worth the time. Start by scanning the A-list bloggers on the top 100 at Technorati.com. Then visit other newspapers whose journalism you respect and check out their blogs. Then find blogs that cover the same subject matter as your beat and make a regular habit of checking them for updates. (You should be doing this whether you have your own blog or not, and now you can subscribe to them via RSS.)
Technorati.com tracks blogs and allows you to browse by popularity.
As you read other blogs, both journalists’ blogs and independent blogs:
- Notice which posts you like the most, then distill: What makes it compelling?
- Note ways you could incorporate the best elements that you find.
- Track the frequency of posts. Does the blog update as often as you like? Or too often? Is there too much material to keep up with?
Terminology
OK, time for a little vocabulary. There are some new terms bloggers use to describe the mechanics of the medium and it’s important to know what they mean.
Post: An entry on a blog or, as a verb, to make an entry on a blog.
Permalink: A link available on each post that allows direct access to that post, usually with comments visible. This helps other bloggers link directly to a given post and helps readers e-mail a link to a specific post to friends.
Trackback: A mechanism for communication between blogs, allowing one blogger to let another know that he or she is linking to their material. This helps readers easily follow a conversation and helps bloggers know who is linking to each post. A pingback performs essentially the same function with slightly different technology. Trackbacks have fallen out of favor with some bloggers because they are susceptible to spam.
Blogroll: A collection of links usually found on the sidebar of a blog, it is designed to inform the blog’s readers of the sites the blogger frequently visits. The thinking goes: If you like my blog, then you’ll probably like other blogs I read. The links in a blogroll are most commonly other blogs but can be general or news Web sites, too.
Linkblog: A blog comprised of links to other online sources with little or no original commentary.
Vlog: A blog that features video commentary as its primary medium, as in “video blog.”
Moblog: Blogging from a mobile device, as in “mobile blog.”
Mechanics
While trained reporters have a built-in advantage with their experience in research, reporting and distilling facts and information, they are at a disadvantage when it comes to forming blog posts. Too many years of writing inverted pyramids and anecdotal leads bog down many a journalist-blogger’s posts. The goal in blogging is to write tight and be quick: Get to your point immediately and get out of there. You’ve got a story to file for print, after all.
Think e-mail: One way to get your mind around the idea of blogging is to think of it as an e-mail to someone you know. They know you’re “in the know” on this subject so you don’t have to work to prove your worth. You can be economical with your words but much more conversational than you’d be in a news story. Think about that long-winded e-mail you receive — that’s exactly what you’re trying to avoid.
Link, summarize and analyze: Attribution is, of course, important in a blog and it takes the form of links. A great post is sprinkled with links to other sites, news articles and even other blogs. Posts should vary in length but always be direct and to the point.
Be specific with headlines: A tendency for rookie bloggers is to be extra flippant with their writing once they have a blog, especially in the titles they use for their posts. Avoid this. A good blog headline — just like a good newspaper headline — previews the information the blog post will contain and does it in a compelling manner.
Be the authority — with a personality: The narrower the topic, the better. Not only will your audience clearly understand the subject matter covered, the blogger will have a better chance to present his or herself as the best source of timely information on that particular topic. And that’s the goal, after all: To combine authority with personality.
Frequency and handling comments
Be short with your posts: For your most loyal readers, you are the “middle man” between them and the sources of information they’re trying to follow. Anything you can do to connect readers directly to the source will build credibility for you and make your readers want to return to your blog. If you find a report online that will be the focus of an upcoming story, link to it with a blog post and simply say, “This is interesting. I’ll be writing about this soon.” And be done with it.
Mike Sando, the beat reporter for the Seattle Seahawks at The News Tribune who won a 2006 award from Editor & Publisher for the best sports blog in the country, has perfected this technique. As soon as he leaves a press conference, he uploads the entire audio to his blog, allowing his readers immediate access to his source material. Then he follows up later with his analysis and then files a story for the next day’s paper (http://blogs.thenewstribune.com/seahawks/).
Mike Sando's Seattle Seahawks blog.
Post at least once a day: If you can be short with your posts, you can easily add at least one every day. That’s an important minimum to hit if you plan to build an audience. Ideally, you will post even more frequently. After all, if your beat is worth covering, there should be enough action to support this frequency.
“I’m too busy!” Sure, we all are. But successful journalist-bloggers have found ways to make the blog work for them, saving them time instead of simply becoming an added time burden. You can use the blog as a notebook, compiling your notes and story ideas. It can help organize your thoughts. And if you build an audience, the leads and feedback you receive will forever change the way you approach your beat.
“A big innovation for me is the blog, though I promised that I would stop using the term,” said John Cook, who writes about technology companies and venture capital for the Seattle PostIntelligencer. “One reason is that I think the term ‘blog’ confuses people. For me, it is simply an online publishing vehicle that I can use to cover my beat better.
John Cook's Venture Blog covers venture capital and technology companies.
“I now devote most of my time to the blog, partly because that is where my audience is. It has radically changed my job. I cover my beat — start-ups and venture capital in Seattle — more aggressively than I ever have. Part of the reason is that I have the flexibility to publish when and where I want without the concerns of whether the story would make it in the print edition.”
Handling comments: First, you should not start a blog unless you’re willing to allow comments. Some mainstream news blogs don’t allow comments, severely undermining the medium’s community-building function. (This might be a decision made above your pay grade that you can’t do anything about. But you should try.)
Second, you should embrace comments as a valuable reporting tool and not disdain them as many traditional journalists do.
You can cultivate comments by adding your own comments to any discussion that needs clarification, redirection or simply a vote of confidence. For example: “Great comments, everyone. Keep them coming!” You can highlight astute observations or pertinent questions by turning them into full blog posts. This will give you easy blog fodder and give your readers the sense they matter to you. That’s important because one of the reasons blogs are popular is that they embrace interactivity and give readers a sense of participation.
... one of the reasons blogs are popular is that they embrace interactivity and give readers a sense of participation.
“When comments started landing on my blog, it dawned on me, ‘I can talk to these people,’” said Greg Reeves, who covers courts, police and special assignments, and does database and computer-assisted reporting for The Kansas City Star, where he started the Crime Scene KC blog in 2005 (http://blogs.kansas city.com/crime_scene/).
The Crime Scene KC blog is maintained by Kansas City Star reporter Greg Reeves.
“The interactivity was eye-opening. I was finally learning what people care about and what they don’t care about. Now I’m getting 300 to 500 comments a day, and online communities are forming in the blog.”
Comments can be like gold, but they can also tar and feather your blog. Don’t let a few bad apples ruin the conversation for everyone else. Rule the comments with a strict focus to staying on topic and maintaining respectful discourse. If it works, the comments will feel like a good pub on a Friday night with a rolling conversation. But sometimes people get out of hand and deserve to get thrown out.
Using photos and screenshots
Would you read a newspaper or magazine that had no pictures, graphics or art of any kind? Of course not. So don’t expect readers to flock to a boring blog without art.
If you work for a newspaper or magazine, you have access to a treasure trove of images. And as a reporter/blogger, you will likely be covering subjects that have been covered previously, so reusing file photos should be easy.
Most blogging software makes adding a photo to a post as simple as adding an attachment to an e-mail. Some systems will even resize the photo so you don’t have to. If not, and you pull a high-resolution image from the archives and need to size it down to save your page-load time (big pictures make Web pages very slow to load), use an online service like Snipshot to quickly resize an image without downloading and learning new software. (See Chapter 8 for more information on handling digital photos.)
