Aug 23rd, 2006 | Blogs, Reimagination | No Comments
The editor of the Kansas City Star, which has a political blog to which reporters file posts here, has written something for the Associated Press Managing Editors site about what the newspaper tells its staffers when it comes to the blog and the approach they should take. The piece is here — and here’s an excerpt:
At The Star, we tried to make the bar settings clear – but at somewhat different levels for print and online. A pinch of voice and a pound of edginess permeate our postings. But not opinion. Keith Chrostowski, deputy national editor who helped create our concept, set up these rules of engagement:
1. Editing. We still do it, albeit on the fly.
2. Tone. It must be light, not condescending or hurtful.
3. Edginess. We apply it to all posts where appropriate, in an odd way being “fair” to all.
4. Reality. Entries must be based on something “real” that we can verify.
5. Response. Everybody gets a chance to respond, although sometimes in a later posting.
6. Scorecard. The editor keeps a loose score of negative and positive, trying to keep it balanced over time.
Aug 23rd, 2006 | Citizen Media, Reimagination | No Comments
Hartsville Today — a “citizen journalism” project aimed at local news, and put together by the Hartsville Messenger newspaper, with funding from the Knight Foundation and help from Doug Fisher of the University of South Carolina journalism school — has published a report on its first year of existence, or what Fisher calls a “cookbook” on his blog. There’s a PDF version of the report here, and Doug writes about it here.
The Hartsville Today site (which is here) has the slogan “Your news is our news,” and consists of both stories filed from Messenger staff and content from readers. There are submissions about upcoming local events, reviews of local events, blog-style entries about a retired reader’s morning walk, and so on. There are also image galleries, discussion forums, and some helpful hints on writing and submitting things. Here’s an excerpt from the executive summary:
“The most important thing is to think like your users and readers, not like the publisher. They are likely use a site much differently than the typical journalist. Nothing substitutes for detailed planning and discussions in your community ahead of time – and then be prepared to make changes when you find out they are using it differently than you thought they might. Like water, people will find their own level. Remember, they are not journalists and probably don’t want to Hartsville Today 2 be, but they may have great interest in letting the world know about things you simply don’t have time or staff to cover.”
There is plenty of great advice in the report, including this:
“Even once you’ve built it, they may not come. Recruiting is vital and never ending. Everyone in your newsroom should encourage people to visit, become members and post items. This may be difficult at first given the competitive nature of many journalists, but in any community there is far more than can get in the paper. At times, you will even learn of stories worthy of assigning staff to. Speak to civic and community groups, Scout troops, neighborhood groups and churches. But don’t stop there; basic shoe leather is still an effective recruiting tool. If you confine yourself to the “known suspects,” you are likely to have a site that reflects the local establishment.”
Aug 23rd, 2006 | Reimagination, Social Media | No Comments
A friend sent a link that I have been meaning to post (sorry — too much time at the beach I guess) to a piece at the Online Journalism Review, which is a great overview of both the successes and the pitfalls of The Guardian’s blog-hub feature called Comment Is Free (which The Guardian has said quite openly was its attempt to create something like the Huffington Post). It’s a fairly long piece, but it’s well worth reading, and it has lots of links to useful discussions elsewhere.
According to the article “Contributors, of who there are now more than 200, are asked to write without remuneration (other than those who are published in the paper), with a £75 fee offered if their contribution is promoted as a pick of the day – a model not disimilar to the BlogBurst model discussed in Stephen Bryant’s piece. The payback for authors would appear to be access to customised publishing tools, and a larger audience than they might have for their own Weblog.”
The Guardian has also been running a contest to find a new blogger: “In May, two months after its launch, Henry announced the Big Blogger contest, to elicit nominations for a commenter to become a regular Comment is Free blogger. This initiative was in response to the feedback that “not only is the debate on most of the threads not as bad as I sometimes make out, but… in many cases is of higher quality than the posts by some ‘professionals’” (Big Blogger: let battle commence, May 23, 2006)”
Among the flaws mentioned are the fact that there is little or no linking in some of the blogs (which makes them a lot more like traditional columns) and that there is a noticeable lag between publication of either content on the blogs or comments, which are moderated: “Although Comment is Free is presented as a Weblog-based service, the posts often don’t follow a basic tenet of Weblogging: linking. This doesn’t significantly undermine the system, though it reinforces the feeling that this is an established newspaper space… Comment is Free also appears to have ignored another tenet of Weblogging: instant publication. According to one author “you do not actually have access to ‘your’ page. You send copy to the editors, who then vet it, edit it and put it online at their own pace. There is no immediacy, and no direct control of your copy. The entire feeling of speaking directly to readers is lost, as it is so heavily mediated, not just by the editing process but the technology itself”.
