Good question. In fact, its not a new one, but its one that gets a new look over, thanks to a report published by Nielsen yesterday. The substance of it is that blogs on newspapers have tripled their traffic over the course of the year. Reuters summarizes:
Blog pages accounted for 13 percent of overall visits to newspaper sites in that month, up from 4 percent a year earlier. Total visitors to the top newspaper sites rose 9 percent to 29.9 million.
I guess the issue was brought up some months ago when Business2.0 got a whole passle of journalists to start blogging, and has further received a little more momentum given how CNet discussed how ZDnet’s blog-authors will get paid, (many of them are veteran journalists) in small part, due to their pageviews.
Well, I remember asking a journalist of two (maybe even a former journalist) on what they thought about this.
I believe the opinion was that journalists COULD probably blog, as their occupations put them in front of breaking news, and they have the excellent opportunity to report on it; alternatively, it could give them the opportunity to put their own salty spin on what goes on in a particular industry.
Moreover, many of them might have the TIME to pursue such extra-curricular activities, and I think that at this point someone discretely pointed in the direction of Om Malik (who created a fabulous blog in his spare time that is on its own way of becoming a mini empire).
The question that was brought up, however, was if any WANTED to blog.
Many people have their jobs. To some, its merely an occupation. Perhaps it is so for some journalists. But to blog actively, regularly, and in a way that is engaged with its readers and the blogging community-at-large requires a level of commitment that might transcend the definition of a job — particularly if you are doing so in ADDITION to your usual duties.
Sure, you can dangle the prospect of higher wages, and bonuses for extra work done (because, let’s face it, no matter how much you love it, its still work), but to blog successfully, you’ve got to (really) want to do it.
And, to be fair, some might not … even with the prospect of more coin.
So, should all journalists be bloggers? At the end of the day, I’m not sure if its a question of “should”, so much as a question of “which”. That is, which journalists should be bloggers?
I think blogging is a great complementary occupation that journalists actually have a leg up on — for all the reasons I mentioned above. But also because if they do for their parent company, they already have a built in audience and potential readership base. Which is both a blessing and a curse, I suppose, that many independent bloggers work their tails off to acquire.
A couple of individuals that seem to have made the jump successfully include my own hommie (or is that only with one “m”) Mat Ingram, prolific blogger, and columnist for the Globe and Mail, as well Mark Evans one-type journalist for the National Post, but now VP for b5media.
And heck, they certainly seem to be having fun with it. ;)
January 18th, 2007 at 11:56 pm | Permalink
[...] Tony Hung at Deep Jive Interests has a good post on the topic (and no, I’m not linking to him just because he said nice things about me). And one point he makes — which I can’t stress enough — is that in order to have a good blog, you have to really want to do it. Not everyone is going to feel that need. As Tony says: To blog actively, regularly, and in a way that is engaged with its readers and the blogging community-at-large requires a level of commitment that might transcend the definition of a job — particularly if you are doing so in ADDITION to your usual duties. [...]
January 19th, 2007 at 2:58 am | Permalink
Yah. It looks like a good fit on the surface but these are very different sports. It’s like asking can a golfer become a great baseball player? Maybe. Journalism is writing and blogging is writing but I think it ends there.
I remember reading a story on NYT about journalists and their blogging alter egos. The most successful bloggers had split personalities, with the blog showing a darker and edgier side of their writing.
The best bloggers are also good at marketing and self producing. Hmmm… just had an idea.
January 21st, 2007 at 10:52 am | Permalink
Something I find very odd and embarrassing is how *bad* many journalist’s blogs are. They are too used to being right all the time, the way that being printed on dead trees can make you feel. As a consequence, a lot of journalist blogs are one-sided, confrontational and aggressive. Like Baron says, they’re different sports.
January 24th, 2007 at 6:24 pm | Permalink
I think you may discover many journalist will HAVE to blog as newspapers embrace new media at a time when newsrooms are being shrunk to deal with declining ad revenue. Of course, the question is how you motivate someone to blog if they have no passion for it and/or are not getting paid more to do it. The danger is you may end up with blogs that are, at best, alright but come nowhere near the energy of someone who wants to blog.
September 20th, 2007 at 11:40 pm | Permalink
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January 19th, 2008 at 2:39 pm | Permalink
Very interesting article on blogging. I’m a business and technical writer in Toronto Ontario. I am a consultant and blogging sounds like a very interesting niche. They say to blog effectively is that you should write in an informative/conversational tone. I love sharing information and having conversations so I believe that I can add value to a company that is looking for bloggers. I hope to set up my own blog very soon, but in the meantime, I keep researching to find new ideas. Thank you for writing this article. It gave me good insight.