History of Blogs in the Newsroom

Slide 1: what’s a blog?

Slide 2: history

Slide 3: before the internets

Slide 4: (tubes!)

Slide 5: we had reporters who wrote for newspapers

Slide 6: an editor would assign stuff like photos and sidebars

Slide 7: it would all get edited, laid out on a page, and printed on paper

Slide 8: like this:

Slide 10: and it was good.

Slide 11: but then they made the internets

Slide 12: so we changed stuff

Slide 14: and that wasn’t bad, at first

Slide 15: but the content was … printy.

Slide 16: and people started to like talking to each other online

Slide 17: but they couldn’t talk to us

Slide 18: so they went someplace else to talk

Slide 19: chatrooms. listservs. blogs.

Slide 20: so the bosses said - HEY!

Slide 21: ‘come back! we got news!’

Slide 22: so they added blogs. and audio. and video. and community-produced content.

Slide 23: and it was go o d…

Slide 24: But how was it supposed to w o rk?

Slide 26: Where there multiple blogs?

Slide 28: who edited them?

Slide 30: and wait … didn’t the print people need help blogging to begin with?

Slide 32: w he w … ..

Slide 33: Let’s step back.

Slide 34: what’s good about blogs? • conversational • regular updates • links to more material • discussion in comments • niche/relevant topics • easy to create/edit • plays well with other technologies

Slide 35: can’t newspapers do that?

Slide 36: without … • losing reporting credibility • creating stupid workflows • abusing overworked writers • being afraid of our audience

Slide 37: Maybe it’s time to try something new.

Slide 38: Laura Fries laurafries.com • laura@laurafries.com web director, association of alternative newsweeklies presentation given at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, June 2007