Fourteen Things Bloggers and Broadcasters can Learn from Each Other
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Fourteen best-practices that can be shared between new-fangled bloggers and old-fangled broadcasters. These are lessons that I've picked up over the years as I've moved back and forth between the worlds of online and offline news.
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Fourteen Things Bloggers and Broadcasters can Learn from Each Other
- 1. BLOGGERS VS BROADCASTERS Ten Things They Can Learn from Each Other Matt Baume mattbaume.com
- 3. Blogger A site that “does news”
- 4. Blogger A site that “does news”
- 5. “Broadcaster” Sends information out Doesn’t engage with the audience TV, radio, print Traditional offline media
- 6. Blogger Vs Broadcaster: Which Is Better?
- 7. Blogger Vs Broadcaster: Which Is Better?
- 8. What Do Broadcasters Have To Learn From Bloggers?
- 9. 1. Use “I.” Be personal, subjective, and human. Have an opinion. Have a smart opinion.
- 10. 2. Win Fights. Proves you’re trustworthy. Go for what your audience would consider a win.
- 11. 2. Win Fights. Proves you’re trustworthy. Go for what your audience would consider a win.
- 12. 3. Market Every Story. Get pageviews Get inbound links from big sites Foster relationships Put big sites in your story
- 13. 3. Market Every Story. Get pageviews Get inbound links from big sites Got linked on SFist Foster relationships Put big sites in your story
- 14. Spend As Much Time Marketing As You Spend Writing.
- 15. 4. Correct Transparently. Explain what went wrong Show that you fixed it
- 16. 4. Correct Transparently. Explain what went wrong Show that you fixed it
- 17. 5. Participate in Comments. Mandatory Fact-check Sources Contact best ones privately and interview
- 18. 6. Moderate Comments. Get rid of anonymous Get rid of conversation-dominators
- 19. 7. Link. Mandatory They’ll link back
- 20. 8. Share. Make it embeddable Creative Commons Walled garden with lots of doors
- 21. What Do Bloggers Have To Learn From Broadcasters?
- 22. 1. Own the Story. Become known for the quality of your work.
- 23. 2. Call Sources. Get quotes Verify
- 24. 3. Call Good Sources. Recognizable names
- 26. 5. Go to the Library. History Center on the 6th floor of the SFPL Bring a laptop and scanner
- 27. 6. Be Attractive. Make them want to look at you. Photoshop
- 28. 6. Be Attractive. Make them want to look at you. Photoshop
- 29. Where Do We Agree?
- 30. 1. Always be First. Make competition link to you.
- 31. 2. Steal and Append. Make it your own.
- 32. 2. Steal and Append. Make it your own.
- 33. 3. Always Sift. Newspapers, Twitter, police scanners, forums, newsletters Ignore the noise.
- 34. 4. You Are Writing a Book. Have a bigger project. You cannot afford to be writing fishwrap.
- 37. VALUE = BLOGGERS + BROADCASTERS Old Games on New Platforms
Editor's Notes
- What's a blogger? What a broadcaster? It depends who you ask. So let's define our terms.
- For the purposes of this presentation, when I say "blogger," I'm talking about bloggers who "do news." For example, I've done reporting at SFist, The SF Appeal, NBC Bay Area, Streetsblog, Curbed, and so on.
- For the purposes of this presentation, when I say "blogger," I'm talking about bloggers who "do news." For example, I've done reporting at SFist, The SF Appeal, NBC Bay Area, Streetsblog, Curbed, and so on.
- For the purposes of this presentation, when I say "blogger," I'm talking about bloggers who "do news." For example, I've done reporting at SFist, The SF Appeal, NBC Bay Area, Streetsblog, Curbed, and so on.
- For the purposes of this presentation, when I say "blogger," I'm talking about bloggers who "do news." For example, I've done reporting at SFist, The SF Appeal, NBC Bay Area, Streetsblog, Curbed, and so on.
- For the purposes of this presentation, when I say "blogger," I'm talking about bloggers who "do news." For example, I've done reporting at SFist, The SF Appeal, NBC Bay Area, Streetsblog, Curbed, and so on.
- And instead of "old-fashioned journalist," I'm going to use the term "broadcaster." That is, someone who's really good at sending information out, but doesn’t engage in conversation with the audience. A broadcaster could be a TV reporter, a radio reporter, or a print reporter; you can think of them as representing traditional offline media. I call them "legacy journalists" when I'm feeling uncharitable, but I've done that type of work myself at places like the Bay Area Reporter.
- So, blogger vs broadcaster. Which is better? I run a site called “Writers Getting Paid” where I interview writers -- online and offline -- about how they work, and I've seen advantages and disadvantages to both. And they both have a lot that they can learn from each other. I'm going to run through a few of those lessons that I think they should be sharing.
- First, what do broadcasters have to learn from bloggers?
- Lesson one is the scariest: use the pronoun "I." Be personal. Be subjective. Be human. Having an opinion earns the trust of the audience -- but only if your opinion is smart. Knee-jerk opinions will get you torn apart -- if you take a position, you must be ready to defend yourself from attack, because you will be attacked. A lot.
- But that's a good thing! Winning a fight proves that you're trustworthy. You don't have to win in everyone's eyes -- just in the eyes of your audience. Go for what your audience would consider a win. Case in point: SF Weekly and Broke-Ass Stuart had a blog spat last year over whether Stuart owns the term “broke ass.” When the dust settled, nothing was really resolved, but Stuart’s supporters considered him the winner, and the Weekly’s supporters considered them the winner.
- But that's a good thing! Winning a fight proves that you're trustworthy. You don't have to win in everyone's eyes -- just in the eyes of your audience. Go for what your audience would consider a win. Case in point: SF Weekly and Broke-Ass Stuart had a blog spat last year over whether Stuart owns the term “broke ass.” When the dust settled, nothing was really resolved, but Stuart’s supporters considered him the winner, and the Weekly’s supporters considered them the winner.
- Grow your audience by marketing each story you write. You'll die without pageviews. Look at related sites with big traffic and ask them to link to your story. * They'll be more likely to do so if you've fostered a relationship with them, and even more so if you mention them in your article.
- Grow your audience by marketing each story you write. You'll die without pageviews. Look at related sites with big traffic and ask them to link to your story. * They'll be more likely to do so if you've fostered a relationship with them, and even more so if you mention them in your article.
- Grow your audience by marketing each story you write. You'll die without pageviews. Look at related sites with big traffic and ask them to link to your story. * They'll be more likely to do so if you've fostered a relationship with them, and even more so if you mention them in your article.
- Spend as much time marketing as you spend writing.
- Correct immediately and transparently. * Don't make mistakes disappear -- it undermines your credibility. Explain what went wrong and show that you fixed it.
- Correct immediately and transparently. * Don't make mistakes disappear -- it undermines your credibility. Explain what went wrong and show that you fixed it.
- Participating in the comments is mandatory. Commenters can become sources. Pay attention to the good ones, write to them privately, and interview them for your stories whenever you can. If they're interested enough to comment, they may have information you can use.
- Anonymous comments do nothing for you. Get rid of them. Get rid of low-value commenters, too: people who want to dominate every conversation. Send them a warning privately, and if they don't back off, ban them.
- Citing your sources is mandatory online. Link to other sites as much as you can. Your readers will love you for it; and more importantly, other sites will love you for it and will link back.
- Don't stop sharing there. Make your media embeddable. Creative-commons it so people can remix it and attribute it to you. You can have your walled garden, just make sure it has lots of doors.
- That brings me to part two: what bloggers can learn from broadcasters.
- A walled garden can be good if you have a story that’s so exclusive and interesting that you can own it. Become known for the quality of your work.
- Exclusives are great. You can get them by using this thing called the telephone: call sources, ask questions, get a quote. Verify what they're telling you.
- Always call at least one source. They might have an even better story for you to write. Go for the big gets -- the recognizable names. Your readers will be more interested if they know who your source is.
- Document everything, and keep your documentation. When Mike Huckabee was quoted as comparing the children of gay parents to puppies, he tried to claim that the reporter “grossly distorted” his statement ... but a tape recorder was on the table in front of him, and the reporter was quickly able to post a recording online proving otherwise.
- Go to the library. In particular, go to the history center -- it's on the 6th floor of the SFPL -- they've done half your research for you already. Just tell them what you're writing about and they'll pull out folders full of past articles on that topic. Bring a laptop and a scanner because they charge you for using their copier.
- Be attractive. Your audience will appreciate following someone they they want to sleep with. Get a sexy headshot, then photoshop it to look even sexier. Because we live in a shallow, sexist society, this holds particularly true for women and gays. I wish none of this was the case, but it is.
- Be attractive. Your audience will appreciate following someone they they want to sleep with. Get a sexy headshot, then photoshop it to look even sexier. Because we live in a shallow, sexist society, this holds particularly true for women and gays. I wish none of this was the case, but it is.
- Now that I've covered the differences between bloggers and broadcasters, I want to touch on the areas where they overlap -- often without realizing it.
- Always be first with the story. Be the source so everyone links to you.
- If you weren't first with the story, just steal it and stick something extra on the end. Now it's yours. When I was researching an article on water, I discovered that Examiner writer Lisa Krieger had lifted large chunks from a Chronicle piece ten years earlier. Journalists copy, and always have.
- If you weren't first with the story, just steal it and stick something extra on the end. Now it's yours. When I was researching an article on water, I discovered that Examiner writer Lisa Krieger had lifted large chunks from a Chronicle piece ten years earlier. Journalists copy, and always have.
- Always be sifting through news sources. Newspapers, twitter, police scanners, forums, newsletters -- sift wide, sift fast, ignore the noise, and focus on the potential stories. When I write for NBC, I sift about 1,500 items every day. Of those, I’ll turn four into articles.
- You are writing a book. Each article that you write is like a little grant, a fragment of research for some bigger project. You cannot afford to be writing fishwrap. I was recently asked to write for a blog that pays $10 an article. That’s not an unheard of rate. But think about all the work that goes into an original piece: research, interviews, writing, gathering images, marketing once it’s posted. For $10, you simply can’t generate original news. If you’re going to write posts for $10 or less, and lots of online journalists do, they need to be investments in something that can make you more money down the line. If you write them once and they disappear into the cyber-ether, then you’ve just wasted your time for peanuts.
- The way we consume news is changing, but the reason we consume news it is not. News is interesting. People love amazing true stories, and there are a billion amazing true stories to be told. And we can now tell more of those stories than ever before, which means journalistic scarcity is over. But it doesn't mean that value is over, just that it's changed.
- The way we consume news is changing, but the reason we consume news it is not. News is interesting. People love amazing true stories, and there are a billion amazing true stories to be told. And we can now tell more of those stories than ever before, which means journalistic scarcity is over. But it doesn't mean that value is over, just that it's changed.
- The way we consume news is changing, but the reason we consume news it is not. News is interesting. People love amazing true stories, and there are a billion amazing true stories to be told. And we can now tell more of those stories than ever before, which means journalistic scarcity is over. But it doesn't mean that value is over, just that it's changed.
- The way we consume news is changing, but the reason we consume news it is not. News is interesting. People love amazing true stories, and there are a billion amazing true stories to be told. And we can now tell more of those stories than ever before, which means journalistic scarcity is over. But it doesn't mean that value is over, just that it's changed.
- The way we consume news is changing, but the reason we consume news it is not. News is interesting. People love amazing true stories, and there are a billion amazing true stories to be told. And we can now tell more of those stories than ever before, which means journalistic scarcity is over. But it doesn't mean that value is over, just that it's changed.
- The way we consume news is changing, but the reason we consume news it is not. News is interesting. People love amazing true stories, and there are a billion amazing true stories to be told. And we can now tell more of those stories than ever before, which means journalistic scarcity is over. But it doesn't mean that value is over, just that it's changed.
- And that new value comes from journalists -- bloggers and broadcasters -- who can play the old games on the new platforms.
- Thank you very much. This presentation will be available on my site, mattbaume.com, where you can also get in touch with me.