Before you get your knickers in a twist—there’s no “blogger summit” currently in the works, not that I’m aware of anyway. I’m just tossing out some questions here.
Full disclosure: I work at Media General in the Interactive Media Division. Media General owns the Richmond Times-Dispatch along with a number of other newspapers and television stations. I’m asking the questions below for personal reasons - not for work. Although I believe the RTD, Style, Richmond.com and all of the media companies in the area should actively engage the local publishing community, neither the RTD nor Media General have asked me to pose these questions to our community.
Right—with that out of the way, let’s begin…
I’ve been meaning to post this since I read about the WNBC New York City Bloggers’ Summit and the WaPo’s DC Blogger Summit earlier this year when each invited local bloggers who talk about local issues to share ideas about media partnerships.
From the WaPo’s email invitation to the event:
At the DC Summit, the WaPo announced that they would produce the following:
• A local blog log section
• A planned directory of DC weblogs listed by location, topic, etc.
• Flickr pools
• Geocoded blogs
• Sponsored blogs (think revenue sharing)
• ...and more
While the WaPo is without question much more savvy when it comes to blogging and other forms of social media than the media companies in Richmond, I see their goals above as a bit of a stumble. Considering that they’re actually trying though, I suppose it’s a good first step and I shouldn’t criticize too harshly.
Their foray into working with bloggers got me to thinking about Richmond’s online publishing community and its current and future relationship with local media.
Over the last year, the community has evolved from a simple collection of bloggers and pundits to something more.
There’s greater interaction with one another. Posts on one site often reference posts on others. People are beginning to regularly comment on one another’s posts. A loose network is forming and it’s growing, thanks in no small part to Ross Catrow and his site, RVABlogs.
According to Ross, the site’s intent is “to create traffic for local bloggers, expose bloggers to new blogs, and expose non-bloggers to blogging.”
He’s done just that.
Looking at my web site’s statistics, the RVABlogs referral traffic hovers around 3% of my total traffic (approx. 400 page views per day). More importantly though, I’ve met a number of people in Richmond that I may never have if it were not for RVABlogs.
Other publishers have reaped even great referral traffic benefits. For example, John Sarvay’s site, Buttermilk & Molasses, garners 18% of its referral traffic from the site.
(I’d love to see stats from Brandon, Bart Hinkle and others. Is anyone else willing to share?)
Online publishing is a two way street. As the community has benefited from the referral traffic and more people get into blogging, RVABlogs has seen incredible growth. That will likely continue as more people join the online conversation and sites such as West of the Boulevard News and Church Hill People’s News continue to create opportunities for people to talk about their lives and their communities.
All of this is wonderful for the online community and for Richmond - but I can’t help but wonder where the local, established media companies fit into this equation.
Do they?
John Sarvay said in a recent conversation,
“I keep thinking that the region’s media outlets will suddenly “get it” and I’ll wake up to discover that Style or Richmond.com or the TD (or Richmond Magazine or one of the local TV news stations or WCVE/WCVW) will have launched a robust, Richmond-themed batch of attractive, frequently updated, uniquely voiced and sourced weblogs.”
So the questions remain:
Should there be a relationship (loose or formal) between traditional publishers and the community?
Should media companies work to actively share news and information with this community?
Should media companies acknowledge the online publishers who bring important stories about the community to the table (or who scoop the story)?
Given the diversity of people publishing online and their reasons for doing so, there’s no one answer to these questions - but your answers are important whatever your reasons.
John wants the local media to wake up…so let’s wake them up by talking about it. Maybe with a little prodding, they’ll get into the conversation.
Who knows, someone may even organize a Richmond Blogger Summit one day.
Your comments are welcomed and encouraged below.
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