Should media outlets blog?

Posted on April 08, 2008
Filed Under: Richmond, Work
Tagged: blog, local, media, media general

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A joint study from Ball State University and the University of Nevada, Reno says that newsrooms aren’t making commitments to their blogs and their efforts may be a waste of time.

The study found that “most newspaper staff-produced blogs contained a small number of postings, failed to create much interaction between the blogger and the audience and attracted few audience comments.”

Ball State journalism professor Lori Demo goes on to suggest that a reporter’s time may be better spent elsewhere. In light of the lack of audience participation, “Newspapers might consider spending staff time monitoring blogs as sources of news rather than trying to re-create the blogosphere on their Web sites.”

I don’t fully agree with the study’s findings, although it did focus primarily on political blogs.

Over the past 5 years, I’ve had a hand in setting up 100s of blogs for Media General’s properties throughout the southeast.

While I’m not at liberty to share our actual traffic stats, I can say that some have been very successful in terms of audience loyalty, traffic, comments and ultimately, brand equity.

Two better examples include Otterblog, written by Ken Otterbourg, the Managing Editor at the Winston-Salem Journal) and Barticles, written by Bart Hinkle, Deputy Editor of the Editorial Page at the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Another, now defunct blog, was Melissa Ruggieri’s IdolChatter, which covered American Idol. Talk about traffic spikes!

Of course, not all of the blogs have been successful. Who can forget the kind words that the Richmond bloggers so eloquently bestowed on the Times-Dispatch’s “Community blogs” when they launched them:

[I wish those would just go away. Now. Forever.]

John criticized them back in Feb. ‘07 with these words:

As for the paper’s new community weblogs, I fall back to my go-to move—with a few exceptions, there is no voice there. A bunch of regurgitated press releases does not a weblog make. I have a mild impulse to remind myself to give them a chance to get established, but you know what—a news organization that has put a lot of thought and energy into launching a new product should get it right the first time. And the TD doesn’t get it right. Not by a long shot.

In fairness though, we’re not the only ones with bad blogs. Other local media outlets have them too:

richmond.com’s RBlog - No offense meant to Jon and the rest of the team at richmond.com but how you guys were voted as having Richmond’s best blog in Richmond Magazine’s annual “Best & Worst” issue two years in a row, I’ll never understand.

WTVR’s Weather Blog - Ah, good ol’ WorldNow. If there’s no RSS feed and no way to comment, is it still a blog?

NBC12’s Weather Blog - Is it a blog? Or a forum? Or just the forecast? I can’t tell but if they ever decide to connect with the audience on there, they’ve got a lot of potential.

WRIC - Yeah, no blogs here but they do link to others and that’s a good start.

So what makes the good ones good? I’d say the top two factors are commitment and voice. Add to that a dash of humility, some transparency, and a little personalization and you’ve got something going.

But even with a winning formula in hand, does that mean that media outlets should?

A recent report from the Project for Excellence in Journalism suggests that blogs reach and attract much smaller audiences than expected. Despite their proliferation, blogs are not used by most Americans as news sources.

What’s more, a Zogby Poll released at the end of last year showed that blogs were at the bottom of the list as a source of important news for most people. Interestingly enough though, the results of the same poll showed that “55% believe blogging will be an important aspect of journalism in the future. An overwhelming number (74%) saw amateur citizen reporters, as opposed to established media outlets, playing a key role.”

Should media outlets ditch the blogs and get back to solid reporting and re-establish their space in the media ecosystem?

Your thoughts?

Related: The Lost Art of Reporting

[photo credit: Sister72]

Comments:

  1. Jon (April 09, 2008 at 10:28 AM):

    Hah I know what you mean. Im not sure how that all works either, I just program smile

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