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:

• http://richmond.mytimesdispatch.com/
• http://henrico.mytimesdispatch.com/
• http://chesterfield.mytimesdispatch.com/
• http://hanover.mytimesdispatch.com/
• http://goochland.mytimesdispatch.com/
• http://powhatan.mytimesdispatch.com/
• http://tricities.mytimesdispatch.com/

[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]

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I just talked to a co-worker, Ryan Squire, the Managing Editor at NBC-4 WCMH-TV, our NBC station in Columbus, OH. Ryan and his crew recently fired up a Twitter account for the station.

Ryan understands the value of Twitter as a communications tool for the station but he and the staff are taking it one step further by maintaining personal accounts which let you look in on the inner working of the newsroom.

Recent staff tweets include:

LaurenDiedrich: Is working on a super secret sweeps piece!
NBCSquire: Working with the desk to cover several afternoon shoots, including a cat stuck in a tree for 5 days!
Jason_WCMH: Getting details regarding a Washington County deputy that has been shot in the face with a .22 caliber rifle. Suspect is on the loose.

They’ve also received some praise on the270, a central Ohio resource site.

Channel 4 twitters! Much like the Dispatch does.

But what’s so much cooler, is that so does some of WCMH’s employees. I follow them, and it seems like I’m ease dropping a bit as to what’s on tap for the evening news. But that’s a good thing. Because they’re *building a relationship* with me (whether they know it or not). When they say they’re sending the feed of some report for editing, I want to watch it. Thus, I’m going to watch Channel 4’s newscast over the others.

Cheers to Channel 4! Now I’m off to see if the other stations are a cool as them.

Nice work Ryan!

I wonder if we’ll see any other outlets adopt Twitter soon.

Would you follow them?

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Despite calls to the contrary by some, I couldn’t get enough of the rain this weekend.

The cool, wet weather is doing wonders for the buttercrunch and the two other leaf lettuce varieties I planted this year. The potatoes are finally up along with first signs of the beans, sunflowers, beets, and carrots—although it looks like Mr. Rabbit may have had a midnight snack on some of the beet sprouts.

And of course, the asparagus beds are in full force now - with more and more purple spears coming up each morning. Those crowns were the best gardening investments I’ve ever made.

In another week or so, I’ll get some tomatoes and squash going. It’s going to be a bountiful summer in our back yard and we’re not the only ones.

John’s peas are looking great and Foodie has as an eclectic a mix as I do.

What are you growing this year?

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I stumbled across TurnHere in June of ‘06 and immediately connected with the high-quality production values of the local, local, local content. TurnHere offers more than just an online video ad - they present a picture of the business - the story behind the sales. And because it’s a story about a business in the community (and not some faceless corporation hawking goods) people are more willing to listen.

It seems that some of the major players in the industry have recognized the same.

Cory Bergman writes this morning on Lost Remote that

Superpages.com has inked a deal with TurnHere and Denver Multimedia to create video profiles of local businesses.

The plan is to leverage the Superpages sales force to upsell clients to the video packages, and the clips will appear alongside directory listings. Recently, Yellow Book and CitySearch have begun similar video efforts.

He goes on to say…

local TV stations aren’t players despite long track records of innovation in video advertising. And in some cases, it may already be too late. Why? Stations haven’t invested in building innovative local directory/search products that have succeeded in achieving a large enough audience.

Last week, I met with a former co-worker who now heads up the interactive media group at a television station in Richmond. One of the topics we discussed was the failure of local television (and most of the media outlets in town for that matter) to honestly engage the online community in storytelling.

By not finding and sharing the stories important to the community, they’re doing a disservice to their next generation of audience, they’re leaving a lot of money on the table and they’re opening the door for low-cost, high-return competition.

It’s time for TV to innovate or die with regard to their online operations. Tossing up a couple of paragraphs related to the broadcast and links to weather doesn’t cut it anymore. People can and do get that content elsewhere. Short-form video storytelling is an art though - one that’s been practiced for decades by the TV reporters. It’s time to leverage those strengths and engage the local online community—before Superpages or anyone else does.

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