Blogging For Journalists / from SreeTips.com

THREE QUESTIONS for Tim Porter, veteran news guy, who blogs at First Draft ("Newspapering, Readership & Relevance in a Digital Age") at TimPorter.com. More about him here: http://www.timporter.com/resume.html

1. Why and when did you start to blog?
A: I started blogging on Dec. 4, 2002 with the somewhat arrogantly named Quality Manifesto. I had been out of newspapers for a couple years, working in Internet start-ups and, after the dot-com bust, building a house in Mexico. When the time came to go back to work, I began looking around at newspapers again, thinking I could bring some of the entrepreneurial, innovative culture I had found in start-ups back into newsrooms (which I had left primarily for the lack of the very same thing). I found, in "reading in" on papers after a couple of years off the grid, so to speak, that the cultural problems that  left me dissatisified had worsened. I thought I might have something to add to the nascent discussion that as arising about changing newspapers and helping to them prepare for digital future, but I had no real place to say it. So I blogged. I downloaded a free (at the time) copy of Movable Type, endured the teeth-pulling (at the time) installation procedure and began.

2. What have you learned (about your work, journalism or yourself) since you began to blog?
A: What have I learned? Too much to bang out here (from the Red Carpet Club in O’Hare), but a couple of things I can say quickly.

• I didn’t know anywhere as near as much as I thought I did when managed newsrooms.
• There were really a lot of smart people interested in media and journalism who worked far outside of newsrooms.
• That barrier to entry to publishing had been lowered to zero and that that forever changed the business and editorial model of journalism.
• That voice, truth and authenticity — enabled by technology — was powerful.
• That I had much to learn about journalism. (Read Jay Rosen’s somewhat embarrassing piece on my "education".

3. Should journalists blog?
A: Of course. I have a much longer answer, but since time is short I’ll point you toward this post on First Draft: Blogging the Beat. It contains this link to a PowerPoint presentation on blogging for journalists.

Read more Tim Porter at TimPorter.com. 


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