Blogging For Journalists / from SreeTips.com

HOW-TO: 10 tools to get blogging done

Administrator — Sat, 10 May 2008 06:14:57 +0000

If you’re a serious blogger, Lifehacker has a post you’ll want to see.

Writing your blog should be a fun way to stretch your mind and stay connected to trends, friends, and the greater world, not another computer task that takes far too long to get done. But that’s exactly what it can feel like if it takes you more time to find your post ideas, tweak your markup, and make everything look right than to actually get your thoughts down. Being somewhat experienced at this blogging thing, your Lifehacker editors have pinpointed a few tools and tricks that make our posts go faster and smoother. After the jump, we round up 10 of them.

See the full post here.

WORKSHOP: Nov. 15 2007, Agenda

Administrator — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 20:28:35 +0000

[There’s still room for this workshop. Sign up here: http://snurl.com/columbiaworkshops]

AGENDA FOR Nov. 15, 2007 WORKSHOP AT COLUMBIA: Blogging for Journalists & Writers

Registration: setting up your laptop, connecting to network, etc.

6:00: Welcome, Jane Folpe, Columbia J-school Professional Education
6:05: Sree Sreenivasan introduces program

6:05-7:15:
UNDERSTANDING BLOGS

Blog basics and stats, state of the blogosphere
Blog tour - a look at interesting blogs
Meet a Blogstar - Brian Stelter of TV Decoder & formerly of TVNewswer - a discussion with a blog pioneer

7:15-7:45 pm:
YOUR TURN

Quick blog exercise
The big difference: Change of pace and rhythm
Coming up with an idea
What are you going to say?
Who are your readers?
Blog software options

7:45-8 pm: Break

8-8:45 pm:
THE BUSINESS SIDE

Studying Stats
Building traffic
Making money

8:45-9:40 pm:
LET’S BLOG

Time to work on your blog idea
Those not creating a blog watch others to see the process or discuss their own ideas with Sree

9:40-10 pm
TYING IT ALL TOGETHER & NEXT STEPS

Next Steps
Q&A
Feedback

-fin-

RAISING TRAFFIC: Building Your Audience

Administrator — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 15:14:25 +0000

From the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, here’s a useful guide to building and audience on the web - by Daniel J. Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig.

In this chapter you will learn about:

Defining and reaching your project’s audience(s)

Ways to market your site, from individual contacts to mass media

How Google and other search engines rank your site and refer visitors

Getting your visitors to come back to your site regularly and contribute suggestions for improvement

What server logs are, and how they may help you understand the strengths and weaknesses of your site

Take a look at the guide, folks.

ARTICLE: Blogs Can Top the Presses

Administrator — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 18:22:48 +0000

Los Angeles Times
March 17, 2007

Blogs can top the presses
Talking Points Memo drove the U.S. attorrneys story, proof that Web writers with input from devoted readers can reshape journalism.
By Terry McDermott, Times Staff Writer

"Hundreds of people out there send clips and other tips [on various stories]. There is some real information out there, some real expertise. If you’re not in politics and you know something, you’re not going to call David Broder. With the blog, you develop an intimacy with people. Some of it is perceived, but some of it is real.

Read the full story.

ARTICLES: Business 2.0’s Quittner on “On The Media

Administrator — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 02:54:15 +0000

NPR’s "On The Media" interviews Josh Quittner, editor of Business 2.0 about his turning his writers into bloggers:
http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/transcripts_110306_d.html

ARTICLE: When Bloggers Commit Journalism

Administrator — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 17:09:42 +0000

This article, by JD Lasica in OJR, is ancient history (published in 2002!) but really worth a revisit: http://www.ojr.org/ojr/lasica/1032910520.php

When do webloggers commit journalism? What do informed amateurs and niche experts bring to the media ecosystem? Should journalists blog? And should they rely on weblogs as news sources? Should bloggers and those in traditional media engage in a dance of fear and loathing, or do both sides stand to gain from the other? Should blogging be taught in journalism classes?

Those were some of the questions tackled last week at the University of California Graduate School of Journalism.

Find the answers in the article.

SERVICES: WriteToMyBlog.com

Administrator — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 13:16:06 +0000

Check this out: A word processor created especially for bloggers - WriteToMyBlog.com

HOW-TO: Turning Multimedia Clark Kents into Superheroes

Administrator — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 03:14:59 +0000

In today’s Editor & Publisher, Emily Sweeney of the Boston Globe & SPJ provides seven tips for developing multimedia skills (she is kind enough to mention this blog - its MSM debut… I have done ZERO marketing/PR, so this is a nice surprise).

How to Turn Multimedia Clark Kents Into Superheroes
As demand for online content grows, acquiring online media skills have become more than a personal hobby for me — this stuff is coming in handy at work. Reporters who can produce an edited MP3 clip or a video clip can become a valuable asset to any newsroom. Here are seven tips to get started.

Full story:
http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/columns/shoptalk_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003086985

BLOGGERS: WSJ on vacation

Administrator — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 15:50:14 +0000

Interesting piece in today’s WSJ about a dilemma faced by many bloggers: You have to keep blogging to raise traffic, but how do you take a vacation?

The Wall Street Journal
August 31, 2006; Page B1

No Day at the Beach
Bloggers Struggle With What to Do About Vacation
By ELIZABETH HOLMES
E-mail: elizabeth.holmes[at]wsj.com

Excerpt:

A banner stripped across the top of the Daily Dish declares that the popular Web log’s host, Andrew Sullivan, has "gone fishing." Mr. Sullivan declared a two-week vacation and opted to leave his political blog behind. Several thousand of his readers have done the same. Despite the efforts of three verbose guest bloggers, replacements handpicked by Mr. Sullivan, the site’s visitor tally has fallen. The Daily Dish, now part of Time magazine, usually garners around 90,000 unique visitors, or individual readers, each day. At the start of the first workweek without him, Mr. Sullivan’s blog received about 67,000 hits, according to Site Meter. This week, traffic has hovered around 57,000. "The frequency of emails of ‘Bring back Andrew’ and ‘This is stupid. Bring back Andrew’ is definitely higher than anything I’ve ever written," says David Weigel, a 24-year-old assistant editor at Reason magazine, who is one of Mr. Sullivan’s guest bloggers and has filled in at other sites in the past.

In the height of summer-holiday season, bloggers face the inevitable question: to blog on break or put the blog on a break? Fearing a decline in readership, some writers opt not to take vacations. Others keep posting while on location, to the chagrin of their families. Those brave enough to detach themselves from their keyboards for a few days must choose between leaving the site dormant or having someone blog-sit. To be sure, most bloggers don’t agonize over this decision. Of the 12 million bloggers on the Internet, only about 13% post daily, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Even fewer — 10% — spend 10 or more hours a week on their blogs. Yet for the sliver of people whose livelihood depends on the blog — whether they are conservative, liberal or don’t care — stepping away from the keyboard can be difficult.

ARTICLE: ChiTrib public editor on blogs

Administrator — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 13:26:37 +0000

Chicago Tribune
Aug. 17, 2006

Welcome to the world of blogs
Online or in print, good reporting will find an open window

By Timothy J. McNulty, Public Editor

Exceprt:

There is no substitute for an investigative reporter examining documents, a writer sitting through a trial or a correspondent witnessing events in Baghdad or Beirut. The work of people asking questions, seeing (and photographing) events, uncovering truth or fragments of a larger truth is what informs the public. But I suspect what readers are telling us is that the attraction of the online world is not only the immediacy of information, but their desire for interaction: to be able to comment and reflect on events, to explore others’ thoughts or to express their own frustrations and pleasure and anger. That desire has given rise to the blogging world.

Read the whole piece:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-0608170103aug17,1,846142.column?coll=chi-news-col&ctrack=1&cset=true