Better Business Journalism Blogging

By Marty Steffens

SABEW Chair

(Editor's Note: This is the fourth in a series of posts covering the Fall SABEW conference, being held at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill on Oct. 20-21.)

We’re live at the SABEW workshop on the University of North Carolina campus in Chapel Hill.

Ryan Thornburg, professor at UNC and former managing editor, USNews.com

Six steps to take the chore out of blogging (and add to the joy)

Step 1: Everyone is a competitor – your sources and your readers also blog, so you have to remember that you’re the reporter.

Step 2: Show and don’t tell by linking your original documents or multimedia.

Step 3: Talk to your readers. Your readers are bloggers too, so engage them. Ask them what they don’t know. Michele Singletary of the Washington Post is good at this – take a look. Constantly tell you readers: Tell me your stories! Tell me what you don’t know and what I don’t know.

Step 4: Sustain your journalism by linking to B matter and past stories. Don’t write it, link to the archive.

Step 5: It’s the sum of its parts. There’s stories in the bits – present your information in a data-driven way. With search, readers can create their own stories, or you can look for trends. And the data is presented in a readable way – just as data maps for real estate. Look at how companies perform on www.nytimes.com stocks pages.

Step 6: It’s the ads, stupid. So understand how audience is measured, and leverage that knowledge to increase unique visitors, pages per visit, frequency and time spent per page. You can do this by partnering to get eyeballs, buying search terms, or using interactive features.

Don Wittekind, UNC assistant professor and former information graphics director at The SunSentinel, on effectiveness of blogging:

That fact that we’re trained journalists actually hold us back from doing a great job on blogs. We can learn from the amateurs who never went to J-school.

Establish a unique voice and a unique column. Hey, this is where being jack-of-all-trades is NOT a virtue. Find a niche that’s underserved and uncovered. Fill it with personality – corner the market on a defined area.

React quickly to the news: Get it out as fast as possible. Easy ways is to get photos out. Don’t wait, because your readers won’t.

Don’t orphan it; don’t let it go stale. You’ll lose readers if you don’t update every day or so.

It’s OK to link away. We think if we let people off our site they will never come back. They will.

Enable the two-way conversation. Sports writers are dong this right. Look at the weekly bile at the SunSentinel. When you answer readers, you’ve made the connection.

Show a commitment: Your publication should promote your blog, list it in one place and refer to it from stories.

And other ideas from the panel and audience:

How to stop hijacking of your site by special interest: You must monitor those sites, says Wittekind. You need to police the site, or register your visitors. Don’t allow anonymous content. If you allow pseudonyms, they have to be traced back to a real person. The bigger the site, the more like you’ll have a community that polices itself.

What is the cost/benefit of blogs – is it worth the journalist’s time? The sites that do it well can use these tools to build trust, bring audience and bring value to the brand. Targeted blogs, though, can draw targeted ads, and sometimes, new advertisers.

How do you balance editing and accuracy checks with need for editing? It’s what’s right for you. Work with staff to find that balance.

Can blogs work that are written by a multitude of authors? Yes, if it’s strong themed, and if there’s a lot of engagement. Make sure the subject is needed and has a strong target audience. Check out PTI: Pardon the Interruption on ESPN.com. Multiple authors can create a strong conversation that attracts readers.

Check out: www.golo.com for local content ideas.

Posted Oct. 21, 2007