Newspaper staff bloggers + time management

12 Comments

Comment by Kate Martin on July 7, 2008 at 3:57pm

My understanding of my paper's policy is if you are doing it for work, you find time to do it. Unfortunately it seems many of the blogs are updated semi-regularly, from once a week at best to only one post in a great while.

Personal blogs are obviously done on your own time.

Comment by Patrick Thornton on July 7, 2008 at 9:08pm

The answer to this depends on the news organization.

Some news organizations have full-time bloggers (beat reporters in some instances) like Pharmalot. Others want journalists to blog, but don't give them time to do it. This often leads to journalists working unpaid at home, and leads to these blogs being very poor.

Then there are people like Kent Fischer, who basically say they have to work two jobs. Kent is proposing that he become a full-time blogger and drop working for the print edition.

Blogging for work makes sense when a reporter can spend most of his or her time blogging. Then that reporter can write print stories as needed.

Blogging does not work as a on-the-side or occasional thing. The best blogs are a full-time job. And the best blogs have a very specific topic. General interest blogs only work when the writer has an incredibly personality.

Comment by Patrick Thornton on July 7, 2008 at 9:10pm

I also recommend checking out BeatBlogging.Org for tips on blogging your beat. The question of time management often comes up.

In fact, I'm interviewing a beat blogger tomorrow, Eric Berger. I can ask him about time management if you want.

Comment by Kate Martin on July 8, 2008 at 6:03am

Yes Patrick, please ask him. Also, please ask how he moderates comments. My news org, for instance, feels that if we touch any comments it makes us liable for lawsuits. When I create my blog, I want it to be a community, not a bunch of rednecks flaming each other and making new people feel like they cannot have a voice.

How do you create a welcoming community?

Comment by Brianne Pruitt on July 8, 2008 at 6:59am

As much as I'd love to see my paper commit to full-time bloggers, it's not going to happen any time soon. Our bloggers are still expected to create the same amount of content for "the paper" ... but also fit in a vibrant, often-updated blog. It's just not working. Some bloggers rarely update, while others are killing themselves to "make it work".

As far as a welcoming community, Kate, I'd love to have any kind of community at all. I guess that just comes with time, though. Thanks, both of you, for your thoughts. I've been checking out beatblogging.org lately, but I'll take a more thorough spin through it.

Comment by Patrick Thornton on July 8, 2008 at 8:46am

@Brianne,

Why not full-time bloggers or almost full-time bloggers? Some of our beat bloggers blog daily and write 1-2 print stories a week. Not a bad balance. Those that do that, only put in-depth analysis kinds of stories in print.

How are your bloggers honestly expected to create the same amount of content for the print edition, while also blogging? Do their blogs suffer? Do they work really long hours? That's an unrealistic expectation.

I'm not shocked it's not working. In fact, I would be completely shocked if your paper's blogging efforts work, unless things are changed. You can't expect people to do two jobs. You can't innovate on the side.

Something has to give.

Comment by Brianne Pruitt on July 8, 2008 at 9:09am

@Patrick

I absolutely agree with you. Unfortunately, not as easy to accomplish when we struggle to produce enough content to fill our print product daily.

We're a small-er paper (under 25,000-circ.), and we're already stretching everyone to provide more web-only content in addition to their normal workload.

Something does have to give, but I don't know what, and I'm not the one who will, ultimately, have to decide. I can just push my agenda to the higher-ups and hope they listen.

Thanks for your comments. If nothing else, it gives me reason to hope for change. I'll check out that Berger interview once it's up. Thanks!

Comment by Patrick Thornton on July 8, 2008 at 11:07am

@Brianne,

Perhaps the solution is to simply produce less content for the print edition. Maybe make it smaller. Or to hire dedicated people to work on the Web.

I worry about staff burnout if we ask our journalists to do too much. Hopefully the higher ups figure out what has to be cut sooner than later, or your staff could be really overworked.

A good blog can make money. Keep that in mind.

The Berger interview will be up this Thursday. He has scaled back his print work a bit and taken on more Web work, but he balances it.

Comment by Brianne Pruitt on July 8, 2008 at 11:50am

@Patrick

We are heading in the right direction. When I made the switch from copy desk to web, instead of just replacing me, the ME recognized that, with shrinking news hole in the paper, another full-time copy editor wasn't the best use of resources. So we got a part-time copy editor/part-time web content producer.

He just started last week, but I have high hopes for the extra focus on web. Maybe one day we will add some full-time bloggers to the mix. I can dream.

But the balance of print vs. web content will continue to be difficult for us, at least for now. We'll figure it out, one way or the other, or we won't have any people left to do blogs!

Comment by Dave Brooks on July 9, 2008 at 7:05am

Do you put Google AdWords on your blogs? They generate very little income, but *any* dollars directly produced by a blog makes it easier to justify to higher-ups.

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