Tuesday, January 6th, 2009...12:29 am
How Google can help journalist bloggers
As journalists using the interactive Web, it’s important to maximize the tools already at your fingertips. For example, Google offers two services for free as part of just being Google that can help journalist bloggers (and any other bloggers for that matter).
Google Alert
The first is Google alert. It’s a free service that searches the Internet for a particular word and then sends an e-mail alert when the word is found. I suggest setting one up for your name and your blog’s name (if they are different).
That way, you’ll get a nice e-mail telling you that your search word was used. It includes a link (brilliant), so you can find out who linked to your blog and what was said. (Then you can link back, blog about that blog or put that blog on your list to read regularly.)
My second suggestion is to set up a Google alert for a keyword on your beat or niche. For me, I have one set up for parenting because I blog about parenting. Everyday, I get an e-mail will a whole list of stories about parenting. It’s in digest form, so it gives a headline and then the first graph of the story or blog post.
I scan the list, and if anything catches my interest, I’ll read the whole blog post or story. Sometimes I blog about it. Sometimes I’ll link to it. Sometimes, I’ll do nothing and delete the whole thing.
That’s the beauty of alerts. It’s a tickler file of what other people are writing about on your beat. You can check it quickly without having to search all over yourself.
It’s also a good way to find out if a topic is getting a buzz — if a bunch of the items in the digests are all about one topic.
Now this shouldn’t, in my mind, replace regularly reading blogs in your niche. This is a complement to that. It gives you yet another way to delve into the Web and find out what’s happening on your niche and what others are writing about and use that to join the conversation.
Google Hot Trends
Another tool I use regularly that’s also free from Google is Google Hot Trends. It’s a list of search terms in top Google searches. I try to check it everyday, although I don’t always make it there. But most days I do. It takes only a few seconds, but it’s a way to check what’s hot that day. If it’s something on your beat, click on the word and reach stories about it. Simple and easy.
A corollary to this is Google Trends, where you can plug in two or more search terms and compare how “hot” they are. It gives you a grid, showing which term is more popular. This can help you assess trends in your topic area and give you a gauge of what people are searching for. It’s not something I’d use everyday, but it’s nice to know it’s there if you need it.
To be successful in today’s journalism, you need to be connected. The Internet makes that pretty easy to do if you know where to look.
– Gina
I'm Gina Chen, a 20-year veteran newspaper journalist who is studying for a communications Ph.D. I want to see journalism survive. I believe news organizations need to embrace new media, change their thinking, improve their content and innovate. Read more about me 
8 Comments
January 6th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Another thing you might try is to get involved with Google Reader. You can organize it to fit the way you work, but I’ve found it helps me scan and select hundreds of information sources with very low stress.
The newest feature is something called note in reader. It works like Blog It. But it lets you easily get any website into your reader. Where it’s much faster to scan headlines than stepping through a blog.
January 7th, 2009 at 12:48 am
Good point. Thanks for adding it.
You know, I haven’t used Google reader, although I know many people who do. I usually get subscriptions to individuals blogs — which I do find more useful than just remembering to check them.
But I think I’ll try Google reader to get everything in one place.
– Gina
February 14th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
[...] alerts: I have Google alerts set up for stories about parenting (my beat) and for my name, Gina Chen and my [...]
February 16th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Informative and useful, Gina! Thank you.
I’ve been using FeedDemon (Windows) and NewsGator (Mac) as my online readers. They work great for scanning and reading news sources and blogs very quickly (RSS), and to mark the ones I want like to read again as my favourite, or to republish them through TwitterFeed by placing them in a clippings folder.
Does jsfwcz or other users know if Google Reader has similar or even better qualities and functions?
February 16th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
Arild Nybo,
I use Google reader, and I really like it. I can read all my feeds, and sort them by topic … journo blogs, mommy blogs, my friends’ blogs.
If I find a post I want to use for a later blog post, I bookmark it in delicious. I find that a very useful way to keep track of the stuff I read that I want to use for a purpose later. Not sure if Google Reader has a bookmarking feature .. haven’t used one if it does.
– Gina
February 27th, 2009 at 12:30 am
[...] work from within to show journalists how to use Facebook (or MySpace or Twitter or Google or just how and why to link) to advance journalism beyond the old business of ink on [...]
April 27th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
[...] tip — be alert: I’ve visited this topic before, but it warrants repeating. You can’t blog in your niche well unless you’re reading [...]
January 5th, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Thank you for the helpful article. All the Google tools are great. You introduced me to new ones I will use.
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