Save the Media

Here’s another round of short takes of tidbits I’ve found around the blogosphere that could be useful to journalists dipping a toe — or hopefully the whole foot –  into the new media waters. Enjoy.

Self-correction: If you’re a Twitter fan, you may have heard this week that the Dalai Lama was on Twitter and got oodles of followers before he was outed on Twitter as an impostor.  I think it’s interesting to see the power of social media to self correct. Many traditional journalists worry that the blogosphere and social media aren’t accurate enough. But the thing is, if you make a mistake on a blog, someone will point it out and quickly. It didn’t take long for news of the Dalai Lama imposter to surface on Twitter, as Jim MacMillan points out on his blog. Does that mean you trust everything? Of course not. But I think this self-corrective feature of social media adds real richness to the dialog on the Web.

Stumble Upon: Linkersblog features an interview with Caroline Middlebrook, who wrote the e-book “The Blogger’s Bible,” about how to generate traffic for your blog and increase subscriptions.  She’s not a journalist, but she offers some insight for journalist bloggers or any bloggers: Use Twitter and Stumble Upon to help readers find your blogs. On Stumble Upon, you can search for blogs on topics that interest you. More importantly, you can use it to give blog posts you enjoy — including your own — a “thumbs-up” review.  Others may see your review and read your blog. It’s weird, but since I’ve started using Stumble Upon, I’ve found readers reaching my blog through it. I think it’s one of many tools, along with Digg and Twitter, that journalists can use to get their blogs out there. (In future posts, I’ll get into more details on how these tools work.)

Online second, third or fourth: Ben LaMothe, a journalist/student I “met” on Twitter, has an interesting post on Web Publishist. Instead of decribing what an online-first newsroom looks like, he tells us the symptoms of one that’s not: AP overload, Web perks up when print goes to bed, bloglessness, dismal or nonexistent multimedia and too much text. I’d add one to his smart list — lack of engagement with the readers through social media, newsletters, responding to blog comments.

How to start a blog — now: I’ve written before about why journalists should blog, and how to start. It’s a topic near and dear to my heart. So I’d suggest reading Mindy McAdams’ tips for starting a blog, which includes such gems as, explaining what an RSS feed is and how to use it and the value of reading technology industry blogs such as Mashable and ReadWriteWeb. Couldn’t agree more with her advice.

–  Gina

Tweet This Post