Save the Media

News readers are driven by need for information, not loyalty to a brand

bloggingmom67 — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 23:48:18 +0000

The Pew Research Center released an interesting study last week that offers some sobering — although not surprising — insights for the news business.

Researchers examined top news stories in the mainstream press as well as what news got traction on blogs, Twitter and YouTube. A main finding was that what’s hot on social media differs — a lot — from what leads in the mainstream press. But what’s even more interesting, I think, is that what’s popular on one form of social media differs significantly from what’s trendy on another.

For example, Twitter’s domain is technology, not surprisingly. Blogs and the mainstream press focus more on politics and government. Also not a shocker. As my kids might say: “No duh.”

But I think what isn’t so obvious is what this might mean. I’ve written before about how I believe the real reason many people don’t subscribe to news online — or in print — is about commitment, not money. This study crystallizes my thoughts. I suggest these findings illustrate the radically different way today’s consumers think of news, compared with the past. It’s not brand based. It’s not even platform based.

Read the rest of the post at Harvard University’s Nieman Journalism Lab.

– Gina

Part 2 from Amber Smith: What to keep — and get rid off — in journalism

bloggingmom67 — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 14:48:25 +0000

Today I’m again handing my blog over to veteran journalist Amber Smith, a friend and former colleague of mine at The Post-Standard in Syracuse. In her free time, she blogs about dementia at DementiAwareness. She offers Part 2 of how old-time journalism relates to the changing world of media.

As a veteran-journalist-but-newbie-blogger, I’m learning something new every day.
Yesterday I wrote about some of the axioms journalists sort of lived by as I was working my way through the ranks.

Today, I’m exploring some of the common newspaper practices that I believe journalist bloggers, writing in an online world, would do well to follow. (Plus a couple I believe they can safely ignore.)

See if you agree:

Inverted pyramid. (KEEP)
Long drilled into journalism students, the inverted pyramid (pertinent information at the top of the story and least important at the bottom) is a style that I find even more important online. Blog readers of today, like newspaper readers of yesterday, have short attention spans, so they must be hooked in the lead of your article. Unless your subject lends itself to a lengthy narrative style, readers won’t stay with you if they believe they have to spend too much time for the information they seek.

Most of the posts on my blog, DementiAwareness follow an inverted pyramid style. I don’t think this makes them boring. I think it makes them easy to read and useful, and helps give it a newsy “voice.”

5 W’s and the H. (KEEP)
If you’re trying to communicate, it makes sense to answer all of the basic questions: the who, what, when, where, why and how. Leave your readers with questions, and they will search elsewhere—away from your blog. Of course the answers to these basic questions can be answered in a skillfully written way. No need to quash creativity for fill-in-the-blanks. Although, just as in newsprint, when writing about an upcoming event, nothing beats a little “fact box” containing the particulars.

Background paragraphs. (TOSS)
Including paragraphs of background material, for the benefit of readers who were unfamiliar with the subject, can take up several column inches in a newspaper. Blogging journalists have a wonderful, wonderful tool called “links” at their disposal. If you’ve covered the subject previously, link to your work. It saves you time and space, and readers who need to be brought up to speed on the subject can easily do that with a click.

Whenever I write about frontotemporal dementia, the type my father has, I link to an early post in which I explained what this is.

Newsworthiness. (KEEP)
General circulation newspapers and their online equivalents strive to be pretty much all things to all people. With few exceptions, they have not tried to specialize in areas beyond local news coverage. Reporters on specialty beats (such as religion, education, health, environment) have spent entire careers pitching stories to editors who challenge the news value: Who does it affect? What is the impact? Why should we devote newshole to that? Essentially: Who cares?

Blogging journalists with focused blogs can easily answer that question. Choose a rich niche, and you’ll never lack for something to write about. Connect with a dedicated audience, and you’ll always know exactly who cares.

Yes, any journalist worth his or her salt could cover anything, but I recommend choosing a subject for your blog that’s important to you. Even if you do not practice “advocacy journalism,” the passion you carry in your heart for your subject matter will come across. In addition, your genuine interest will guide you to the best stories — helping to keep your blog relevant and newsworthy.

Projects. (KEEP)
In some newsrooms, the reporters who are perched highest in the pecking order are reporters on “projects teams.” They’re not bothered with daily reporting responsibilities. They concentrate on longer-term assignments, bigger stories with bigger impacts. When times were flush, even small newsrooms tried to afford projects; today, formal teams are a luxury found only in the most fortunate newsrooms. So reporters — many of whom work in newsrooms that struggle to do more with less — are left to chisel away at that big story only after their regular work is done.

This is sort of what journalist bloggers do, in practice. We chisel away. Our blogs are works in progress. Instead of reporting on a subject, saving up notes, writing chunks to be part of a big story, our blogs are the story. Our blogs are our project. And we may not realize the body of work we create, one post at a time, has a way of telling a bigger story.

Veteran journalist Amber Smith offers tips for bloggers

bloggingmom67 — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 13:22:29 +0000

Amber Smith

Today I’m handing my blog over to veteran journalist and blogger Amber Smith, a friend and former colleague of mine at The Post-Standard in Syracuse. In her free time, she blogs about dementia at DementiAwareness. She offers some thoughtful lessons for journalists trying to navigate the changing world of media.

It’s a new world “out there” on the Internet, they say, a wide open space, untamed and unlimited, a perfect spot for journalists (and anyone else) to carve out a niche and have a say. For many folks that means blogging.
With a quarter century of newspapering under my belt, mostly as a health writer at The Post-Standard in Syracuse, I launched a blog called DementiAwareness earlier this year. What freedom! I could choose the stories I want to write, and how to write them. I could write as long as I wanted. My deadline could be whatever I choose.
For someone who has only worked within the grind of a daily newspaper, such freedom can be enticing. But freedom without discipline is, well, sort of a lost opportunity.

As an independent blogger, I am a sole proprietor. I write the articles, edit them and present them graphically. I handle any advertising that goes on the blog, and I market the blog. If I slack off in any of those roles, everything suffers. If my content isn’t engaging, no one will read it. If no one is reading, even fewer people will advertise. If no one can find my content because the headlines are not search-optimized or because the copy contains too few words or too few relevant links, same thing, no one will read, no one will advertise. If I do nothing to market my blog, same thing. You get the idea. That sought-after “freedom” quickly reveals itself as another ball-and-chain.

Lucky for me—and for many of my fellow bloggers and would-be bloggers—I like what I do. (Even though it’s changing. See “How Journalism Can Change.”) Journalism is a calling. No matter the format of print, web or audio, it’s got ethics and “rules” and standard ways of doing things. The more I blog, the more I realize how many of those credos of journalism apply (and a few that don’t) to the new world of blogging. See if you agree.
(And come back tomorrow, when I’ll discuss how some of the standard practices of newspaper journalists apply—or don’t—to blogging journalists.)

1. If your mother says she loves you, check it out.

Maybe only the most cynical newspaper reporters abide by this line, but I think it’s even more prudent for bloggers to follow. It just means to double check everything, which is probably more important in the Internet age when rumors and “tweets” get passed around as fact. Take the time to verify with credible sources before hitting “publish.”

When an independent panel of the National Institutes of Health issued a lengthy statement about Alzheimer’s disease at the end of April, I believed all the headlines I read online that said Alzheimer’s preventives showed no promise – until I interviewed Alzheimer’s researchers. I should have realized that a 21-page report can’t be summed up in a headline. There are preventive methods that are showing plenty of promise — which will make a nice blog post for DementiAwareness.

2. Just the facts, ma’am.

The quintessential reporter’s statement of “just the facts, ma’am” may work well for someone on deadline, covering breaking news for a newspaper or news website. But it proclaims a lack of interest in context.

Most blogs aren’t competing to break news on deadline. Therefore, blogging journalists are the perfect people to scoop up everything else after the facts are disseminated. Let the news organization write about the accident at the intersection. Bloggers can focus on the bigger picture — how this was the third accident in as many months, how the driver who caused the accident was texting at the time, how neighbors had been petitioning for traffic lighting at the intersection. This is nothing more than thorough reporting, but with news organizations so thinly staffed, some of this work goes undone.

3. If it bleeds, it leads.

Many newsrooms, particularly television, followed this mantra for the better part of the 1980s and 1990s as a way to boost ratings. (Some still do!) Now that news organizations are chasing “hits” on line, their staff pay attention to trending topics on Google and Twitter and other social media platforms. This information can dictate coverage. Indeed, some web sites are shaped almost entirely by topics that rank high with search engines.

While it’s tempting to blog about what’s trending — and sometimes it makes imminent sense to — bear in mind that that is generally the easy way out. Many blogs regurgitate the news of the day, often without adding anything, and many simply comment on the news of the day. Some succeed at this, but many do not. Decide what you want your blog to be, what makes sense for your topic area, what will be most useful to your readers, most gratifying for you — and don’t sway from your strategy just because you think it will generate hits.

4. What have you got for me today?

Crusty old city editors (as well as brand new ones) in newsrooms of all sizes bark this daily question to beat reporters, who invariably strive to have something to offer. This is a good practice. For bloggers who don’t have editors breathing down our necks, we must use our imaginations.

Is this a way of saying the blog needs new material every day? Well, yes, just about every day, if possible. This is not iron clad. But it’s a good goal. Think about your readers. Ideally, every time they visit your blog, they’ll find a reason to be glad they came.

5. A reporter is only as good as his/her sources.

This is true of newspaper reporters and bloggers. You set the standards for your blog by quoting and linking to quality sources. Are you happy with linking to other news outlets? Or do you want to link to the sources to which those news outlets are linking? This is your credibility we’re talking about here. Take some extra time to do some digging (i.e. reporting) on your own, and you boost your credibility. The lazy way is to skip links altogether, or to link to predictable sites with which everyone is already familiar.

When a study comes out about Alzheimer’s disease, I have three options: 1. I could paraphrase a couple of paragraphs that I read on WedMD. 2. I could create a post about the study that links to WebMD. 3. I could locate a news release about the study from the university where it was conducted and/or locate the abstract of the study from the journal in which it was published, and then create a post that links to those primary sources. You might be surprised how often news outlets fail to tell the complete story, miss the main point, or — yes — even get something wrong. Checking it out yourself helps make sure you don’t make the same mistake.

6. You’re only as good as your last story.

No newspaper journalist can rest on his or her laurels for too long. The big front page story of Tuesday begins to fade as soon as the big front page story of Wednesday rolls off the presses. The take-away for bloggers is about staying on top of your game. However, unlike newspaper reporters of the 20th century, bloggers have their whole body of work just a Google search away. Bloggers’ best work continues to generate page views long after they post.

What becomes extra important for the blogger isn’t just a choice subject matter but also a search-engine-optimized headline and post full of relevant links and images. These may seem like tedious details, but they are the very steps that will give your stories staying power.

Be sure to stop back here tomorrow to read Amber’s follow-up post. Follower her on Twitter.

Society of Professional Journalists names 20 ‘industry thinkers’ to follow

bloggingmom67 — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 23:50:20 +0000

Quill online, of the Society of Professional Journalists, released its list of 20 “industry thinkers, innovators, and practitioners” to follow, and I’m humbled and honored to be one of them.

But what’s way more important that my tiny moment of fame is the list itself. It’s chock full of folks I want to know more about. Some were folks I follow regularly on Twitter and through the blogosphere. Folks like Vadim Lavrusik, who works for Mashable, or Steve Buttry, a longtime journalist who recently left the newspaper biz.

But I also came across some new folks who I can’t wait to get to know virtually. Below is the complete list, so you can do what I just did — follow all of them on Twitter.

– Gina

Five Twitter etiquette rules you should never (ever) break

bloggingmom67 — Sun, 30 May 2010 16:45:33 +0000

I offered a list of Twitter etiquette tips for journalists — or anyone — a while back, and it got quite a buzz around the Twitterverse. Here’s round two: My updated list of what not to do on Twitter.

1. Don’t send an automated welcome direct message. I am not a fan of automated anything on Twitter because it’s a medium dependent on conversation, and automated conversations just aren’t fun. But the automated welcome direct message has really come to annoy me.

In the face-to-face world, we never walk up to someone we have just met and play them an oral automated message or hold a sign that says: “You’re going to love what I have to say.” So don’t do it virtually. It comes across as really spammy. And if it’s meant as a joke, it usually comes off as stupid, not funny. And if it includes a bid to “read your blog” with a link, it really is just junk mail. If it was in print form, I’d chuck it right in the recycling bin. If you want to welcome me to your community of followers, fine. It’s OK to send a real direct message that’s unique to me.

Talk to me — not at me.

2. Don’t protect your tweets. I’m not sure what the value of Twitter is if people can’t read your tweets. Really, why are you using a public medium for something so personal that it needs to be protected. I have a pretty iron-clad rule that I won’t follow people who protect their tweets. I break this rule only for people I know in the “real” world. I guess it’s OK if you use Twitter to whisper sweet nothings to a few people, but I’m not sure Twitter is the right place for that.

3. Don’t leave your bio blank. Let’s face it: It takes about 30 second to fill out a Twitter bio for your profile page. Do it. It is one of the main ways people decide whether to follow you. I’m to the point where I pretty much won’t follow someone with a blank bio because I figure: If the person isn’t dedicated enough to fill out a bio, what could they have to say that I’d want to hear.

Now I realize some people get stopped because they want to make their bio clever or funny. They try a few things but feel the result is too bland, so they drop it. My advice: Don’t. I’d be more likely to follow someone who has a straightforward bio than someone with no bio at all. What I’m really looking for is whether the person tweets about topics that interest me: the media, social media, technology, mommyhood.

And while you’re at it, add a picture, please.

4. Don’t end a tweet with “please retweet.” It comes across, at least to me, as sort of icky. If your tweet is retweet-worthy, it will get retweeted, trust me. And if you want insurance, chat offline with your real, honest-to-God friends who happen to be on Twitter and ask them to retweet it for you. But don’t ask the whole Twitterverse.

To me it’s a bit like the rule on gifts for a wedding. If the bride and groom prefer money to blenders and toasters, that’s perfectly reasonable, especially if they’re planning a destination wedding in Hawaii, and they don’t want to haul lots of boxes back to the mainland. But it’s rude to put on the invitation: “Money preferred.” The way to handle that is through back channels. The mother of the bride tells her sisters, who tell their sisters, and soon everyone kind of knows to bring cash, not towels.

I realize retweeting and gifting a wedded couple aren’t exactly the same thing. But I think the commonality is this: In almost every situation, it’s rude to tell people what to do. “Please retweet” kind of steps over that line, at least for me.

5. Don’t tweet your own blog post more than three times a day. I regularly tweet my own blog posts, and I believe there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, as long as one also tweets other things. I’ve also found value in tweeting at different points of the day, to catch people in different times zones or who aren’t on Twitter all day. But enough is enough.

Again, the conversation metaphor is apt. Talk about yourself all the time when you meet new people at a party and you’re bound to be alone soon. I call it the 3-year-old syndrome. If you’ve had a 3-year-old (or ever been around one), you know what I mean. Three-year-olds are completely self-absorbed. I say that without malice. My kids were adorable at 3, and very young children are supposed to be self-absorbed. It’s how they survive. They need to get adults to do things for them. (Thank God, they are also incredibly cute.)

But the thing is most of us grow out of that, at least we should. For some reason, some people slip back into the terrible 3s on Twitter. (I know it’s usually called the Terrible 2s, but in my experience, 3-year-olds have it worse than 2-year-olds.) Resist the urge. Don’t regress. Grown-ups don’t do that.

Coming soon: My FourSquare etiquette rules.

What’s your Twitter pet peeve? What do you think of mine? Post a comment.

– Gina

Blogging 201 from Syracuse BizBuzz

bloggingmom67 — Sat, 29 May 2010 17:20:04 +0000

I’d say the Syracuse BizBuzz Social Media Conference this week was a great success.

The buzz was about 325 people showed up. The whole experience was pretty exciting — to be around so many people who want to get more connected and engaged online.

A few hiccups, of course: WiFi was really spotty in the main conference area, especially if you use Verizon, as I do. I wanted to live-tweet keynoter Dave Evans, author of “Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day,” but to do that I had to borrow a friend’s Mac to do so. (The conference offered a login to get free Wi-Fi from the Oncenter, but it didn’t work that well for phones.)

That aside, I met some great people. Shared ideas. Learned some technical tips, especially during the Linked-In seminar. But for me the best takeaway is that we’re part of a something new and exciting. The tips on how to tweet or blog or connect on Linked-In matter less than the energy that spurs us to do it.

If you couldn’t make it to Biz Buzz, here is the power point from my speech on blogging for business. It was aimed to business professionals, but the tips are really relevants for anyone who wants to use their blog to engage. Enjoy.

– Gina

I’ll see you at the Syracuse BizBuzz Social Media Conference

bloggingmom67 — Sun, 23 May 2010 19:16:35 +0000

I am part of what I think is a pretty exciting event going on this week in my hometown of Syracuse.

The Syracuse Biz Buzz is the area’s first major social media conference. The keynot speaker is Dave Evans, author of “Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day.” A slew of presentations are planned, including a session on blogging by yours truly.

The event kicks off 5 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday (May 26) with a Tweetup at the Syracuse Technology Garden. The sessions run 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday (May 27) at the Oncenter.

My friend and Every Patient’s Advocate blogger Trisha Torrey will be speaking about using social media to build your brand. Syracuse University professor Jill Hurst-Wahl, who has guest blogged on Save the Media, will talk about developing and maintaining your reputation using social media. (Read the full schedule.)

I’ll be speaking from 11:15 to 11:45 on Thursday. (Get ticket information here.)

The event is geared to business professionals, although the tips and suggestions are relevant to anyone who wants to learn more about social media and blogging.

If you can’t make it — or you’re from out of town — be sure to check this blog on Thursday afternoon. I’ll be posting my power point from my presentation.

– Gina

What it means to leave the newspaper business

bloggingmom67 — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 16:51:51 +0000

Dear neglected blog readers, I’m sorry I’ve been ignoring you. But I do have some tidbits that are worth a read:

Q and A with Steve Buttry: Brian Cubbison features an interview with Buttry on his blog this week that’s truly worth a read. (Full disclosure, Brian is a friend and former colleague; Buttry is a “virtual” friend.) Buttry is a former newspaperman who is now director of community engagement for Allbritton Communications, the owners of Politico. Buttry explains in the piece his ideas about connecting communities and why he left newspapers. The interview really resonates with me, and I think it would with others who have grappled with the same issues. As Buttry explains about his decision to leave newspapers:

It wasn’t a point; it was a process. I knew it long before I admitted it, even to myself, and there were several stages of realization. I was frustrated by the timid, tentative response throughout the industry to the powerful and specific call for transformation. … I knew I needed to get out, and I didn’t expect to find a good opportunity in the newspaper industry.

Give us some context, please: J-prof Jeremy Littau has a powerful piece on how much of the traditional media failed readers in coverage of the recently approved health-care plan. His point is the media focused too much on the horse-race aspects of the issue (who is against it; who is for it; which side will will) versus the content. The result is a public that’s still confused about what was approved.

I agree. I’ve observed quite a bit of confusion about what the health-care plan contains among friends — both real and virtual. My own mother even called me at one point in a panic about the alleged (and untrue) death panels in the plan.

Sure, you can argue that it’s up to people to ferret out the truth, so if they are confused, it’s their own fault. I don’t buy that. I believe it’s an important job of the news media to inform the public about what’s going on in government. Some news web sites offered cool approaches to explaining what the plan means, but much was too little too late. People were already confused or felt the plan was too complex to understand. I found some of the best reporting on the proposal after it was passed, and that shouldn’t be the case.

This isn’t unique to health care. I’d argue the same thing happened with the same-sex marriage initiative in New York state and, quite honestly, the Obama-McCain campaign.

I think news organizations sell readers short with this approach. People need substance and context, not just snippets of news telling which side is ahead. I’m not saying to ignore the politics but expand, offer more. I’d suggest the news organizations that learn to do context well will be the ones that survive.

Update: WikiCity, a hyperlocal site that I’ve written about before, has some news. The company announced this week it is teaming up with the Wahoo (Nebraska) Newspaper, according to a news release. WikiCity, which started in late 2008 and launched publicly last summer, is a bit like CitySearch with its telephone-book-like listings of restaurants and businesses, but it lets readers update their community’s pages, giving a bit of a Wikipedia feel.

The Omaha World-Herald announced in October that it had purchased WikiCity, and the Wahoo Newspaper is part of the World-Herald family. The idea is WikiCity will give the Wahoo Newspaper another tool to connect with its readers. The plan is for more of these type of relationships, according to an e-mail from Pat Lazure, WikiCity founder and now president of the World Interactive Group, which runs WikiCity.

Get Delicious: Kevin Sablan, of Almighty Link, offers a thorough primer on how to make the most of the bookmarking site Delicious. Though some argue Delicious is passe, I use it a lot. I use it as a storage spot for articles I want to save for a future blog post or just want to keep. Sablan’s use of Delicious goes way beyond that. He figured out a way to network through it. He also explains how to use one link to find more. Good stuff.

– Gina

Help readers make sense of the world

bloggingmom67 — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:54:00 +0000

A concept that gets bandied about a great deal is that news organizations need to help people “make sense of the world.” I’ve used the idea myself to show how news organizations need to realize they sell convenience, not news. We all kind of know what we mean by this concept, but it doesn’t have a clear definition.

Last week, I encountered a situation that clearly illustrates what I think it means for a news organization to help its readers/viewers make sense of the world.

At 5:30 a.m. on day, I got a text message from one of my local television stations alerting me that my kids’ school was closed because of an impending snowstorm. This was a valuable bit of information. Getting it by text was incredibly convenient. My phone buzzed on my bedside table, alerting me to the text. I didn’t even have to get out of bed. I turned off my alarm and slept in, a rare luxury in my frenetic life.

Read the rest of the post at Nieman Journalism Lab.