Where Are They Now? An Update on Beat Bloggers

A continuation of our update posts: See updates on the first four reporters here

News organization: ESPN, TrueHoop
Reporter: Henry Abbott

Current Status: Henry Abbott has already been going in this
direction and has been looking for a more methodical way of achieving
the networked effect of reporting. Right now what he does is send a
mass email to thirty sources and edits the best responses. But having a
bunch of emails flying back and forth isn’t very efficient. He is
caught in the day-to-day of basketball reporting, but has tons of ideas
that he is earmarking to try out with his future social network.

Still to come: A decision about what, if any, special topic
he will dedicate the social network to. He is unsure if he wants a
network that will inform him about a specific topic in basketball, like
New Orleans, or just a basketball network in general that he will
occasionally steer in one direction or another. If he goes with a more
general topic, he does expect some participants to remain relatively
silent most of the time.

Special Concerns: One concern is the tech savvy of the people
who might join his network. Another concern is the slow rate at which
technical changes happen on his ESPN blog. For that reason Henry is
looking towards Facebook as an option. Another concern is how to keep
anonmyity in this network if some of the people who are his sources
work in the NBA.

Big Unknowns: Henry is going to wait to engage a network
until he has a concrete task for them. An example might be – getting
the replay of a controversial call and putting the video up for all his
experts to look at and critique to see if the call was accurate or not.
He isn’t sure what this first call to action will be, but when he is
ready to launch the network he intends to do it with a bang.

Tools: The technical side of his blog is slow to change. As a
result Henry will have more than likely have his social network exist
on a third party site like Facebook. He isn’t too worried about this,
but wants to make sure that whatever method he uses it is seamless and
easy for participants to see who they are contributing with and what
they are contributing too.

Where the excitement is: "I have broached the topic with
several
target experts, and so far I’m getting a great response. I’m telling
people we will be covering a wide array of topics, and they can just
sit it out if they want to. I have also been telling them that if they
sit out a lot of topics, I might poke them with something sharp. Looks
like we’re heading for a January launch of some kind, although there is
a lot left to figure out."

News org: Education Week, Digital Directions
Reporter: Michelle Davis

Current
status: When I first spoke with Michelle she was near deadline for the
third issue of Digital Directions, a four times a year publication.
Once that deadline was passed, Michelle was going to dive head first
into finding the right tools to build her network. She described it as
an "interactive wiki," where her sources are posting most of the
content and she is acting as a facilitator, posting articles or
questions that will grow the conversation.

Still to come: Michelle needs to have a good long sit down
with the tech developer at Digital Directions to find out what is or
isn’t possible. This frank conversation will give her a better sense of
weather or not the networking aspect can happen on or off site.

Special Concerns: Michelle freely admits that she is not a
techie. While she isn’t intimidated by the fact that this networking
will exist online, she understands that she will have to learn how to
manage an online community, albeit a small one, in order for this to be
successful.

Big Unknowns: Michelle has a clear idea of what she wants to
get out of this experiment. To create a space where a cohort of people,
from all expertise and backgrounds, can learn from each other. It will
be an electronic version of a conference. This will be a way for her to
chat, trade ideas and generate story ideas. The big unknown in all this
is what it will take to create this level of conversation. Digital
Directions needs to sit down and really think about the tools this will
require.

Tools: Michelle isn’t sure what tools she
will use. First she is going to try and imagine what types of
communication she will need – then we will go back and find out what
tools meet these requirements.
"We plan to hold a meeting, either next week or the
following one, depending on the production schedule, to really hammer
out the nitty gritty of how we’re going to launch this beat blogging
effort in technical terms. The latest plan is to develop a "channel" on
the Ed Week site for Digital Directions with changing content and
include a link of some sort to the beat blogging site."

Where the excitement is: "The one thing I feel very sure of and excited about, is the level of
participation from those I invite to the community. These are highly
motivate people who are very interested in what they’re doing and
really want to share and learn from others. I can already think of a
great group of people who I believe will make the site really
interactive and cutting edge."

News organization: Wired
Reporter: Eliot Van Buskirk, spoke with on December 3rd

Current Status: Eliot is looking at different tool options which
he hopes to include in the sidebar of his blog at Wired. To find out
what is and isn’t possible on his blog technically, he is having a
meeting with his editors at Wired in the next week. The network will
probably launch sometime in mid-January after the Consumer Electronics
Show in Vegas, which is the busiest time of year for Eliot. For now, he
is making a list of people to invite.

Still to come: Eliot intends to send an invite to the Pholist, which is "

a
community of people who love noodle soup and the convergence of
entertainment and technology." But first Eliot needs to get a strong
grip over how he wants the network to live and breathe. He think this
will include two levels of participation – creating titles and other
incentives.

Special concerns: That he is able to get the right mix of
people to join his network. He also wants to make sure that his network
his kept relatively closed. He doesn’t want it to be co-opted by PR
people or competitors. Overall he wants the project to be a success and
improve his reporting. It would be a fantastic step for him as a
freelancer writer, said Eliot.

Big unknowns: How Eliot will keep the network active. He is
considering different incentives – allowing people to write on the blog
and creating different levels of participation with the intent of
encouraging people to become more active. What is unknonw is how it
will all work.

Tools: Overall Eliot wants to use a mix-mash of widgets that he
can include on his blog. This may result in online IM chatting along
with more naunced widgets and links to wikis, social calanders, etc.
Another tool under consideration is Reddit,
which is onwed by Conde Nast (Wired’s parent company). Perhaps there is
a way to let participants in his social network submit links through
Reddit which can then start a discussion.

Where the excitement is:
Eliot is a freelancer, but has been given the opportunity to work on
this project while getting freelance credit from Wired. He is really
excited about the opportunity to explore cutting edge journalism.

News org: Newark Star-Ledger
Reporter: Ed Silverman, spoke with November 22nd.

Current
status: Ed says he has been heading in this direction
with his reporting already. He has a
strong blog which he started from scratch that already has a growing
audience. Ed is thinking through what he wants to do to get the
networked approach going. The next 10 days will be very busy for Ed, so
organizing the network will be put on hold until before the Christmas
break. The goal, however, is to be ready to put his network to action
shortly after the new year.

Still to come: Ed is considering having the network live on
his blog, as long as it doesn’t take away from the profesional look and
feel that he has created. He has approached a few people about joining the network with positive reactions.

Special concerns: How to manage
anonymous sources. How to continue to grow the blog while dedicating
time to growing a network. This will become increasingly hard as Ed is
already dedicating himself to maintaining and updating the blog over
and above full time hours. One thing that should be noted – he doesn’t
intend to change his entire approach to reporting as a result of the
network, but to use it as a supplement to the existing site. A subset
of what he already does.

Big Unknowns: How to tailor what he is doing so that careful
readers will understand that he is using a new approach to reporting
that they can participate. At the same time, he doesn’t want to
compromise the look and
feel of his blog, or for the new approach to be too jarring to his
current reporting methods.

Tools: Unknown right now. Currently Ed is thinking through what he wants from the network.

Where the excitement is: The potential that can come out of this new supplement to his reporting.