Early network success? Dallas Morning News’ Blog Gets Momentum in Comments

Although not necessarily revolutionary, a recent Dallas Morning News blog post received an incredible amount of traction in the comments. Considering the blog launched only a week earlier, it just goes to show: When journalists open up and ask for for help, people are ready to pitch in.

So the next question is, how can Kent take this momentum to improve his reporting.

The post in question: “Dallas ISD (independent school district) teacher reps will ask school trustees today to eliminate a district policy that prevents teachers from giving grades lower than a 50.” (Check out the comments).

So how did this happen and what is Kent up to next with his beat blogging efforts?

From Kent:

Honestly, I was winging it because I didn’t expect the reaction it got. I did nothing to solicit the comments at all. Just published the original blog post.

I can’t say that the blog comments “helped inform” the print product yet – but they did result in some good ideas for follow-up, and clearly the teachers appreciated the dialogue that erupted on the blog site, as evidence by the comment left by Aimee at 1:17 PM Fri, Jan 18.

I have “assigned” the network a task (asked them to examine some district-generated school evaluations for me) but so far only about a third of the participants replied/responded. So that’s still very much a work-in-progress.

For now Kent’s network is organized via email. If you are interested in joining, contact me and I’ll introduce you.