MySanAntonio.com has a blog dedicated to helping staff bloggers get better at the new interactive medium.
Their most recent post is defining a beat and how a blog should be an integral part of a reporters duties – that in turn inform the paper, not the other way around as Scott Karp notes – where a reporter’s print bylines inform their blog.
I hesitate a bit to link to the Journalism Iconoclast for the second time in a couple weeks … partly cuz I like to mix things up but mainly cuz, at 15-16 years or so my junior, he comes close to "young whippersnapper" territory for me.
Most good beat writers at newspapers are experts in a niche. Take a local court reporter for example. A newspaper’s local court reporter might be the only media person in the world with intimate knowledge of how that court system works and of the legal issues surrounding the community. That’s a niche to exploit.
Beat Blogging allows reporters to fill in readers as news is happening, not just after news has marinated for a day. But good Beat Blogging requires more than just a savvy reporter. It requires editors and a newsroom culture that allows it.
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