clipped from bydanielvictor.com

Why I’m beatblogging: It helps the print product, too

Here’s the point most often missed: Successful beatblogging saves, not costs, reporters their time. In a fraction of the time and effort, it accomplishes all these goals that any reporter would share:

• It can drastically increase your quantity of sources
• It can drastically increase the diversity of your sources
• It can positively develop your relationship with sources
• It allows you to stay in constant contact with those sources without picking up the phone and calling them individually
• It encourages those sources to share story ideas or current happenings
• It can lead you into background or context to your stories you wouldn’t otherwise know about

Along with these additional benefits that the new-media types love:

• It encourages a sense of community
• It gets information to people in the form that they choose
• It allows for a depth that the print product can’t achieve
• It makes the news a conversation instead of a declaration