One of the first reporters I interviewed for the ongoing series of "lessons from reporters" was Eric Eldon from Venture Beat.

I continue to argue that the super-tech blogs like VentureBeat, TechCrunch, Read Write Web, Mashable, GigaOm and others are setting the pace for what journalism will be in the future. Whether they adopt the language ‘beat blogging’ is irrelevant, they are doing it. Their reporters are connected digitally, they are light on their keyboards and that’s why they constantly scoop newspaper tech sites.

While it makes sense for them to use digital tools to cover their beat, which is technology itself, as the younger generations grow older and continually play out their lives online – reporters whose beats are education, hospitals, etc will increasingly need to be networked online to keep abreast of their beat.

The video interview with M.G. Siegler below is a bit dark. I apologies. It was too loud in the art gallery where I met him to do the interview inside and too dark outside – I opted for dark over loud. It’s a four minute interview – skip the first 25 seconds if you are super crunched for time, but I highly recommend watching the rest if you are at all curious about: Twitter, social news sites, finding new stories, Mixx, or the higher level question of whether or not all this translates to beats outside of tech.