A follow up to the post on Matt’s beat blog "between the lines."

If you haven’t gone to check it out, do so. It’s one link away and a great example of how to "just do it."

Below is the transcript of a quick phone interview with Matt.

Q: So, tell me a bit about what you are doing with "between the lines." How did this come about?

Matt: I liked the idea of trying to incorporate more voices and people in the reporting I was doing. From the get go the idea was to have a conversation. I had never blogged before but picked it up quickly once I had access.

I had a column for a paper in Iowa and that helped to get the voice that worked into blogging better than the regular newspaper voice. The blog itself is all about city stuff and I try to keep it focused there. It branches at times to the larger subjects of what I’m reporting on. But I try to keep it super focused on the city.

On the blog I draft stories I’m working on. I link to things that are leading me in my reporting. It’s focused – but open in terms of who is involved and how we get there.

It’s a wordpress blog – which happens to be what the paper uses. But everyone on the paper uses the same template and I’m pushing the envelope by creating a custom design – but I’m friends with the IT guy at the paper – so we have been bouncing ideas around. In the end it’s hosted by the main newspaper site, so they are behind it.

How has it worked into your work schedule? Is it a chore or are you able to turn it into part of the work flow itself?

I wouldn’t say it’s a burden – it’s almost one of those things where I feel like, they [the blog and the print product] are two separate animals. There are people who follow the blog and read it online and people who read the paper. I have a good deal because I report for the newspaper but the blog, in my own mind, comes first as a way to get things going and interact and draft stories that are for the print product. It doesn’t get in the way – it’s a first draft. But it does take a conscious effort. It is a lot of work – but I think it’s important and thats why I make it a point to blog.

Can you give an example of some of the interaction you are talking about?

Just last Thursday and Friday actually. I  cover local politics in Benton County Oregon and Corvallis Oregon, city council, county government, etc, and I also cover business. With all that stuff going on – we are also having a primary so we have national stories going on. I came in on Thursday and I was told that I was covering Obama who was speaking in the area and the campaign was going to give me 5 minutes to sit down with him.

I thought to myself, I’ve covered political campaigns and I never had a chance to ask the questions that the people locally want to ask – so I put it up on the blog and I got a lot of responses that were well thought out. People took the time to write out what they thought and I got to synthesize that together. I thought it went really well – it was a cool experiment.

It sounds like your network is very open. Are you ever worried about being poached by competition?

I know that the TV station in Eugene is following me on Twitter. We’ve covered a story about HP making layoffs and I blogged about that – and tried to tease out people that might be reluctant to talk to us in other channels – because the company wasn’t talking, but that had mixed success probably because people were nervous about talking about that company. I know some of the things I blogged about made their way into some TV stuff – and the Oregonian as well, I think.

I didn’t spill the beans though. We waited until we published in the newspaper to blog some things (I was working on it with another reporter). So we were careful – we were aware of that potential. So far we haven’t been burned. But I think it is a potential.

Where is it going? What’s next for you?

We’ve got a new thing we are working on – it’s taking longer to do than I want. Corvallis has a sustainability coalition – the city is paying partly for a group of individuals and nonprofits and businesses to come up with a plan for the cities sustainability. This coalition had a meeting and 600 people showed up in a town of 56,000 or so people to talk about this. We are talking about a boring meeting!

What I realized is that there are some people who want to talk about this issue. This sustainability coalition has a website – but they are looking for a web master. They want a web presence – so I’m thinking that we should be the hub for that. We need to get up and running quickly. We could build a micro site under the main newspaper site that would cover this growing concern – get people to share things, get a calendar up and more. At this point it’s using wordpress – but it’s going to be broader and more interactive than the blog right now.

I’m really excited about it. I don’t know where I’m going to find the time, but I’m really excited. Hopefully it will be more of a group blog. There are people in the community who are doing some blogging so I think we are going to try and bring them into that loop so its not just newspaper staffers doing this, we can bring in their RSS and guest blog posts.

Any advice for potential beat bloggers?

I would say — First of all – find out what the blog is going to be about and be really strictly focused on what it is going to be. There are too many people who are too broad and you could get lost in the shuffle. Be the mayor of your beat. Be super focused and JUST START. Make yourself post every day about something and I think it will grow from there.