Ed Silverman discusses the transition from being a beat reporter in print to running the online site Pharmalot.

Silverman has been blogging his beat over at Pharmalot.com for about 18 months and has enjoyed considerable success. For him, moving his beat to the Web was a question of when, not if. Silverman is a veteran of the news industry for more than a quarter of a century, but he sees the Internet as the future of news.

Silverman talks about the struggle to get people to understand that just because he has a blog doesn’t mean he is just pontificating on it. Silverman reports on Pharmalot, just as he always has, and some people don’t understand that concept. Many people think of blogging as opinion oriented, when blogging really is just a publishing platform.

“I see my site as a news vehicle” he said.

Silverman talks how blogging is continuous. It’s not a standard job with set hours. He spends more time on his beat now and believes he is covering his beat better. It’s no longer about filling the news hole, but about covering a beat well.

“People with Blackberries can relate to that,” he said.

Pharmalot has allowed Silverman to expand his beat. It was once a beat primarily focused on his geographic region around Newark, but the Pharmaceutical world is interconnected. Only 20% of his site’s traffic comes from New Jersey these day.

“I have readers from India to Indiana,” he said.

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