Audio interviews - by Patrick Thornton on Friday, July 18, 2008 13:54 - View Comments

Audio interview with Kent Fischer about building a blog on steroids

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Kent Fischer, and education blogger for The Dallas Morning News, wants to build a “blog on steroids.”

In just six months, he has become a successful beat blogger with thousands of page views each day and plenty of comments from dedicated users. Now he realizes that he must take his work to the next level to keep growing and innovating on the Web.

Fischer’s idea for combing beat blogging with database reporting might be the future of beat reporting on the Web. Essentially it’s a micro-site, niche publication that will be the premier source of information related to his beat on the Dallas Independent School District.

Fischer says his biggest triumph with beat blogging was getting himself blogging. He went from “blog ignorance” to wanting to develop a blog on steroids in six months.

What has been the return on investment for his blog? Could his editors justify making him a full-time blogger? Fischer thinks the key is selling his blog to specific advertisers. He runs a niche blog, and he thinks they need to target niche advertisers.

Listen to the interview for details.

Click here to stream the interview. Or click here to download the MP3.

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  • http://dallasisdblog.dallasnews.com/ Kent Fischer, Dallas Morning News

    A correction: Toward the end of my interview, I state that I expect our new Dallas city schools blog to record 250,000 page views this year. Actually, I misspoke. Trends indicate somewhere between 500,000 and 750,000 page views in 2008. Sorry about that.

    Kent

  • http://profile.typekey.com/1213898531s6279/ Patrick Thornton

    @Kent,

    I figured once you told me that you didn’t have access to all your stats that your estimate would come in low.

    750,000 would be quite a feat in your first year, especially considering that you blog about education.

  • http://beatblogging.org/2008/12/22/disd-blog-doubles-traffic-expectations-in-first-year/ DISD blog doubles traffic expectations in first year | BeatBlogging.Org

    [...] ago Kent Fischer told me that he expected the DISD blog that he and Tawnell Hobbs run to get between 500,000 and 750,000 page views in its first [...]

  • http://beatblogging.org/2009/05/13/creating-the-perfect-beatblog/ Creating the perfect beatblog | BeatBlogging.Org

    [...] would have the reporting drive of Kent Fischer, the networking savviness of Monica Guzman, the friendly, open-mindedness of Brian Stelter and the [...]

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BeatBlogging.org was a grant-funded journalism project that studied how journalists used social media and other Web tools to improve beat reporting. It ran for about two years, ending in the fall of 2009.

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