What we’re talking about when we say “beatblog.” Our definition.

What’s a Beat Blog?

A beat blog in the expansive sense is any blog that sticks to a well-defined beat or coverage area, whether it is the work of a single person or a team, whether it is authored by a pro or an amateur journalist. A beat blog can be part of a large site, or it could stand on its own. Normally, the beat is explicit and obvious from the home page of the blog, but it is possible for a beat blog to have an “implicit” or unusual beat that isn’t immediately apparent to a casual user.

Content-wise, a beat blog presents a regular flow of reporting and commentary in a focused area the beat covers; it provides links and online resources in that area, and it tracks the subject over time. Beats can be topical (like dot.earth, which is about natural resources and the environment) or narrowly geographic (West Seattle blog) or both (Atlantic Yards Report) or activity-related (Family Life, which is about “raising a family.”)

When beat blogs are part of a pro reporters work, the best ones are not incidental to the reporter’s work but an integral part of it; sometimes the blog is the main platform for the beat.

What We Look For:

The mission of beatblogging.org is not simply to celebrate the form--another beat blog, fantastico–but to find people who do it well and look carefully at what they’re doing. We’re a best practices site. The basic purpose is to spread the lessons of good–that is, effective–beatblogging.

Our ultimate interest is to push forward the practice of using a beat blog in a more “networked” fashion, where the site becomes a two-way knowledge system that feeds the beat. Some have called this the “journalism of the inbox.” It’s editorial production, social media style. The ultimate promise of such a system–and we’re not there yet–is to bring lots more people, with their beat-specific knowledge, connections, interests and talents, into the production of good reporting, quality features, great posts: better stories!

Extending the circle of reportage to include more users in ways that are practical and effective for production on the beat– that’s the kind of beatblogging we are most keenly on the lookout for. A cutting edge beat blog, and the sites of highest interest to beatblogging.org, are those regularly using the two-way, social media part of the web to cover a beat in a more user-assisted and therefore participatory way.

What You Can Do to Help:

• Tell us about beatblogs we may not know about but should. Use the comment thread right here; we check it.
• Recommend names and sites for our “who we follow” list of top beatbloggers.
• Tell us about people to interview, trends to pick up on, practices to track by emailing the editor, Patrick Thornton.
• Follow us on Twitter. We’re MsBeat.

Jay Rosen and David Cohn: Welcome to Beatblogging.Org

We just launched this site with twin posts at IdeaLab and PressThink giving the names, beats and newsrooms in our first wave of participants for "beat blogging with a social network," an idea explained in proposal form here.   

Briefly,  it’s this…

Maybe a beat reporter could do a way better job if there was a “live”
social network connected to the beat, made up of people who know the
territory the beat covers, and want the reporting on that beat to be
better.

Why would you follow this site?  To see what happens when 13 pro reporters with real beats give that idea a go, interpreting it in their own way by building useful networks into their beats.

Beatblogging.org is the third major project of NewAssignment.Net, where we’re trying to crack new media cases:  pro-am journalism, distributed reporting, collaborative information gathering, blog-style reportage.  We think the hyrbid forms are going to be the strongest forms, and this project is a clear test of that proposition.

You can subscribe to beatblogging.org’s feed or email alert in the left column, find the participants and their beats on the right, and comment on anything you have noticed right here.

If you’re an editor or a beat reporter and want to attempt something similar in your shop, tell us about it in the comments.  Or email David Cohn.  We’re still figuring out the terms of some kind of associate membership and it would be good to know who’s interested.

If you’re not a beat reporter but have some other contribution to make, tell us in the comments.  Or email David.

Use this post to comment on any part of beat reporting with a social network, or to just  let us know you will be watching.  Thanks…