Leaderboard for week of 4-13-2009: Kent Fischer memorial edition

It’s not the best time to work for a newspaper: lay-offs, buy-outs, pay cuts and more

Against this backdrop, one of our favorite beatbloggers, Ed Silverman, left newspapers last year. His former employer, The Star-Ledger, may not survive the year. Another one of our favorite beatbloggers, Kent Fischer, announced that he’ll be leaving journalism too.

Fischer had survived several rounds of lay-offs, buy-outs and pay cuts at The Dallas Morning News but wondered how much more his employer could keep making big cuts, while still delivering a quality product. Fischer’s partner in crime on the DISD Blog, Tawnell Hobbs, will carry on the torch by herself. She’ll be expected to run the blog and be a major contributor to print.

Kent Fischer | The Dallas Morning News

• Fischer was one of the first beatbloggers to begin hoisting comments. He realized early on that it was important to acknowledge readers when they contributed something worthwhile to the conversation. Each week Fischer has been picking a comment of the week.
• Fischer also began accepting guest posts from community members last year. His blog is read by many insiders, and the majority of the comments left on his blog are from insiders. He wanted to tap into that network and give some of his top contributors the chance to have a bigger voice. Also, Fischer scheduled his guest posts around summer vacation, a time when education coverage is usually light. The summer is the perfect time to start discussions about bigger issues in education.
• Fischer was one of the first journalists I studied that really got that user comments add value to a news Web site. He understood that not only are comments something that attracts users, but they can also be a great place for thoughtful debate. And they can even be a place for beat reporters to discover stories.
• The comments left on the DISD Blog were usually quite good. Fischer took care to make sure a comment ghetto did not form. A strong comments community requires a journalist who is willing to cultivate a community. It takes a journalist who is not afraid to regularly enter the fray, and Fischer genuinely respected the opinions of his users.
• Fischer wasn’t afraid to try anything. He said that he regularly tried new ideas and features and saw what caught on. If something didn’t catch on, he would move on to something new. It was that ethos of experimentation that really allowed Fischer to shine.
• We’ll have more on Fischer, the lessons he learned from beatblogging and why he left journalism in a podcast later today.

Brian Krebs | The Washington Post

• Krebs was nominated this week for using his blog to provide context to a series of print stories. He explains why the stories are worth reading, what’s new about them (the topic of cyber terrorism is not new) and he provides background and context. Krebs also provides some nitty gritty details that may be too minute for the print edition. And, as always, his blog is the perfect place to provide links to resources.
• Krebs also did some quick checks on the Internet and found some compromised U.S. utilities. These companies have computers that were recently infected with bots and backdoors. His blog post does an excellent job of explaining what the threats are and how they could be harmful to U.S. citizens.
• Again, it’s the comments where this post really begins to shine. Krebs has built up a knowledgeable user community. In the comments you’ll find users asking questions about how easy it is to become infected, what precautions should be taken, etc, and you’ll find other users providing detailed answers.
• Krebs did not write the print stories he linked to, but he did provide excellent context around them. His blog post was a strong compliment to the print content his paper product.

Brian Christopherson | Lincoln Journal Star

• Life in the Red, a joint, staff blog at the Journal Star is one of the better sports blogs we’ve seen. The beat is all things Nebraska Cornhusker related, and a team of five bloggers shares the responsibility.
• One of the things we really like about this blog is the interaction. Sports fans are often a very passionate bunch and sometimes quite knowledgeable. They would love the chance to get to interact with sports writers they follow. On this seemingly simple post, Christopherson and users are discussing safeties for the Nebrasks football team. It all started with a simple post about redshirt freshman P.J. Smith and a quote from head coach Bo Pelini saying Smith could push for playing time with senior Larry Asante.
• This is the kind of little nugget of information that probably wouldn’t make a good print story. Even if it were a print story (or part of a “news an notes” kind of feature) it wouldn’t be nearly the same as doing it online. Each nugget of information gets its own blog post (good for SEO and segregating conversations to individual topics). Breaking these nuggets into individual posts increases visits and comments.
• Also, the Life in Red blog provides the perfect opportunity for beat reporters and fans to discuss minute topics like this. All of the sudden this seemingly small nugget of information becomes a launching pad for debate among writers and users.

Leaderboard for week of 3-30-09: Sports reporter edition

We have honored sports beatbloggers in the past, but we thought it was high time that we found some more innovative sports beat reporters.

Sports reporting (especially at the pro or major college level) does not lend itself well to beatblogging, but we have found some beat reporters who are innovating and utilizing new tools. Yes, the best beatbloggers typically come from news beats, but there are some sports reporters who have lessons to share.

Derrick Goold | St. Louis Post-Dispatch

• Beatblogging, social media and other Web tools don’t lend themselves that well to sports reporting, especially at the professional level, but Goold has found ways to be innovative with these new tools and connect with users better than ever before. Goold covers the St. Louis Cardinals for the Post-Dispatch and is very active on his blog and social media.
• Goold leaves little tidbits in his Twitter feed before games. Here is one example: “Cardinals currently in clubhouse watching a MLB steroid-related video.” That’s the kind of nugget of information that would never make it into a story for the paper and probably wouldn’t even make it into a blog post. Goold’s Twitter feed is filled with tidbits like that. He also interacts with users via Twitter.
  
• Goold also has a Facebook page for himself and his blog. What I really like about his use of Facebook is how he gives users the chance to start discussions about the Cardinals or baseball and Goold participates in those discussions. Whereas Goold leads the discussion on his blog, users get to lead the discussion on Facebook.
• The nature of being a beat reporter that covers a professional sports team doesn’t lead well to beatblogging, but Goold has done a very good job of innovating and engaging his users.

James Walker | ESPN.com

• ESPN has done a really nice job of adding on bloggers to its staff, and these bloggers operate in a much different fashion than their on-air personalities and standard reporters. Walker is a former beat reporter for the Columbus Dispatch, but now has a beatblog focused on the AFC North in the NFL for ESPN.com.
• Walker engages users in a myriad of ways. He has a weekly chat where users can submit questions, and he selects the best ones to answer. This is a great way for users to be able to tap into his deep knowledge of the AFC North, and it’s an opportunity for users to ask questions that may not have been answered by reporters. This is also an opportunity to clarify some of the confusing things around professional sports (for instance, the cap hit of trading an NFL player).
• He also has a mailbag feature where users can send in questions about their respective teams. He does a mailbag at least a few times a week.
• Walker also engages in daily link journalism. He finds the most interesting story of the day for each of the four teams in the AFC North.

Dave Levinthal | Dallas City Hall Blog

• Yes, we have nominated people in the past for hoisting comments, but we’re going to keep doing it until every beatblogger starts doing this. The Dallas City Hall Blog just started hoisting comments by creating a new weekly feature.
• If you want people to leave thoughtful comments, you have to give them some sort of incentive. Being active in the comments and having the opportunity to interact with a beatblogger is one form of incentive. Another great incentive is highlighting the best comments of the week. People will leave better comments if A) they know you are reading them B) they know you’ll responsed and interact with them and C) they know if they leave something really insightful that you’ll acknowledge what they have to say.
• Levinthal said this is why they are starting this new feature: “Because, at the end of the day, we want the Dallas City Hall Blog’s comments section to be more than a repository for throwaway thoughts, bland retorts, or worse, a shouting match. Sometimes, it’s any or all of those things. Instead, we hope our blog reporting will more often than not foster thoughtful conversation and spirited, yet respectful debate on any of the hundreds of issues that face Dallas city government. Therefore, starting this Friday and continuing each Friday thereafter, we’ll select at least one reader comment from the week, highlight it and discuss it. So fire up your intellect. And while we can’t promise you a golden cow if your comment is selected — already in use — we’ll come up with something fun.”

Interview with Jon Ortiz about ‘blog backs’

The Sacramento Bee’s Jon Ortiz recently launched a new feature called “blog backs” that has quickly become a hit with users on his State Worker blog.

It’s similar to hoisting comments, but it’s more in depth than that. Both features are ultimately about community building and help foment better and more sensible comments from users.

Blog backs are a combination of hoisting strong comments from users, and of clarifying of points of fact that people didn’t understand in posts from bloggers.

“People really need some amplification on points that we were making in the blog,” Ortiz said about starting the feature. “We also have some people who put some time and effort into their comments and we want to recognize those.”

This new feature doesn’t take long to create. His first week it took him about two hours, but he has streamlined the process since then. In his third week he was able to put this feature together in 20 minutes.

“Instead of waiting until the end of the week to review the comments and the blog entries, as the week went along I took would take note of comments that I thought were particularly blog back worthy,” he said. “I got everything done ahead of time as the week went along. It’s pretty much then just a matter of pasting that into Moveable Type.”

A post that takes Ortiz 20 minutes to create significantly increased traffic to his blog. Not only do the blog back posts themselves get a lot of page views, but the old posts that are linked to in the blog back see on average of about a 10 percent boost in traffic.

“The hit counts to the page are very high and I think it gives people a way to quickly look back and see what they’ve missed,” he said about his new feature.

Some other topics discussed:

• Have other newsroom bloggers adopted this feature?
• Are there certain kinds of blogs this feature makes more sense for? Do some blogs not work with this?
• Why should other bloggers look into doing blog backs?

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

Comment of the week and hoisting comments catching on

The practice of hoisting comments is beginning to catch on with more beat bloggers.

Education Week’s Eduwonkette blog has launched its own comment of the week feature called the COWAbunga Award. The feature was inspired by one of the beat bloggers we’re following, Kent Fischer. This week, Eduwonkette is highlighting two user comments — one serious and one satirical:

Starting today and every week thereafter I’ll follow his example and give the COWAbunga Award to an insightful, interesting, or funny comment on this site.

For many beat bloggers, the idea of hoisting user comments is a good way to build community and make users feel like their opinions matter. It also doesn’t require a lot of work for a beat blogger that is already active within his or her blog’s comments section.

Interview with Monica Guzman about cultivating conversations

“Despite what might happen to our industry, despite what form it will take, despite the business model, people will always want to know what is going on and will always want to have an intelligent conversation. They just need to be empowered to do so.”

For Monica Guzman, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s first online reporter, empowering people is a major way to cultivate comments and build a community. She runs The Big Blog, a blog dedicated to keeping tabs on what’s happening in Seattle and the Seattle blogosphere.

“I’m convinced that newspapers need to rise up and take responsibility not just for the quality of the news, but for the quality of the conversation,” Guzman said.

Guzman believes newspapers need to cultivate comments. She is a fan of hoisting comments and is working on implementing a comment of the week feature.

“It tells readers that you are listening,” Guzman said about hoisting comments. “You’re actually watching what they say. And it rewards readers for being smart and actually taking the time to make their comments useful and intelligent.”

Guzman is surprised about how much people care about the news.

“As soon as people are empowered with their own tools like blogging tools and a publishing platform like the Internet, [it's amazing] to see how many people will take the opportunity to become reporters for their own blocks,” Guzman said. “And I just think that’s a beautiful thing.”

When she first started there were a handful of community blogs, but now a new one pops up every month. Part of what she does is link to other bloggers and keep tabs on the blogosphere.

Guzman knows that some of her editors are uncomfortable with the ethic of collaboration. Many journalists are still stuck in the competition mindset.

“I love the blogging ethic of collaboration and I hate the ethic of competition,” she said.

One time Guzman wanted to link to a Seattle Times story because her paper didn’t have the story. At first her editors didn’t want her to do so because that was the competition’s work, but she insisted. Her editors eventually said if the PI doesn’t have a story, she can link to the Times as a last resort.

“When it comes down to it, sometimes your competing paper will write a good story that you didn’t write,” she said. “I wanted to become a trusted guide for my readers for what’s interesting going on in Seattle. How can I be trusted as a good guide if there is some sort of curtain over our competitor?”

Can you imagine a blog without links?

Much more is tackled in part 1 of my interview with Guzman.

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