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.

Q&A: Brian Krebs on the power of a strong user community

Brian Krebs is one of the premier beatbloggers and a big reason for that is the strong user community that has formed around his blog.

Krebs believes that interaction is at the core of good blogging. After all, is it even really a blog without user interaction?

My favorite quote from our Q&A sessions is:

Readers are more inclined to speak their minds, interact with others, and generally contribute to a more well-rounded discussion and story if they get a sense that the author is accountable and responsive.

You can find why we like him and his blog so much here. Without further ado, here is our Q&A:

Q: How did you get into blogging? Why did you start Security Fix? What was the original vision?

A: It really was meant, I think, as an outlet for some of the stuff I was telling my editors about in our weekly planning meetings. I was always mentioning things in passing that maybe didn’t seem to amount to a full story, but then we’d invariably see some other news outlet get attention a few weeks later printing essentially the same thing. So, early on the thinking was, well, here’s a place where we can put all the stuff that isn’t quite fully baked into a story, or maybe is interesting or timely but doesn’t justify spending a whole lot of time on. We also envisioned it as a way to let readers know about the latest security threats and ways they could protect themselves.

Q: How has the blog morphed and changed over the years?

A: From pretty early on, I began using the blog to break news, both investigative and day-to-day stories. It also has been tremendously helpful as a supplemental publishing vehicle for stories that run on our Web site or in the paper. This allows us to dig a little deeper into the technical side of the story without scaring away readers.

Security Fix also has grown quite a bit due to the community of readers that has built up around it. Quite often, some of the most interesting items in the blog can be seen in the comments sections of each posts. We are working on some redesign ideas for the blog (which hasn’t had a facelift since it first launched four years ago), and some of the ideas we’re planning to implement will be geared toward encouraging more readers to leave more thoughtful and engaging comments and voice their opinions.

Q: Do you do work for the print edition?

A: I work for Washingtonpost.com and have for nearly six years now. Traditionally, I have been an online reporter who’s been lucky enough to see his stories in the print edition about two to three times per month on average. But the distinction between the .com and the paper is one that will be ending soon. We are currently in the process of merging the two newsrooms into one physical space.

Q: How does your blog help you report?

A: Put simply, it is where I do most of my work, so to say that it “helps” my work is probably a bit of an understatement. For a variety of reasons, producing a story in the traditional sense on the site sometimes takes longer than publishing the same content out over the blog; so in some sense that helps me publish scoops faster — although, an editor looks at and approves everything I write before it goes up on the blog.

Our readers really do help me report stories out more thoroughly. The nice thing about a blog is you can and should update it frequently, and so if I leave out an important perspective or relevant fact or link, I can add that after the fact along with a note letting readers know we’ve done so. But more importantly, news tips from readers are wonderful and very helpful. Unfortunately, they sometimes come in the form of comments, which means all of my competitors get to see them the same time I do.

Q: You have built up a knowledgeable community around your beat. Users regularly make great points in the comments after your post and share links. How were you able to build up such a strong community?

A: Computer and Internet security are fields that attract people who are detail-oriented and by and large well-informed. Thankfully, these same folks are also usually quite opinionated. I, however, try not to inject my opinion in the blog pieces I write, and prefer to tell a compelling story by thorough reporting and attention to detail.

Probably the other big subset of readers are regular readers who don’t want to have to become rocket surgeons in order to understand how to stay safe online each day. I spend as much time writing for those readers as well, because they’re a huge subset of the blog’s audience, and because people expect that they will find updates at Security Fix about the important, timely and uncomplicated security-related developments as they impact the average computer user.

Q: You also frequently interact with users on your blog. Why do you do this? How does it help your blogging and reporting?

A: Because interaction is the essence of what blogging should be about, in my opinion. Readers are more inclined to speak their minds, interact with others, and generally contribute to a more well-rounded discussion and story if they get a sense that the author is accountable and responsive.

Q: What kinds of Web and social media tools do you use to help you do your work?

A: Not many. I may one day be dragged kicking and screaming into the world of Twitter and Facebook, though. I use both of those networks for finding people, of course, but I’m still a little wary of interacting with people and sources via these networks when I’m working on investigative stories. Twice in the past month, I’ve had to scold sources after the fact, for Twittering their friends for the answer to a question I’d asked them to which they didn’t have an answer — effectively telling the whole world the focus of my then-unreported story.

Leaderboard for 3-2-2009: Two-way communication edition

This week’s Leaderboard is all about two-way communication by interacting with users.

The best beat bloggers have established networks around their beats with knowledgeable sources and users. Many of these users add significant value to the beat blogs they comment on. They link to additional resources and Web site, cite studies, forward the debate along and fact check a beat blogger’s work.

Beat bloggers may not always agree with these users, but they can’t imagine their blogs without them either. Beat blogs that are surrounded by an active and knowledgeable community offer so much more for people. These blogs feature great content from beat bloggers and from users.

Eric Berger | The Houston Chronicle

• Look at how Berger interacts with his users in the comments after his posts. They go back and forth, help each other out, publish links and more. Berger published the results of a new study that says that being overweight is as bad for a person as smoking. Berger’s users had much to point out and questioned whether the study is that definitive (Berger hinted that he was skeptical too).
• Berger’s users brought up several strong points: This study only looked at young males. Many suggested that it would be difficult to apply these findings to women, and they provided sources and links backing up their thoughts. Also, Berger’s users pointed out that there is a difference between becoming overweight/obese later in life than being overweight/obese from a young age.
• All of this back forth made for a lively discussion and the real value of this post become apparent after his users had a chance to weigh in. All Berger did was provide a succinct summary of the study and his users ran with it.
• Berger’s post was interesting, but the comments really take this to a new level. Plus, Berger’s users helped correct some mistakes in his original post.

Brian Krebs | The Washington Post

• Yet again, Krebs is providing a public service to his users. This post didn’t take long to write, but it will certainly help keep his users safer. For a beat like computer security, it’s important to give users real value. Krebs does that every week by helping his users navigate the rough waters of computer security.
• In this post, Krebs is explaining what to do if users receive unsolicited IM messages on GMAIL from “ViddyHo.” This is a phishing scam aimed at gaining access to GMAIL users’ credentials.
• Krebs also explains why this phishing attack can be particular bad for people; GMAIL accounts often use the same logins as valuable Google Adsense and Google Checkout accounts. Access to either of those could leave a person financial vulnerable.
• What makes this post truly Leaderboard worthy is how his users fill in additional information about the phishing attack and the ways that it can harm users.

Jon Ortiz | The Sacramento Bee

• This is just an all-around great example of beat blogging. State workers have been greatly affected during the financial crisis, and the financial crisis’s affect on state workers been a big part of Ortiz’s blog — The State Worker — the past few months. In California and other states, one of the major ways politicians have proposed covering huge budget shortfalls is by furloughing state workers, cutting their pay and benefits and even laying them off.
• Ortiz found issues affecting state workers in other states and linked to stories and blog posts highlighting how the financial crisis is affecting those state workers. He also wanted his users to check out the comments that state workers were leaving, because they mirrored the comments that Ortiz had been getting for months on his blog.
• This post is, at its heart, link journalism. It’s just very focused link journalism. The idea of finding a specific topic that is more niche than the beat itself and finding interesting links is an idea that more beat bloggers should explore. This bit of link of journalism got Ortiz’s users talking.

Leaderboard for week of 1-19-09: Users adding value

This week’s Leaderboard is about users adding value to journalists’ content.

Good beat bloggers build strong communities around their beats. These communities not only can help journalists report news and stay up-to-date on industry news, but they can also add value with strong comments after posts. Slashdot in particular has made an art form out of having comments after posts be more valuable than the original posts themselves (not coincidentally, Slashdot has one of the best commenting systems around).

Just about all of the beat bloggers we follow have built strong communities. These communities help journalists report, but there are some beat bloggers who have built such strong communities that their users and their comments and links are just as imporant as the original content itself.

Kent Fischer | The Dallas Morning News

• We’ll say it again, Comment of the Week is a feature that every beat blogger should copy.
• So many journalists are worried about allowing comments on posts and other content. Want to know a great way to get great comments from users? Acknowledge when users leave great comments. That’s exactly what Fischer does, and his blog has some really good comments. It also has a strong community around it.
• Fischer regularly interacts with users on his blog, and this is a key to building a strong community around a blog. By interacting with users, Fischer also has fomented a stronger and more civil community around his blog.
• Many news organizations have done a wonderful job of creating comment ghettos, filled with inappropriate, acidic, banal and often off-topic comments. These comment ghettos represent everything that many journalists hate about user comments.
• Fischer and other beat bloggers have prevented comment ghettos from forming by being active in their communities. Acknowledging when users leave comments that really add to the conversation is another great way to prevent comment ghettos from forming.

Matt Neznanski | Corvallis Gazette Times

• Live blogging is a great way to utilize the Web in ways that print never could. Services like CoveritLive make it easy for journalists to cover live events in real time. Twitter is also another popular way to provide real-time coverage of events.
• Live blogging is much more than just providing instaneous updates. It’s also about allowing people to have a voice. CoveritLive, Twitter and other services allow users to submit questions and make comments. A journalist can take this real-time questions and ask city council members, for instance, their thoughts.
• A live blog also has value after an event is over. CoveritLive makes it easy to create an archive of a live blog for users to read.
• Neznanski shows the power and immediacy of live blogging when he recently covered a City Blog meeting on homelessness. CoveritLive is quickly becoming a big-time tool for beat bloggers.

Brian Krebs | The Washington Post

• We’re continually amazed by the quality of the community around Krebs’ Security Fix blog. Good beat blogging is a way to build a strong community. Security Fix reminds us of Slashdot but with better original content.
• Krebs routinely makes posts that his users add additional insight and links in the comments section. Krebs himself is also very active in the comments section, answering questions and helping users out. There is an incredible sense of community on his blog where people are there for each other.
• This past week Krebs reported on fake online shopping sites that were trying to spoof legitimate sites. The debate and discussion after the post is arguably better than the original post itself. Users are sharing more fake sites to avoid, ways to tell if a site is fake or has a good reputation and tools people can use to make e-commerce safer.
• This is what happens when you build a strong community of knowledgeable users. It’s hard to imagine Security Fix without user comments. Many journalists fear user comments, but Krebs and Security Fix show how comments can add a lot of value to journalism.