Beatblogging frees reporters from column inches

Stephanie De Pasquale is an entertainment reporter and beatblogger for The Quad-City Times. You can connect with her on Twitter and several other social networks. Find out more about how she is pushing the practice of beat reporting.

I often use my blog to write about pieces of an interview and sometimes entire stories that there just isn’t room for in the paper and to cover events that end too late to make deadline.

Using the blog to write about items that won’t fit in the paper has become an important part of my beat at The Quad-City Times. My news organization, like many newspapers across the country, recently reduced the size of its paper. Most of the time all there is room for in the weekly entertainment section I write for are 15-inch stories, including breakouts.

More often than not I have funny quotes and vignettes left over from interviews that my readers would be interested in but just won’t fit in print. Now I can put them in my blog.

My most recent example of this was in a preview of the dance group the JabbaWockeeZ.They are coming to a local event center with New Kids on the Block. When my 15 inches were up, I still had more to write about but, while interesting, it wasn’t essential to my story so I put it in a blog post.

I also covered a teen film festival put on by our local library. For the festival, area teens learned how to make videos, and their movies were screened at a local IMAX theatre. When I covered the festival last year, I wrote 10-inches ahead of time from an interview with a librarian, talked to the teens before the event and then had to leave before the screenings started in order to make deadline. Not this time.

Last winter the Quad-City Times moved to two editions, so my deadline was even earlier this year. Instead of writing a crappy story that barely included any quotes from the teens that actually made the movies for the festival, I chose to preview the event in print and blog about the post-event coverage so I could do the festival justice.

Granted, I didn’t write my post like I would write a story, but instead I wrote a the short, conversational tone that I take in my blog. But I’m much happier with the end product than I would have been if I had just topped off a pre-written chunk with a quote from a teen, which is all I would have had time for if I covered it for the print edition.

I also routinely use my blog to review local shows that are of interest to my readers, but aren’t quite big enough to warrant a review in print.

Excerpts from my blog are run in print in our entertainment section each week, so our core print readers are reminded on a weekly basis what I’ve been up to online. The comments I hear from readers are that almost everyone reads me online and about half read the shortened versions in print as well.

But no matter where they read me, they’re able to get content that I would not be able to write about if it weren’t for my blog.

Leaderdboard for week of 3-23-2009: the complete journalism package

What makes a good, modern journalist?

It’s no longer about just writing and reporting. Journalism has gone multimedia, and two-way communication is a big part of Web journalism. Defining what a good journalist is today is a lot harder than it was 10 years ago.

Now being a journalist requires a lot more skills. But it’s not just skills and buzzwords that make a good, modern journalist — it’s about putting it all together and making sense of it all.

Stephanie De Pasquale | Quad-City Times

• De Pasquale is one of the most innovative entertainment reporters we have seen. She combines her writing and video backgrounds to make an outstanding blog. Our favorite video feature of hers is Live Sessions, where she brings in local bands to record their music. Local musicians love the chance to get recorded on video and get promotion. This is a feature that causes bands to seek Stephanie out and update her on their latest releases or upcoming performances.
• De Pasquale is an excellent example of running with the opportunities that were presented to her. When she was 19 she couldn’t find a newspaper willing to offer her an internship because she had no experience. But her local NPR station was willing to take her on. From there she had an internship at a TV station. Eventually she was able to land writing internships as well. What at one point must have been frustrating for De Pasquale has turned into a big asset for her. She understands how to shoot and edit video and audio better than most journalists.
• Combine De Pasquale’s writing, video and audio skills together with her social media and blogging skills and you have one modern journalist. And all of her skills work together to form a total package.
• De Pasquale is also a shinning example of how to use MySpace for beatblogging. Having her music player on her MySpace page filled with local musicians and their music is a really nice touch. It’s a very thoughtful way to acknowledge people who help her with her beat.
• For entertainment reporters, MySpace is an absolute must. Virtually every aspiring artist is on MySpace. Plus, many bars and clubs have MySpace pages, but not Web sites. De Pasquale also engages her readers in the comments on her blog and on MySpace.

Nina Simon | Museum 2.0

• Nina has both a strong beatblog and presence on social networks. Specifically, she was nominated for her focused use of Twitter. Many people use Twitter for work, but Simon’s Twitter account never strays far from her beat or purpose of discussing museum exhibits and ways to create more interactive spaces at museums. She can often be found engaging in link journalism and offering up commentary about the links she provides.
• Museum 2.0 differs from most beatblogs in that Simon is not a journalist, nor is she directly practicing journalism. “Museum 2.0 is a design consultancy focused on creating participatory, dynamic, audience-centered museum spaces.I work with museums to design exhibitions, programs, and online experiences that engage visitors as co-creators and community members, not just consumers.”
• Simon does a fantastic job of writing about what she helps create and writing about exhibits that others create and what works or doesn’t work with those exhibits. She posts about research into how people interact with social media, innovative exhibits and the lessons that can be learned from them and the business models of museums.
• Her advice to museums is also good advice for journalists, “I believe that every museum can grow its audience as long as it is willing to grow with that audience by taking risks, trying new things, and communicating openly.”

Amber Smith | The Syracuse Post-Standard

• Smith made the Leaderboard this week for crowdsourcing on her blog and on Twitter. Need to write a piece that requires feedback from people? Blogs and social media are an excellent way to do that.
• Smith has a simple question she needs help answering, “So, what’s your reward? How do you treat yourself after a good run? Do you have a special feast? Do you reward yourself with new running gear when you hit a milestone?”
• Before blogs and social media, this would have been a much more time consuming task. Smith would have probably had to go out to an area where there were lots of runners and tried to get their attention. She would have had to go the runners and try to bug them to answer her question. Instead, she can now use her blog and Twitter accounts to get runners to come to her.  While she waits for the responses to come in, she can work on other stories.
• This is a simple instance of where beatblogging makes a journalist much more efficient. When people come to you with information, it makes your job a lot easier.

Podcast: De Pasquale discusses using MySpace for entertainment beats

Many people think of MySpace as a very similar social network to Facebook, but their uses — especially for beat reporters — are vastly different.

Facebook is a great tool for education reporters. MySpace, on the other hand, has a large contingent of artists and entertainers on it, especially musicians. Just about any popular artist has a MySpace page that allows fans to sample music.

But MySpace isn’t just for popular acts. It’s a fantastic tool for bands looking to get noticed. It allows bands to post songs, blog posts and connect with fans. For these reasons, any music or entertainment reporter should be on MySpace forming connections.

MySpace has allowed Stephanie De Pasquale of The Quad-City Times to cover her beat much more in-depth and much easier. MySpace has allowed her to discover new musicians, sample their music and easily get in touch with them.

“It’s just so a haven for bands,” she said. “When I first got the beat, I just signed up for an account and started friending the bands that we put in our weekly calendar.”

She has about 350 contacts on MySpace and those contacts have been invaluable for allowing her to cover her beat better. De Pasquale doesn’t even need to be personally contacted by bands anymore to keep up on what they are doing, because bands post bulletins on MySpace when they release new music or announce new shows. In the past, this information was hard to find out about this information because bands and other artists don’t understand the best way to get press.

“They don’t think, ‘oh I should contact someone about this,’” she said. “It’s not like anyone ever takes them aside and says, ‘this is what you need to do to get media coverage.’”

Now that De Pasquale has become a social part of the local entertainment scene, she has musicians, bars and other people people contacting her to update her with what’s going on. Several beat bloggers have said that people often feel more comfortable contacting a reporting via a social network rather than going through a news organization.

“A lot of people are now getting to the point to where if they have news they message me,” she said. “They don’t even use my e-mail or phone.”

MySpace is also a great way to preview musicians. Artists usually post several songs available for streaming (some maybe available for download as well). MySpace makes it easier for reporters like De Pasquale to sample a lot of local music.

“If a band does call you and say ‘hey we’re doing this set, what about a story,’ you can easily go on [MySpace] and see if they are any good and something that you want to put your name on,” she said.

In the past, artists would have to mail her CDs. That usually didn’t happen unless it was a national band working with a promotional company.

De Pasquale and the QC Times have  an innovative online feature they call Live Sessions, where they bring in bands to their studios and record them performing. The Web and blogs make this concept possible. The live sessions have become a huge hit and cachet builder with local artists. De Pasquale is booked through May with artists for live sessions.

Some other topics discussed:

• How has her blog allowed her to cover her beat better?
• What is her daily reporting like with her work appearing on a blog, in the paper and a few different Web sites?

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

Leaderboard for week of 1-12-2009: Pharmalot memorial edition

It’s a new year, and it’s time for a new Leaderboard.

Remember, you can join our Publish2 group and submit nominees whenever you want. You can also DM us nominees @beatblogging. You can also e-mail us nominations as well.

The first Leaderboard of the new year is a mix of the old with the new. We’re sad to see a departing beat blogger, but we’re excited for the new beat bloggers popping up all the time. 2009 should be the year that beat blogging really takes off as a mainstream practice.

Ed Silverman | Pharmalot

• Silverman will be sorely missed. He is moving on from Pharmalot and The Star-Ledger. He was one of the original and best beat bloggers.
• Pharmalot was one of those sites were the individual posts didn’t wow you but the whole package did. Each individual part and post worked together to cover an industry with incrediblw depth. The conversations and link sharing that took place after each post by users was also impressive. Silverman was amazed at how long discussions would last after posts.
• The strong community that formed around Pharmalot became a major selling point for the site. Those people helped Silverman cover the industry and exchanged information with each other.
• Pharmalot and Silverman eventually became synonymous. It’s hard to imagine the site continuing on without him, and if it does, it won’t be the same site. It might be a pharma blog, but it won’t be the Pharmalot that helped bring the practice of beat blogging to the world.
• There are far too many lessons to list here that Silverman gave us, but this podcast is a fantastic place to start. We hope to do a follow-up interview with Silverman. Listen to that podcast and let us know any additional questions you’d like us to ask.

Stephanie De Pasquale | Quadsville

• De Pasquale is an excellent example of synergy. Her best content from her blog goes in the newspaper once a week. That’s a smart way to get more mileage out of existing content.
• She is an entertainment reporter and mostly deals with the under-30 crowd. Social networking has become a key part to covering her beat.
• MySpace in particular has allowed her to cover the local music scene better. She has about 300 friends on MySpace and almost all are local musicians. MySpace is a great social network to join for those looking to tap into the local music and arts scene. De Pasquale says that she wouldn’t have discovered most of these musicians without MySpace. Social networking simply allows her to cover her beat in ways never before possible.
• She uses her blog to find stories and develop sources. She also gives the community a chance to submit questions for the people she interviews. Here is an example of her using user submitted questions to interview a subject.
• She has also organized monthly recording sessions with local bands. Now that’s utilizing the medium well.

Tannette Johnson-Elie | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

• Business columnist Elie uses Twitter to help her report. She asks questions and taps into the collective intelligence of her community. She also asks her Twitter users if there are any questions they would like her to ask when she interviews experts. That’s a great way to get people involved and also help you do your job better.
  
• She focuses on how small businesses and start-ups are using networking to grow. A big part of modern day networking is utilizing social media. Elie has simply gone where her readers are going — to social networks.
  
• She engages in social media to help understand a phenomena that is impacting many of the people she covers. The lessons she and other people learn could be very helpful for small businesses and startups.
• Elie is part of an emerging breed of reporters where it just makes sense for them to jump onto social networks. Many of the people she covers use social media, and the only way for her to truly understand social media is for her to utilize in her daily work too.