Is this useful? An account of how I started blogging and how it changed my journalism

I’ve just been going through my Google Docs and came across this draft post I wrote back in March last year about how I got into blogging.

I didn’t publish it at the time, thinking some of the things I was saying about The Birmingham Post wouldn’t go down too well considering the upheaval the newspaper was going through.

As you can see, it isn’t finished – and I certainly had no idea that in a year I’d be working for The Times – but I thought I’d post up what was there because it is a record of how I got into blogging and might be of some use to someone.

Let me know if it is and whether you think I should try and bring it up to date!

You know what you should do?” said Stef to me on the night of The Media Guardian Awards as we sat mulling over the night’s award-winning, stage-invading, surreality:

“Write a post explaining how things have changed since you started your blog.”

It’s one of those suggestions that makes your heart sink to your boots. Yes, I agreed, it would be a good exercise. But then so much has changed since September 2007 that I’m not sure I’m able to put it all into words.

But, having had a break for Easter, I feel re-enthused enough to give it a go:

The easiest way to sum it up is this: In August 2007, I was fed up with the state of UK newspapers and seriously considering my employment options. In March 2008, I am still fed up with the state of UK newspapers but now firmly committed to the industry.

So, what has changed?

I have always loved the internet and have been an active member of forums and chat rooms since I was a teenager. But, in all that time, I never considered that I deserved a corner of the web to call my own. I contributed to other people’s websites, but that was as far as I thought I would ever get.

I think that attitude came from the same stable as my dislike for writing newspaper opinion pieces. I’m happiest when I’m learning from and with others: bouncing ideas around.

A column doesn’t do this. It takes a stance, argues its case, ends the conversation. I think there is a confidence bordering on arrogance that you must have to write columns. I just didn’t have it.

My lack of confidence also extended to being unsure I had anything of value to say at all, because I didn’t think I held any strong opinions.

Then, some time in the spring of 2007, along came Birmingham blogger Pete Ashton. Really, Pete had been there all along, building Birmingham’s blogging community but I hadn’t really paid attention until I was directed to his Created in Birmingham blog by a member of AWM after following up a story for The Birmingham Post’s Media & Marketing page.

At first I ignored it as a rather amateurish publication. But soon I was intrigued.

At the time I saw it as a different model for distributing certain types of news and information. What stood out for me at the time (and I hope Marc, my editor, will forgive me for saying this) was as far as “What’s On”-style coverage of the specific creative sector in Birmingham was concerned, CiB kicked The Birmingham Post’s butt. It would take me much longer to understand how important it was in serving its community and giving it a voice.

So I followed CiB for a few months, found out what I could about its author and sent an email asking to have a chat. Pete, catching the whiff of mainstream journalism, promptly ignored me.

It took until Birmingham’s Creative City Awards in September for me to convince Pete to meet me. I had badgered Marc to take a table at the event and, as a result, I got to choose which guests to invite. Pete was the wildcard – I didn’t think he’d accept. But I was delighted when he did.

Luckily, we got on. Actually, as time has passed I think we’ve realised we’re doing similar things, just coming at them from completely different angles.

It was Pete – who many Birmingham blog scene know as an ardent recruiter of bloggers – who told me to write a blog. He had to tell me twice, because at first I said I wasn’t interested.

Although, I didn’t really know what I was doing with the thing, with hindsight I can see from the second post on I started exploring the idea of increasing audience interaction.

I swore Pete to secrecy and asked him not to tell anyone what I was doing.

I also kept it from The Birmingham Post. Not because I had plans to use it as a bitching platform, but because I was genuinely nervous about revealing more of my personality publicly. I thought I’d be a rubbish blogger.

But I didn’t understand that by linking to other people’s blogs, they would know of my existence anyway. So it wasn’t long before I got a few comments…and people were friendly.

The third post was another voyage of discovery. I outpoured about Birmingham and its support of the creative sector. As well as comments, this time Pete broke his silence and blogged about what I had said. Then things started to roll: suddenly people I didn’t know were getting in touch saying that they had read my blog. Then the Head of Communications at Birmingham City Council called to arrange a meeting to discuss my post.

The last one was particularly strange and got me thinking about the power of blogging. I could have written exactly the same thing in The Birmingham Post, which has tens of thousands more readers than my blog, but would I have got that response from the council? I am pretty sure I would not.

It was when I announced a change to my reporting role, that Marc found out about the blog. I’ll be honest, he didn’t find out from me (I hadn’t dared to tell him), but from a colleague of mine who had mentioned it to him.

I remember being told Marc knew and waiting nervously to find out what he was going to do about it. He didn’t do anything. In fact, I believe he walked past my desk and said: “like the blog”. I don’t think to this day he knows how relieved I was to hear that!

But still, the blog had an audience, and suddenly I didn’t really know what I was supposed to write about. Coming from journalism training that teaches you that there is a form and structure to the way you write, a empty blog page was a bit of a nightmare. There was no convention to cling to. It was entirely up to me what I wrote.

It was the post Blogisfear where I expressed that and, with the help of those that commented, particularly Nick Booth, I began to realise that it was only journalists who thought they always had to finish the stories by themselves. On blogs there was collaboration, often a story would remain open-ended. I started to think about why that wasn’t being applied in the same way to news.

I became engrossed in the concept of “Web 2.0” – that there were millions of people out there thinking, creating content and collaborating. I had no more ownership over content or news than they did and, in fact, it was my responsibility, as supposedly employed to be “the eyes and ears of the people” to consult them about what I was doing.

I decided to start asking people to put forward questions for people I was interviewing. This had varying degrees of success and was something I enjoyed (it’s died out a bit now as I don’t interview people all that often now).

Pete told me this was known as “crowd-sourcing” and had a wide range of potential applications for newspapers. I can not stress enough how helpful it was to have someone that I could call to have coffee with and pick their brains on how the web “worked”. I started to look at journalism in a new way through Pete’s explanations of blogging.

It was also Pete, I think, who was the first person to teach me the concept of blogging as a conversation.

I first joined the UK journalism “conversation” the day I wrote about Roy Greenslade leaving the NUJ. His decision was a fantastic catalyst for me to write about what I had been discovering for myself about the future of journalism. Some of the things I write about make me smile now (they were nearly there, but not quite), but I had some great feedback from people in the industry.

One commentor was Craig McGinty, who introduced me to the idea of papers developing online communty. It’s funny. Looking back at Craig’s comment, I remember at the time thinking that it was unlikely that any newspaper would employs a person with “the responsibility to help local groups and organisations set up blog-driven sites.” Now, after launching 35 bloggers on The Birmingham Post website, that idea seems perfectly reasonable!

The NUJ debate also showed me how blogging can take you into the heart of a community as, within a few posts, I was debating in the comments section of my blog with Donnacha Delong – the journalist that had sparked the whole debate in the first place with an article in The Journalist.

By the time Trinity Mirror’s chief executive Sly Bailey turned up at our offices, to explain why The Birmingham Post & Mail was no longer for sale, I was being watched by a number of management-types in the company… which was a little unnerving to say the least.

So much so, that I actually stopped posting for a bit, worried that I was starting to act like a monkey performing tricks to try and impress an audience.

It’s something that has continued to be on my mind when I write. I still want this to be a home for half-baked ideas and chats with colleagues, but you can not forget that what you say can make people pretty darn cross… as I was to discover a bit later into my blogging experiment.

“Let readers come to my blog with an open mind”

Nicky Getgood, founder of the hyperlocal “Digbeth is Good” blog, explains why the “all blogs are rubbish” argument is… well… rubbish:

“I’m not saying journalists should come to my, or anyone’s blog, blindly trusting it… Just that it would be better for both journalists and bloggers if they came to blogs with an open mind. Because if they don’t , bloggers get tarnished with a rather dirty brush and journalists seriously miss out.”

More, including a fantastic metaphor describing the situation, can be found on her blog.

QIT#8 I’m sick and tired of this infernal blog debate

This is something I’ll put more thought into tomorrow, but I needed to post this in order to sleep!

It was prompted by a panel discussion at the Journalism Leaders Forum today where, once again, the “blogs are rubbish and can’t be trusted” mantra was trotted out by some of the panel members.

Why? Why are we still even having this debate?

Why is it that when you talk about blogs to some journalists, the images that pop into their heads are of the celebrity-obsessed, the political rumour-mongers or the batshit insane?

Why don’t they think about the first hand accounts of conflict, the well-respected tech news sites, the local community information or those producing focused industry analysis?

(Oh, and as for that “citizen journalism“… well who needs that?)

Thoughts on running a live blog on a national news website

I have been lucky enough to be involved in many interesting projects since arriving at The Times, but I think the G20 Live Blog is the one that gave me the biggest adrenelin rush.

Running over the two days of the G20, it was like no other live blog I have been involved with. Four journalists were filing pictures and texts to the CoverItLive blog through Twitter and we had comments from tens of thousands of readers.

It was primarily run by web development editor Lucia Adams, my counterpart on news (I’m on business).

That meant that as well as being a contact point for reporters and responsible for answering readers’ questions, she was also moderating comments.

It was a pretty full-on task.  I tried to help out by offering up a few helpful links when and where I could and, if Lucia needed to step away from the computer, I would take over moderation.

Moderating a Times Online live blog is a task verging on insane. Comments are pouring in – at some points in their hundreds in a minute – and one person is responsible for allowing them on to the site.

You have to check that the comment is legally ok and that it is not offensive and inciting violence – that’s standard. But, in addition, we had a large number of comments that looked like protestors sending coded messages to each other. If anyone knows who the “Rofchester Crew” are, please let me know. Those had to be moderated too.

Yet, even after removing all these comments there were still too many coming through to get them all up on the blog. We did explain to those commenters convinced Rupert Murdoch was blocking their comments that there was a moderation process and that we weren’t able to publish everything because of the volume.

But what was the decision process behind the ones that did get on screen?

At the time, I didn’t really think about it. It wasn’t until Lucia and I started planning a talk on the subject for last week’s Social Media Camp, London, did we realise we had been applying our own unique criteria for what would get published.

This was what we were both doing:

Me: if it’s longer than a sentence, it goes in.

My justification: If someone has posted a few words, it’s unlikely to be adding anything particularly well considered and, very often, it was more likely to be abusive. Therefore, with very little time to dedicate to reading and approving comments I chose to spend my time on the ones that came in sentences.

Lucia: if the comment is adding something new, it goes in.

Her justification: Lucia decided to put the reader before the contributor. Very often different commenters would repeat the same point (“why don’t these protesters help the economy by getting jobs”, “I bet the taxpayers are going to have to pay to repair the RBS bank’s windows now, why didn’t they board them up?”). If a reader came to a live blog that was just a stream of comments all repeating the same point, it was unlikely to encourage them that the live blog had any value.

In Lucia’s mind, the role of live blog as a public service – answering questions on traffic disruption, providing latest information from the police, reporting on G20 developments, etc – was paramount. Therefore, she chose to publish those comments that best fitted that.

Who was right? I’m not sure there is a definitive answer. Certainly when we talked it though with others at SMC London, there was understanding for both points of view.

I guess part of it is about how you see the live blog. Is it primarily an editorial tool (live updates and information of the G20 as it happens), or is it a forum (where commenters are free to say whatever they like about a subject, within the law)?

One thing I found particularly fascinating was that, in the 48 hours of running the blog, we built up what we named a “flash community”.

People that enjoyed the live blog stayed and started to help us answer questions from other commenters. As this community solidified, the quality of comments improved and moderation became easier. At one point one commenter was helping Lucia to transcribe the G20 Summit speeches.

Perhaps community is too strong a word for what happened, but I like the idea that such blogs can encourage collaboration. It’s something I would like to build up with live blogs I do in the future.

An interview with an anonymous blog commenter

One of the problems with the online space is the perception of distance and anonymity that it creates. It means that people often say things in ways that are harsher than they would in real life.

But do they even realise they are coming across that way? I’ve always wondered what the people behind the spikey comments on our blogs are like.

Richard regularly comments on The Birmingham Post blogs under the pseudonym “Clifford” and, it is fair to say, has developed quite a bit of a reputation as a curmudgeon. But, despite his criticisms of The Post, he has stuck with us even when we didn’t quite get things right.

For that reason I wanted to meet him and, I have to admit with some considerable trepidation, I invited him for a tour of our offices.

The man I met in reception could not have been further from what I expected – polite, erudite, passionate and engaged in local news. For his part, he was oblivious to the image he had been portraying to others online.

Of course the wider point is that those who engage on the internet need to remember there are humans behind the handles (or bylines) and try and think about how their comments might be taken.

However, I don’t see internet arcadia arriving any time soon, so I think it’s worth journalists seeing that not all aggressive commenters are always aware how they are coming across. It is not always personal.

Whilst with us at The Post, Richard kindly agreed to go on video and talk frankly about why he commented on the blogs and how he’d want to see the newspaper develop in the future.

Richard has also told me he is considering retiring Clifford and in future wants to comment online as himself.

In total the two videos come in at around 15 minutes long. I haven’t edited them much, as so much of what Richard said interested me and I wanted to keep it for future reference!

However, if you want to jump to a particular point, here is a guide:

Video 1 (above):
00:36: On how his comments were percieved by journalists.
01:53: On pseudonyms and putting personal details online.
04:48: On political coverage in The Birmingham Post.
05:49: On the development of Birminghampost.net.
07:00: On the need for web-first publishing (and why it won’t affect newspaper sales).

Video 2 (below):
00:19: Why scale is important in making a blog feel like a community.
01:36: What makes someone comment on a blog.
02:40: What blogs would work best on a newspaper website.
03:20: Why journalists should try and engage on blogs and not worry about bad comments.
05:42: On revitalising the Birminghampost.net blogs

A thing I have just learnt: PR & audience awareness

One thing that came out of my impromptu birthday drinks last night was that I needed to record more of what I have been learning in my role as development editor of The Post.

I always think I never have time to write blog posts, but I have been assured two or three paragraphs is enough.

So here is something I have learnt in the last few minutes.

Whilst PR and advertising companies seem to have started to grasp that blogs are a good way to get your message online, they don’t seem to understand that the value in blogs is not the platform per se but the audience they develop around them.

There doesn’t really seem to be an understanding of the value of existing blogs that have a loyal and defined audience that can be tapped into.

I am seeing way too many orgnaisations that are building blogs from scratch (often as an add-on to expensive and unnecessary websites) and then expecting that people will come to them to find the information.

This means many PRs undervalue the benefits of established blogs and expect that (with a freebie trial of their product at most) they can get their message to people in these carefully nurtured communities without paying.

How exactly are blogs adding to speculation in newspapers?

Whilst pondering the email from the Telegraph employee that was published this week by Roy Greenslade (give me another day and I might have a respond to it!), a few questions came up.

I haven’t built on them, but I thought I’d list them here to get them temporarily out of the way whilst the other blog post is percolating in my head.

At any newspaper I’ve ever had experience at, one of the daily chores is to read through all the other newspapers published that day to check for good stories to follow up on. If you are a regional paper this means looking out for stories in your region and if you are on a national it’s looking for good follow-ups broken by the regionals.

If someone finds a good story they’ll put in a few calls and see if they can confirm or develop it for their publication the next day.

Isn’t this the aggregation we talk about – putting the best of what’s out there onto our own site? How does this differ from scouring blogs for stories? Is it because they are not consider “official” publications and, therefore, more likely to contain false leads or misinformation? If so how are the skewed stories that turn up in the national red-tops better than the skewed stories on a blog?

Also if we fear the media is going to turn into simple speculation and opinion, how do we justify the speculation and opinion that already exists in newspapers? Is it at a satisfactory level now, whereas the inclusion of a few extra blogs on a website might tumble it over the edge? How do we justify the stories that come out of the football transfer season, or the swathes of business and stock market speculation that seem to be produced at the weekend when the markets are closed?

Also, if newspapers are using blogs to try and host some of the conversation about their stories on their site, why is that affecting the original content? Is it the time factor it takes to write a blog? Does it really detract that much time from the act of story-writing?

Sorry, lots of questions, not many answers. That seems to be how things are at the moment.

Oooh, hello there!

It looks like you’ve found my new blog.

I’m working on this as a little project to get to grips with hosting my own site. In the next few days things will probably change, bits will break and fall off.

Please feel free to add your comments/criticisms and yes… I know, it is VERY pink!

j.

What every regional journalist needs to hear about their industry…

In this Seesmic post Kevin Anderson, Blog Editor for The Guardian and co-author of Strange Attractor, pretty much covers many of the things I’ve wanted to say, but better:

Kevin Anderson on Seesmic

Kevin Anderson on Seesmic

He is answering a question posed by Birmingham City University’s Paul Bradshaw – with recent job freezes/cuts at UK newspapers, is there any point in universities running journalism degrees training students for the newspaper and broadcasting industries?

Looking for a host to call home

On September 23 2007 I started this lil’ol blog claiming that I would “tentatively” look to the future of local and regional newspapers.

How things can change in six months!

Now, and I hope this doesn’t sound too cocky, I feel like I’m pretty much immersed in looking at the future of regional newspapers in the UK.

It has been a rapid education. For example, things that I did for the first time at SXSW include:

  • Access Twitter over mobile internet.
  • Interview people on a camcorder.
  • Live stream video over a mobile phone.
  • Blog via live streaming.
  • Upload a video to Youtube.
  • Speak on a podcast.

I know, I know, these are things I should have been doing already. Well… you’re right. In my defence, it’s taken me a while to build up the right kit in order to do much of the above.

Anyway, now I’m getting to grips with new platforms, I thought it was about time to get a host for this blog. I’ve been doing on the cheap by having it hosted free by WordPress, but I would like to have more freedom to play with the blog and I’ve been told the best way to do that is get me a host and download the lastest version of WordPress. Plus, I kinda need to learn how to manage my own website.

If this is right, then I could really do with some advice on hosts. I’m looking for something that is relatively cheap and reliable. Any ideas?