Recently in Blogging Category

And so, e-mails and tweets arrive asking what I think of the exposure of anonymous police blogger NightJack by The Times. I think you should probably read the couple of compilations of links that Judith has done on journalism.co.uk and her own blog. And I think you should probably read what another anonymous police blogger, PC Bloggs says about it. And you should remember that The Times has form here.

But if you want to know what I, personally, think, here it is:

Two Flight Global bloggers using video to round up day one of the Paris Air Show:

Hectic day. Just wanted to link a couple of things I've been involved with:

• Helped get a new blog live for Estates Gazette
• Got involved in an interesting discussion over the nature of blogging over on my World of Warcraft blog

Hope tomorrow's calmer...

Friday night saw me at #TweetupLondon, an impromptu drinkies session after the Somesso 09 conference. Good beer, good conversation and a good time.

An e-mail dropped into my inbox last week, encouraging me to have a peek at FT Arena, a blog on the Financial Times site that allows readers to join in a debate on the editorial before it's published.

Karl is fond of sharing the story from his days as editor of Computer Weekly. They had a guest editor for one issue, who sat in on various editorial conferences, an eye-opening experience for him. Much of the material in those discussions never made it into the magazine - and that seemed like a loss to him.

I've long wanted to see us do a real "behind the scenes" blog, sharing the though-processes behind the creation of an issue with the readers - and involving them in that process. Arena does exactly that for a very specific section of the FT, and does it pretty well. At the moment comments on posts vary between around 20 down to none. But it's an interesting experiment, and I wonder how long it will before other titles follow suit.

Hi everyone, I'm Stuart Clarke (or Disco Stu or Maverick depending on where you meet me), Community Editor at Flightglobal.com, and I'm here to convince you that this is the most exciting time to work in journalism.

Okay, so maybe I am mixing up exciting with uncertain, but to me this is a fascinating period in journalism where, as Tim Relf suggests, the journalist can be free to bring in their personality to interact directly with their users, using the latest technologies to inform in new and exciting ways.

My job revolves around daily interaction with our audience and this relationship can be exciting and exasperating in equal measure, but it can never be characterised as dull. Working as a Community Editor is no different than speaking to people down the pub with similar interests so you have to be open to criticism, transparent in the debate and always promoting collaboration.

For too long there has been an assumption that we as news providers are the authority, that user generated content (a term that I think sounds like some kind of science experiment) is dismissed as inaccurate hullabaloo that exists outside or on the fringes of the news agenda.  

The community though is that agenda; they are our audience that buys our products or are affected by the latest news. You don't write things in the hope that one person out there will like it, so what is the problem with listening to the hopes and concerns of the people you are providing for to form what you write about.

Guest blogger: Tim Relf, Farmers Weekly

Firstly, an apology.

Adam asked me, as a fellow RBI-er, to post on how technology is allowing new ways of working to emerge.

But I'd like to go off piste, because I figure he's away so won't be able to tell me off until he gets back.

What I'd like to talk about is personality - and how, in particular, blogging has allowed a lot of journalists to find theirs again.

When I began my career, personality was largely irrelevant. I - like my colleagues - was encouraged to be anonymous. It was the story that counted, not the person who happened to write it.

What mattered - and this was especially true in business journalism - was the name of the mag, not the journalist. That was what people believed in, engaged with, paid for.

With the exception of a few columnists employed to be the face of predictably polarised views, most journalists remained in the background. They got a byline if they were lucky.

Blogging has changed that. It's put the personality back into journalists who forgot they had it.

Journalists, many of whom had forgotten how to have an opinion, are now being actively encouraged to express themselves and they're relishing it. They've found a voice, and readers are loving it.

Blogs can be all sorts of things (no one seems to have nailed a conclusive definition yet), but the ones I most enjoy are those which one person writes because it's that person's preoccupations, personality and voice that comes through. Individuality counts.