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Three Simple Rules About Blogging Ethics and Money

April 4, 2012 By

Yesterday’s clarification by Judge Marco A. Hernandez about treating bloggers as journalists points out the need for bloggers to follow basic ethical principles, especially as it relates to accepting money or requiring payment for our services.

Oregon blogger Crystal Cox had been sued for defamation — and lost — after writing blog posts that were critical of Obsidian Financial Group and its co-founder, Kevin Padrick. Cox had claimed she was a journalist and used Oregon’s Media Shield Law as her defense. But Hernandez decided she wasn’t a journalist at all.Roll of money

The reason she lost, the reason she was deemed to be not “media,” was that she basically tried to get Obsidian to pay her to repair the damage she was causing. As Hernandez wrote: [Read more...]

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    Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Headline : Three Simple Rules About Blogging Ethics and Money  •  Keywords : blogging, citizen journalism, citizen journalists, money, ethics  • 
    Filed Under: Blog Writing, Blogging, Citizen Journalism, Newspapers, Traditional Media, Writing Tagged With: , , , ,

    US Judge Says Bloggers Are Journalists Again

    April 3, 2012 By

    Hooray, bloggers are real journalists again! Just not one in particular.

    Back in December 2011, we learned that a U.S. district court judge had ruled that bloggers in Oregon are not part of the media, and therefore, are not protected by Oregon’s media shield laws.

    Fireworks

    This may or may not have happened after Judge Hernandez's clarification

    But Judge Marco A. Hernandez has clarified that he did not mean for his ruling to apply to all bloggers, or at least all Oregon bloggers, only to Crystal Cox.

    Cox had been writing critical blog posts about Obsidian Financial Group and co-founder Kevin Padrick, and was sued for defamation by the firm. Cox lost her case after trying to use Oregon’s media shield law as her defense. Hernandez had also awarded Padrick $2.5 million. [Read more...]

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      Headline : US Judge Says Bloggers Are Journalists Again  •  Keywords : citizen journalism, citizen journalist, social media, blogging, news, traditional media, mainstream media, Crystal Cox  •  Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  • 
      Filed Under: Blog Writing, Blogging, Citizen Journalism, Traditional Media, Writing Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

      U.S. Court Declares Bloggers Second Class Citizens, Not Part of Media

      December 7, 2011 By

      Update: Judge Marco A. Hernandez has since clarified his ruling on this matter, and stated that his ruling was only meant to apply to Crystal Cox, and not all bloggers. Read my latest blog post for the rest of the story.

      A U.S. district court just ruled that bloggers — at least bloggers in Oregon — are not part of the media, and therefore, not protected by Oregon’s media shield laws.

      As a citizen journalist, this scares the bejeezus out of me. If you’re a blogger of any kind, it should worry you too.

      I’ve been clamoring for years that bloggers are citizen journalists. That is, we should be entitled to the same First Amendment protections, the same access, and the same considerations that newspaper, TV, and radio reporters get. At the same time, it means that bloggers need to act like journalists: with great power comes great responsibility, etcetera, etcetera.Handcuffs

      But a U.S. District Court judge in Portland, Oregon just set us back to pre-1990 days when he ruled against Crystal Cox, a blogger, after she was sued by Obsidian Finance Group for defamation over blog posts that criticized the firm and co-founder Kevin Padrick. The judge also awarded Padrick $2.5 million.

      In his ruling, the judge wrote:

      . . . although defendant is a self-proclaimed “investigative blogger” and defines herself as “media,” the record fails to show that she is affiliated with any newspaper, magazine, periodical, book, pamphlet, news service, wire service, news or feature syndicate, broadcast station or network, or cable television system. Thus, she is not entitled to the protections of the law.

      Seriously? Pamphlets? In other words, if she had slapped together an 8-page booklet at Fedex/Kinko’s, she would have been protected?

      Whether this is a problem with the judge not understanding the Internet, or — more likely — Oregon having a media shield law that doesn’t reflect 21st century technology, this may have a chilling effect on bloggers, even in states with media shield laws.

      As it stands now, Oregon’s media shield law says:

      No person connected with, employed by or engaged in any medium of communication to the public shall be required by … a judicial officer … to disclose, by subpoena or otherwise … [t]he source of any published or unpublished information obtained by the person in the course of gathering, receiving or processing information for any medium of communication to the public[.]

      Seems comprehensive enough: any medium of communication to the public strikes me as anything from newspapers to TV to radio to the Internet (including blogs). But when someone learned about the Internet from the Ted Stevens’ School of Technology, they may not realize that the Internet is far more evolved than pamphlets.

      Compare Oregon’s law to Washington’s media shield law:

      Any newspaper, magazine or other periodical, book publisher, news agency, wire service, radio or television station or network, cable or satellite station or network, or audio or audiovisual production company, or any entity that is in the regular business of news gathering and disseminating news or information to the public by any means, including, but not limited to, print, broadcast, photographic, mechanical, internet, or electronic distribution;

      (Read more about Washington’s media shield law here.)

      Washington at least spells out what they consider to be the media. But any state that has not included “the Internet” in their shield laws may be able to exclude bloggers from the people who should be protected.

      In other words, if you are a pamphleteer, you’re protected. If you type something on a typewriter, reproduce it on a mimeograph machine, and staple everything together by hand, you’re protected by the First Amendment. But if you publish the biggest online-only newspaper, and have for the last fifteen years, tough. You’re not protected by media shield laws in Oregon, or several other states.

      This will have a chilling effect on your rights as a journalist, as the government can impose sanctions on bloggers and Internet-based writers, simply by declaring they are not part of the protected media.

      Photo credit: Tourettte (Flickr)

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        About : Blogging, citizen journalism, and media shield laws  •  Accountable Person : Erik Deckers  •  Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Content Rating : PG  •  Copyright Holder : Professional Blog Service  •  Copyright Year : 2011  •  Creator : Erik Deckers  •  Genre : Non-fiction  •  Headline : U.S. Court Declares Bloggers Second Class Citizens, Not Part of Media  •  Keywords : blogging, citizen journalism, blogger, Oregon, media shield law, Washington  •  Source Organization : Professional Blog Service  •  Version : 1.0  • 
        Filed Under: Blogging, Citizen Journalism, News, Newspapers, Radio, Social Media, Television, Traditional Media, Writing Tagged With: , , , , ,

        Four Online Predictions for 2012

        December 7, 2011 By

        Okay, I’m going to jump on the trends bandwagon and offer yet another online predictions blog post where I polish my crystal ball and predict the future of social media. I think I have a decent track record going for me. In 2010, I predicted that Android sales were going to outpace iPhones, and I was only six months late on that (it finally happened earlier this year). Of course, I also said SMS would become obsolete, and that ain’t happening any time soon, so I’m batting .500.

        Emboldened by my previous success — and with a promise to Allison Carter (@allisonlcarter) that this list will not mention mobile or geo-location networks — here are my four predictions for 2012.Crystal ball

        1. An even bigger focus on quality of written content.

        Thanks to Google Panda, the traditional SEO techniques of on-site optimization and backlinking is not as effective or important as it once was. Now, Panda measures things like bounce rate and time on site. In other words, if your site sucks, your rankings will drop. If your site is good, your rankings will rise.

        Want to improve your rankings? Improve the quality of your content, especially your writing. The better your writing is, the longer people will stick around.

        We’ll see a bigger push for web designers and bloggers to have better writing, not just a bunch of schlocky writing. So for anyone who has been in the quantity-over-quality camp of blog writing, you’re going to have a tough time of it in 2012.

        2. Disruption will be the watchword, and the way to make money.

        We’re already seeing how social media, broadband, and mobile phones are disrupting some middle men businesses. People are canceling their cable and satellite TV, and instead watching videos on Netflix and Hulu. We’re getting local news from local bloggers, or national news from each other, instead of TV news and newspapers. I even quit listening to local commercial radio, choosing instead to listen to an awesome public radio station out of Louisville, KY. Traditional media has been disrupted, but that’s not all.

        We’ll continue to see more middle men being disrupted by fast phones and social media — look for advertising and PR agencies, publishers, banks, and credit card companies to take a big hit as people figure out how to circumvent these gatekeepers. Look for other people who figure it out to make a buttload of money being the disruptions, or taking advantage of the new disruptions.

        (Case in point, Dwolla, which only charges $.25 per transaction for anything over $10 (under $10 is free), and is currently on course to move about $350 million per year.)

        3. Citizen journalism will continue to grow and become more important.

        Newspapers have taken a big hit in the last 10 years, thanks to online media — a disruption that’s been years in the making — but people still want local news. The newspapers that will survive and thrive will be the dailies in smaller cities, and the weeklies in small towns. In the big cities, we’ll see more citizen journalism as people report on their local stories. More Twitpics, more cell phone videos, more stories that are pieced together through people acting like their own journalists.

        I would love to see some news-minded entrepreneur figure out a way to gather all of this content and monetize it. While that may not happen in 2012, look for online-only newspapers like The American Reporter to pick up the slack of the big city papers, and local news outlets like Patch to become more widespread and easier to use.

        We’re going to see more news, commentary, sports, etc. covered up by real people, not professional journalists. I also think we’ll see smaller print newspapers get smarter about their online efforts, and even TV stations to continue to embrace the web. Could we also see someone start an Internet-only TV news style of website?

        4. Teenagers will begin to leave Facebook in droves.

        Their moms and dads are on Facebook. Their grandparents are on Facebook. The whole point behind Facebook was it was a place to go where you could be cool. And as everyone knows, it’s impossible to be cool when your parents are around. They’re moving to other networks where their parents are not. Even Ben Bajarin (@benbajarin) of Time Magazine is questioning whether it’s the beginning of the end for Facebook. (Hint: No, not yet. But don’t be surprised if it happens one day far off into the future.)

        Where they’re all going is still unknown. MySpace is still popular among teenagers. YouTube is actually the second biggest network among teenagers (Facebook is still first). And the gaming console networks are seeing a big uptick. But when all the stats are showing that 1 in 5 teenagers are leaving Facebook, it’s time for marketers to stop with this “social media is for young people” nonsense and recognize that the parents and grandparents are embracing it more easily now.

        Photo credit: JasonLangheine (Flickr)

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          About : Online predictions  •  Accountable Person : Erik Deckers  •  Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Content Rating : G  •  Copyright Holder : Professional Blog Service  •  Copyright Year : 2011  •  Creator : Erik Deckers  •  Editor : Erik Deckers  •  Genre : Non-fiction  •  Headline : Four Online Predictions for 2012  •  Keywords : predictions, social media, citizen journalism, Facebook, disruption, marketing  •  Mentions : Facebook, blogging, social media, citizen journalism  •  Publisher : Professional Blog Service  •  Source Organization : Professional Blog Service  •  Version : 1.0  • 
          Filed Under: Blog Writing, Blogging, Business Blogging Content, Citizen Journalism, Corporate Blogging, Facebook, Marketing, Newspapers, Radio, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Social Networks, Television, Traditional Media, Writing Tagged With: , , , , ,

          Is Blogging Killing Newspapers, or are Newspapers Helping Blogs?

          December 16, 2010 By

          Blogging isn’t hurting newspapers. Newspapers are helping blogs grow.

          Many months ago, someone named Stephen* presented me with an interest question to my statement about whether blogging was killing newspapers. He said that maybe it wasn’t that blogging was killing newspapers, but rather it was the decline of the quality of newspapers that have lead to an increase in blogging.

          The front page of the Indianapolis Star announcing Barack Obama's election

          The Indianapolis Star from November 5, 2008

          Over the past several years, I’ve seen how Gannett (owners of USA Today) have decimated the local reporting staff at the Indianapolis Star. They get rid of people who know how to report and write (and yes, there’s a difference). They get rid of well-known writers that bring regular readers to the paper in favor of a couple of recent college grads who — together — make up 75% of the salary of the original writer. They have bombed out the newsroom, eliminated business writers, booted popular columnists, and slashed the different culture and dining critics. To add insult to injury, the design work for the Indianapolis Star will soon be moved to Louisville. All we’re left with is a sterilized husk of what was once an awesome newspaper.

          The Indianapolis Star, when it was run by the Pulliam family, actually won the Pulitzer Prize in 1975, for its outstanding reporting in exposing police corruption in 1974. (The Indianapolis Star, when it has been run by Gannett has, well, not.) I’ve been reading the book by Dick Cady, one of the reporters who helped break the police corruption story wide open, and I sometimes wonder if I’m reading about the same newspaper.

          I’m reading a newspaper that wasn’t afraid to go up against local law enforcement for the sake of truth, justice, and the American way. Meanwhile, I’m left with a newspaper whose median years of newsroom experience is slowly drifting toward the single digits.

          And yet Gannett can’t figure out why newspaper ad revenue is dropping like a rock. I’ll tell you why: no one wants to read the Indianapolis edition of USA Today. But that’s what we’ll be left with in less than five years (some former Indy Star readers and employees think five years is overly optimistic).

          Blogging is not to blame for this. Blogging has not harmed the Indianapolis Star. Blogging did not make Gannett fire people like columnists Ruth Holladay or Lori Borgman, or business writers like John Ketzenberger. Blogging did not kill what was actually a profit-making online venture by replacing the editor with someone much younger.

          Instead, blogging is picking up the pieces that Gannett and other big-city newspapers are dropping whenever they gut their newsrooms yet again.

          There’s a great blog on the southeast side of Indianapolis called (what else?) Southeast Indianapolis Communities. It’s a simple little blog that has nothing but news for the southeast side of town. They’re covering the news and events that the Indy Star won’t and can’t cover. They’re doing the kind of reporting that the Star doesn’t have the staff, time, or even city knowledge to adequately write about.

          Basically, Southeast Indianapolis Communities is filling the gap left by Gannett’s mishandling of the Indianapolis Star, and they’re doing a great job. In this case, SIC hasn’t hurt the Star. Rather, the growing crappiness of the Star is helping the SIC.

          What about your newspaper in your city? Is your newspaper holding on, or are you seeing the same decimation and ruin that we’re seeing in Indianapolis? Tell us about your city’s newspaper and if you’re seeing any local blogs picking up the slack. (And tell us about those too.)

          My book, Branding Yourself: How to Use Social Media to Invent or Reinvent Yourself (affiliate link), is available for pre-order on Amazon.com. I wrote it with my good friend, Kyle Lacy, who I also helped write Twitter Marketing For Dummies (another affiliate link).

          Stephen, I can’t find the post where you commented with this great insight. If you’re out there, let me know who you are, so I can at least link to a Twitter page or your blog, or something.

          Photo credit: afagen (Flickr)

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            Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Headline : Is Blogging Killing Newspapers, or are Newspapers Helping Blogs?  •  Keywords : blog writing, bloggers, blogging, citizen journalism, mainstream media, newspapers, traditional media  • 
            Filed Under: Billboards, Blogging, Newspapers, Radio, Television, Traditional Media Tagged With: , , , , , ,

            Social Media Makes Us Citizen Journalists

            September 15, 2010 By

            Social media doesn’t just make us consumers of news, it makes us part of the news.

            We’re no longer relying on the mainstream media to inform us. In many cases, we’re reporting it ourselves, or at the very least, spreading it beyond the traditional media’s original reach. I can’t count the number of stories I heard about on Twitter, Facebook, or a friend asking me, “hey, did you just hear about __________?”

            In some cases, it’s just a link that points back to a story in an online newspaper. It could be a tweet from @IndyStar, it could be a retweet of a story in another part of the world, or it could even be a blogger reporting on news with national ramifications that is still only making ripples in their local media.

            My point is we are starting to create our own media. While the mainstream media may sneer and look down their noses at bloggers as citizen journalists, the fact is they are coming up with some interesting stories, often breaking the news before the professionals.

            In fact, the Associated Press has gone so far as to not only acknowledged the existence of bloggers, but will even now cite them as a source.

            “We should provide attribution whether the other organization is a newspaper, website, broadcaster or blog; whether or not it’s U.S. based; and whether or not it’s an AP member or subscriber,” said the Associated Press’ September 1 online press release.

            In other words, they may not like it, but they have to follow their own rules about us.

            This is just one more indication that citizen journalists are becoming more important to informing our communities and discussing the things the professionals don’t. This is also one more reason why citizen journalists need to act like real journalists, and not the half-assed rabble rousers they assume us to be.

            Want more proof that citizen journalism is continuing to grow? There are a growing number of sites that aggregate our citizen journalist news for us, so we can read more stories about our favorite topics in one location.

            • Newsvine: Community driven news. They reprint wire content, and some members have their own blogs. This one has all the same sections as a traditional newspaper.
            • NowPublic: A citizen journalist network where users do their own reporting, upload videos and audio.
            • The American Reporter: The Internet’s first original content alternative daily newspaper. They publish news from journalists and citizen journalists from around the world. They were the first to break the story about the A.A. Milne estate suing Disney for royalties of Winnie the Pooh. (Disclosure: I have been AR’s humor columnist since 1997.)
            • SB Nation: A collection of sports news, blogs, and scores. It’s done in conjunction with Yahoo Sports, but also a collection of 278 sports blogs from around the country. It’s easy to see a single network — ESPN, Sports Illustrated — covering sports this thoroughly, but SB Nation is able to put it together for a fraction of the cost.
            • Autospies: A collection of automotive news organized by and for automotive enthusiasts. If you are an automotive professional, you may hear breaking news here before you get it in your other industry publications.
            • Tip’d: A finance, investing, and business site that works like Digg. You read a story, “tip” it, and then discuss it.
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              About : citizen journalism  •  Accountable Person : Erik Deckers  •  Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Content Rating : G  •  Copyright Holder : Professional Blog Service  •  Copyright Year : 2010  •  Headline : Social Media Makes Us Citizen Journalists  •  Keywords : citizen journalism, citizen journalist, social media, blogging, news, traditional media, mainstream media  • 
              Filed Under: Blog Writing, Blogging, crisis communication, Social Media, Traditional Media, Writing Tagged With: , , , , ,

              Have Bad Newspapers Increased the Need for Blogging?

              August 6, 2010 By

              I had a friend respond to one of my previous blog posts with an interesting reverse on my previous statement:

              Is blogging really killing newspapers? Or is it that the decline in the quality of newspapers has lead to an increase in blogging?

              This really has become a chicken-or-egg problem for me. Which cause is leading to what effect? Has it really been that blogging is killing newspapers, because people would rather get their news online? Or has the continual firing of local writers and publishing the national news wires meant that people are abandoning their newspapers for more local news?

              I have always had a complaint about the Indianapolis Star, our local paper, which seems to be doing everything they can to get rid of their local writers. They’ve fired many of their local columnists and beat reporters, and they even got rid of their local blogger program. Last year, they worked with local bloggers to write about their local news — their suburbs, neighborhoods, and towns — and it was one of the most popular sections of the online newspaper. But they discontinued the practice, and readership declined once again.

              Now, these dips on the chart are not the times they released their local bloggers. In fact, this is only a basic look at readership, and not even a totally accurate one. (Compete.com can tell us trends, not a completely accurate look, like you would get with an analytics package, like Yahoo Analytics or Google Analytics.)

              But if I were the Indy Star, I would try anything to get rid of those dips. If local bloggers are able to attract readers, get them. If local writers covering local news brings in subscribers, hire them, and lay off the upper management who keep making these poor decisions.

              I don’t think it’s the bloggers who are causing the drop. But rather, whatever is making people abandon their online local newspaper is what’s driving them to get their news from other sources.

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                Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Headline : Have Bad Newspapers Increased the Need for Blogging?  •  Keywords : blogging, citizen journalism, mainstream media, newspapers  • 
                Filed Under: Blog Writing, Traditional Media, Writing Tagged With: , , ,

                The Growing Need for Bloggers as Citizen Journalists

                April 6, 2010 By
                Haiti

                Two bits of interesting news this past month for bloggers who consider themselves journalists:

                I’ve been preaching for a while that bloggers are citizen journalists. And now we get confirmation that 52% of us believe it to be true, and that 61% of Americans are possible readers. Plus — and this is a big one — the last-reported numbers from Technorati are that 77% of all Internet users read a blog of some kind.

                The time is ripe for bloggers to begin thinking of themselves as citizen journalists. Social media is making it so much easier for us to not only see the news, but report it as well.

                Social media is breaking the news before the news.

                We’ve seen several instances where social media broke news stories before mainstream media picked it up. The three most notable examples have been:

                1. The first images coming out of Haiti were on Twitter, because mainstream media couldn’t get on the ground. People with cell phones and spotty wifi were sending photos to Twitter and Facebook, and we were spreading them around like wildfire. My family was particularly interested in one set of missionaries in Port-au-Print, and @TroyLiveSay was providing information that we weren’t getting anywhere else.
                2. Moments after the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, news was spreading on Twitter before the shots had even stopped.
                3. When the US Airways flight landed in the Hudson last year, news had broken on Twitter 15 minutes before the first news reports hit the airwaves.

                While none of these examples show a failing of the mainstream media, they show that in many cases, people reporting on incidents that happened nearby ended up being first just because of the widespread nature of the tools.

                I’ve been playing with Posterous as a possible blogging platform for rapid response and crisis communication professionals. You email your blogs to your email address (it’s actually just post@posterous.com), your subject line is your headline, you attach any photos, type and format your content in your text box, and voila! You’ve got a blog post sent from your smart phone.

                And I totally geeked out a few days ago, when Chris Brogan showed how you can take photos on your digital camera, and immediately have them uploaded to your favorite file sharing service, with something the size of a quarter and something else the size of a pocket calculator.

                My advice? If you have even the slightest inclination of being a citizen journalist, start taking your blogging seriously. You don’t have to change the scope of your blog, your writing style, or even the quality of your writing.

                Just do it with intentionality. As hard as it may be to explain (this is the 6th time I’ve written this paragraph), report your news for posterity. Do it with a sense of responsibility and gravitas. When you see something happening, take photos and upload them to Flickr or Picasa. Send tweets. Email news to your blog. Be a source of information to your community. Don’t just repeat what you’ve seen, report on it.

                Even something as simple as reporting a small incident you just witnessed can sometimes lead to national or even international stories, or you may be the lone voice that speaks for someone who can’t do it themselves.

                While I’m not suggesting we all change our focus and become word slingers, I am suggesting we adopt the mindset that we’re just as good as the professionals who, I’m sorry to say, just aren’t as quick as the “ordinary citizens” armed with nothing more than cell phones and a serious case of Twitter-thumbs.

                Related posts:
                Rules for Being a Media Blogger
                Defining Two Types of Crisis Communication
                Five Things Newspapers Can Teach Us About Blogging
                What Stylebook Should Bloggers Use?

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                  Accountable Person : Erik Deckers  •  Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Content Rating : G  •  Copyright Holder : Professional Blog Service  •  Copyright Year : 2010  •  Creator : Erik Deckers  •  Editor : Erik Deckers  •  Genre : Non-fiction  •  Headline : The Growing Need for Bloggers as Citizen Journalists  •  Keywords : blogging, citizen journalism, citizen journalists, crisis communication, earthquake, Haiti, news, photo sharing, Chris Brogan  •  Publisher : Professional Blog Service  •  Version : 1.0  • 
                  Filed Under: Communication, crisis communication, Social Media, Tools, Traditional Media, Twitter, Writing Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

                  Rules for Being a Media Blogger

                  December 29, 2009 By
                  Indy 500 Media Center

                  This was originally posted at the DeckersMarketing.com blog on May 28, 2009.

                  I was really honored to be selected as a media blogger for the Indianapolis 500 this year (I’m covering it at my Laughing Stalk humor blog). I’m sitting up here with a lot of local talent, although there are a lot of empty seats right now (I’m in Dennis Neal’s seat from WLW radio in Cincinnati).Indy 500 Media Center

                  I learned a long time ago that there are a couple of unwritten (and written) rules for media people. And if you’re interested in being a guest blogger for a sports team or major event, you need to follow these rules. They’re the same ones the big-J Journalists follow every day. (“Big-J Journalist” implies that these people are serious journalists who make their living writing and producing important work. These guys look down on bloggers, because we’re not serious or well accepted in journalistic circles.)

                    1. Never geek out. You were probably invited because you’ve got a passion for writing and for the team you’re covering. However, you’re the media now. You’re not a fanboy who bumped into your favorite player at a McDonald’s. Play it cool, be mature, and don’t try to be their buddy. You’re there to get a story, just like the real Journalists (see, I even used a big J), so act your age and get it done.

                   

                    1. Never ask for autographs or photos. My friend Amanda, who writes Red Hot Mama, the Cincinnati Reds/National League Central fan blog, said she once tried to get some media credentials for a Reds game, and was told it would never happen. It seems the year before, they allowed a blogger into the locker room, but the guy geeked out and asked for autographs and photos with the players. The guy turned into a total fanboy and gave the PR staff the only reason they would ever need to not invite bloggers to cover the team again. Now, we can argue the Reds are missing some great PR and coverage, but until that PR director leaves, he’s willing to give it up to avoid the hassles and headaches.

                   

                    1. Blogging is not big-J Journalism. And it never will be if you don’t act like it. Sure there are writers like Chris Brogan, Jason Falls, and even political writers like Matt Drudge and the Daily Kos are all professional bloggers and speakers. They take their reputations and brands seriously, and work hard to make blogging an accepted form of media. If you’re going to be a serious blogger — and maybe we should start calling ourselves big-B Bloggers — write your blog as if you have a serious brand to promote.

                   

                  1. On the other hand, you’re not there to write fluff either. Don’t feel like you have to be the company yes man on anything. I was eating lunch today with a reporter who had also been a blogger for his newspaper. He wrote a not-so-nice post about one of the racers and his wife last year, and was griped at by the racer’s staff via email. While he is no longer blogging for his paper, he is still employed by them. He still writes critical pieces if he needs to, and realizes he’s not there to be the PR mouthpiece of the racers or their teams. The takeaway: if you find or see something that could be seen as negative, write about it anyway. Do it respectfully, and treat it like a big-J Journalist would. Write the facts, keep your opinion out of it, and be a professional.

                   

                  Bloggers are still getting a bad rap from most of the mainstream media as being an unreliable source of news. And it will be, until we change our reputation and quality of work. That, and when the newspapers all go out of business, and network news is replaced by cable news and, well, blogs.

                  Until that time, as you grow your reputation and reach as a quality Big-B Blogger, practice journalistic techniques. Read books on newspaper writing (it’s still the gold standard of writing quality and ability), use Associated Press writing style, and study as many newspaper writers as you can.

                  But most importantly, for the love of God, don’t geek out.

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                    Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Headline : Rules for Being a Media Blogger  •  Keywords : media blogger, citizen journalism, blogging  • 
                    Filed Under: Blog Writing, Blogging, Citizen Journalism, Communication, Marketing, Social Media, Sports Marketing, Traditional Media, Writing Tagged With: , , , ,