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August 25, 2007BELTWAY BLOGROLL
'Blogs Can Backfire' -- But Keep Blogging
To hear Editor & Publisher tell it, Lesson No. 1 for newspapers to remember in the online era is that "blogs can backfire."
The journalism trade publication reached that conclusion in a piece about "online flops or failures" by newspapers as they gravitate toward the Web, with online and digital editors providing the evidence for the story. Self-describd Recovering Journalist Mark Potts, who co-founded washingtonpost.com, rightly noted that "every newspaper should be trying all of these things (and many more), over and over, until they get them right."
That's especially true of blogs. So a few newspapers goofed by thinking their readers would like a reality-television blog, a real-estate blog, or a series of poorly written citizen blogs and neglected staff-written blogs. That doesn't mean blogging itself is a risky venture for newspapers to embrace. It just means newspapers need to do a better job of picking their blog subjects and bloggers.
E&P admitted up front that some blogs have been successful. But then it tried to downplay that fact by highlighting a few that haven't been successful.
Let's hope a future issue of E&P recounts the newspaper blogs and other online journalism efforts that have worked. Smart newspapermen will look to them, rather than dwelling on flops and failures, if they want to survive in the inevitable digital future.
Take the advice of Potts who is fresh off a failure called Backfence.com but still high on the Internet as a news medium. "Stretch. Take chances. Don't fear failure," Potts wrote. "Don't be discouraged. Keep trying until you get it right. The future of the industry -- and your job -- depends on it."
Dan Gillmor of the Center for Citizen Media, himself an unsuccessful Web entrepreneur, had similar thoughts when Backfence failed 15 months after it bought his venture.
"Most startups fail. That is not a bad thing," Gillmor wrote. "It is a necessary thing because a tolerance for risk -- no, a need to embrace it -- is at the core of how good things eventually come from experimentation. It’s a vital part of how we learn, and improve"
Posted by Danny | 03:42 PM
