Cup half full for newspaper blogging

No matter what Tom Mangan thinks
, I don’t question his
intelligence. Not /seriously/, anyway. Just the other day, he posted a
nice article
about how blogs can be used to bring news to the suburbs.

He proposes that newspapers set up blogs so residents themselves can
cover the news that the newspaper doesn’t. Intriguing.

Here in Peoria, we’ve got a problem with the daily newspaper covering
the far ‘burbs to the detriment of city news. Perhaps someone should
start of blog that not only focuses on news in Peoria, but also chides
the daily newspaper to pick up its coverage of its core audience. Oh,
yeah. That’s right. Someone did. Silly me.

Blogs bring two things to newspapers.

1. The technology itself. I used to be in charge of updating the /Peoria
Times-Observer’s/ Web site. What a horrible experience. This pre-fab
newspaper Website service they used had the most horrible interface
imaginable. Ugh. It took the entire day to post the articles and photos
from one 16-page issue. In all fairness, the /PTO’s/ crappy computers
also slowed the process, too.

Last month, the Journal Star was having a hard time getting it’s
articles posted on their own site. Apparently, they lacked the
technology to take an article written on one computer and post it on the
Internet from a second computer. Apparently, they never heard of
sneakerware. I can take any file and post it on the net from any
computer that is connected to the Internet.

Blogging is an easy way to create a newspaper Website. Much like desktop
publishing made it easier for small weekly and monthly newspapers to
stay in business, Movable Type and pMachine
will make it easier to create a newspaper Website.
Look here to see how it can be done.

2. The culture. Blogging produces a different type of journalism. It’s
immediate. It’s personal. It’s top up and not bottom down. It’s fact
checked by its own readers. It’s public journalism
. It’s not compatible
with what mainstream newspapers are all about. Newspapers can mimic the
conventions of blogging ,
but most will not adopt real blogging because it requires relinquishing
editorial control over the process. Newspapers want control over every
single word that appears in their pages. That’s why so many newspaper
people have their own sometimes anonymous blogs.

The day I know a newspaper is sponsoring a /real blog/ is when I see one
call an elected official an “asshat.”