Blogging and Journalism
I spoke to the Young Labour conference on Sunday about blogging, and whether it is entertainment or citizen journalism (I say both). I was on a panel with Keith Ng and Robyn Gallagher and I thought the session went well. There was some great questions and discussion with the audience. I quipped at the beginning that I wanted to swap water glasses with Keith in case of poison 🙂 but had nothing to worry about – it was a very good natured session.
That leads me to this blog entry a blog I read had linked to, about ten journalism rules you can and should break on your blog:
- Use partial or fake names
- Tell part of the story
- Insert opinion
- Link to a report rather than rewrite it
- Link to background rather than repeat it
- Link to the enemy
- Use second person or even first person
- Get personal
- Answer your critics or supporters
- Fix your mistakes rather than just publish a correction
At the conference I did a comparison of NZ blogs to UK newspapers. The UK is lucky enough to have ten or so daily newspapers, and each has their own niche. They are best summed up in this Yes Minister scene (which I played at the conference).
So my local comparisons were:
- Daily Telegraph – Kiwiblog
- Financial Times – Bernard Hickey
- The Times – Public Address
- The Guardian – No Right Turn
- The Independent – Tumeke!
- Daily Express – No Minister
- Daily Mail – Winston Peters
- Daily Mirror – The Standard
- The Sun – Whale Oil
People can make their own additional suggestions I am sure!