Good interview in cyberjournalist.net with Wall Street Journal tech reporter Nick Wingfield, telling how journalists use blogs for sources for information. He mentions that journalists and bloggers can help each other out at times. Sometimes the MSM will break the story first and the bloggers will react or vice versa, in a sort of complimentary way.
My favourite quote:
“Journalists don’t flog the blog” – they see blogs as useful websites. “The term `blogs’ is meaningless in a way,” Wingfield says. “Once they’ve become a useful tool, they’re really just a bunch of websites with useful information.
What is becoming apparant to me (and this is may sound like I’m stating the obvious) is that the majority of journalists I come across blogging or using blogs are all technology orientated. I rarely see many journalists blogging about something non-technical. Perhaps it’s just me not looking in the right places. If any one does know of any, please point me in their direction.
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Stephen is a communications consultant based out of the UK. You can connect with him on Twitter or check out his LinkedIn profile. | Email Stephen
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Michael
Aye, I’m also sure that bloggers’ influence is growing in journalism: Not only by providing useful insider information to pick up by journalists, but also (for me even more important) as „watchblogs“.
No idea if you have some similar blogs in the UK – a good example from Germany is http://www.bildblog.de. It’s an amazing blog, revealing biased articles, half-truths and simple mistakes in Germany’s biggest tabloid paper BILD (somehow comparable to Britain’s SUN).
The four makers say: „A newspaper getting as much attention as BILD has a certain responsibility, particularly for their readers. The BILD makers often do not comply with this responsibility.“
According to the bloggers, http://www.bildblog.de is read by 15,000 visitors a day.