Why do you blog for your newspaper?

Well, I'll say this:

When I accepted my first writing job five years ago, it was expected I would help out with desk work and write for the paper. That's it.

When I accepted my last writing job a few years back, it was expected I shoot videos, blog, etc. This is just the expectation these days, and blogging is another way for you to get your name out. In this economy, face time is important time.

 

Cosmo

I never intended to start this as any argument. I just wanted opinion and thoughts on whether those who voluntarily blog should be compensated for their efforts. It seems the overwhelming majority says no they shouldn't. I am not talking about stories that go online as breaking news or because they don't fit in print. We certainly run plenty of those. I'm talking about the blogs where guys write Q&A's or update daily with links on their beat or feature stuff that we don't ever run online or in print.

Like I said, one guy gets 2 million page views per month for his blogs and gets no extra compensation. Another veteran guy does not blog at all and gets the same - no extra money. I merely wondered if the guy generating 2 million views should get compensated something, anything, or if he is foolish for doing all this extra work while his co-worker is content to write just for print.

Of course the bosses love all the extra online work. Why wouldn't they? They don't pay for it and the paper receives several thousand more hits than if there were no blog.

 

kickoff-time,

If somebody blogs willingly and happily on their own for a newspaper, along with doing a bunch of other work, it is usually "voluntary" only to an extent.

Writers blog because that's the new avenue for breaking news, espousing opinions, offering commentary, and hopefully, engaging readers. It is expected, or demanded, and they've been asked to do it. Or else, they feel responsible and obligated, themselves, to do it.

If they didn't, such writers would be guilt-ridden and wouldn't be able to live with themselves if they saw every other beat person doing it, and they weren't. They would, in a sense, see themselves as "getting beaten," even if they weren't actually getting beaten in any newsy sense.

It's that simple -- sort of a journalism version of keeping up with the Joneses, if you will.

The writers who don't blog simply are the ones who haven't had it asked, demanded or expected of them, and/or their status is such that they don't have to, and they and everyone else knows it.

It is not so much that such writers have decided not to blog. It's that they haven't had to decide, and make that decision.

 

No, the thread has been pretty wack from the start.

 

I don't see any problem with it for those that want to put the time into it...not that blogs take that much...you can pound out a quick update in 10-15 minutes...just adds some online presence in a less structured format...I'd like to see my chain encourage the online blogs more...not because I see huge value there, but because the public seems to enjoy them.

 

I think it's an Editor's illusion that somehow you can bang out 400 words for a blog in 10 minutes. My editor certainly liked to think that, but I made extra calls/texts/emails to verify everything just like I would have for a story that ran in the paper. Blogs are more time-consuming than writing for the paper if you put the reporting time in a separate column.

But I'm with Cosmo. You can't just close your eyes and wish yourself back to 1973. Blogs are part of what we do today, tomorrow it will be something else. Your job isn't an a la carte menu where you get to pick and choose. Would you say no to an extra sidebar on deadline? Skip a roadtrip you had been assigned? We have to adapt to technologies as they come along, and saying you just ain't gonna is going to make you unemployable.

 

I'm glad we're on the same page. My head almost exploded out of rage when I read the initial post.

 

For me, I see blogs as a space to share a quick opinion or maybe to express some interesting tidbits you've picked up that simply didn't find their way into the print version. Not a spot for the hard-hitting stuff, but for the mildly-interesting behind the scenes events that people like to hear about. You can get that done in 10-15 minutes.

 

You didn't write this with a straight face, did you? As Johnny Mac would say, and which in itself is getting tired, "You can not be serious!!"

 

Agreed.

Get an e-mail about a fundraiser or community-service event a team's going to hold? I put it on the blog, particularly if it's too late to mention in the paper (like one I received yesterday). Find out about a local alum who won an award in college? On the blog immediately, and in the weekly college roundup later.

I also sometimes do what I call "dumping out my notebook" posts after games when interesting things happened that didn't get into the story. I seem to mention pets in a lot of those. ;D

I haven't broken a lot of news on the blog -- we have an update section on our website for that -- but it's been a good supplement to the coverage and hasn't taken a lot of extra time.

 

We blog for no extra compensation because we never drew a line and resisted. It's no different than getting a job at a 40,000 circulation daily that shares your NFL, NBA, NHL or MLB stories with the 35,000 circulation daily it also owns 20 miles away, and the 12,000 daily 10 miles beyond that. That's 87,000 total circulation, but you still get paid the 40,000 circ's rate.
And as for Reiss leaving Globe? We all should be overjoyed, the same as pro athletes are every time any of them gets a big contract.
Like somebody else noted: We don't even read our print editions any more.
So why not work for a Web-based entity?

 

I work 40 hours a week.

If I spend one hour blogging, that's an hour less I spend doing something else. Doesn't matter to me.

If you are working more hours and getting paid for more, then there's no problem.

If you are working more hours and aren't, either:

1) You are in management and need to negotiate for more pay to blog.
or
2) You are working for free of your own volition, in which case stop complaining.