MediaVidea

Highlights from a interview of Felix Salmon, who is a journalist for Reuters, who explains the positive effect blogging has had on journalists:

1. I have a more conversational voice on the blog.

I think of any given post as being part of a much broader conversation between bloggers and between me and my readers. Nearly all of my posts are reactions to something elsewhere online, and I try to be as generous as I can with links.

2. The main impact I think is the way that blog reporting can iterate.

In traditional media, you report the story and then you publish it; with blogs, you can start with something much less fully formed and then come back at it over time in many ways and from many angles.

3. Blogs can also geek out in a way that traditional journalists can’t. 

There’s no space constraint online, and so if I want to spend 5,000 words writing about vulture funds, or a reporter at HuffPo wants to spend 4,000 words getting into the weeds of regulatory reform, they can.

4. Blogging has clearly given readers a much wider range of news sources to choose from.

(and) it’s great that readers are no longer confined to getting their news from a handful of outlets. 

5. How Blogging is better than Twitter.

 Professional journalists should always be beholden to high standards of professionalism, ethics, and accuracy. Random people with a Twitter account, not so much.