Mike’s Points

Courtesy of The Chicago Daily News, here’s a link to some great journalism reporting and writing tips from the MIT Media Lab.

The contents of the various tutorials — including “bite size” and “one-minute” versions — run the gamut of producing good journalism. Examples include:
> On Developing the Idea
> On Reporting Process
> On Writing
> On Conducting an Interview
> On Localizing
> On reporting
> On photography
> On Interviewing

I’d say it’s a “must read” for citizen journalists who wants to be taken seriously.
– Mike

Technorati tags: Citizen Journalism

Do you read only blogs pertinent to your industry or interests, or do you have a variety? I would assume that most people stick to their industry, plus have a few select “others” they visit. Well, FWIW, here’s a run down of non-PR/advertising/etc. blogs that I frequently visit (in no particular order):

Autoblog
Jalopnik
A View Through the Windshield
Treehugger
Techdirt
Poynter’s Romenesko (though it is somewhat related to PR)
Media Nation
Machine Design’s Ron Kohl. If you ever had the chance to read any of Mr. Kohl’s editorials in Machine Design, you were lucky. Unfortunately, Mr. Kohl (as you’ll learn if you follow the link) recently died of cancer. I never met him, but his writing abilities will surely be missed.

Can you point me and other readers to other good blogs we should visit?
– Mike

Will history repeat itself?

Well, Forbes‘ Daniel Lyons felt the wrath of bloggers with his story “Attack of the blogs,” on Nov. 11.

I wonder how the blogosphere will react to Kathleen Parker’s piece about blogging. (Thanks to Ryan McGrath for the heads up.)

Parker is a bit heavy in some of her comments about bloggers:

“[O]ur new enemies–that interests me most. I don’t mean Al Qaeda or Osama bin Laden, but the less visible, insidious enemies of decency, humanity and civility–the angry offspring of narcissism’s quickie marriage to instant gratification.”

She seems more than a bit offended at the “journalist” tag given to some bloggers: “Bloggers persist no matter their contributions or quality, though most would have little to occupy their time were the mainstream media to disappear tomorrow.”

A self-proclaimed “blog fan since the beginning,” Parker, in all fairness does point out that some bloggers “offer superb commentary” — me? — and some are even “brilliant.” But, she lays in to what I assume she feels are the majority of bloggers: “spoiled and undisciplined.”

While she is overly harsh and brandishes the majority of bloggers in a bad light, she does have a good point. If you don’t like a blog, don’t read it. That’s the same as you can do with any newspaper columnist (like Parker?), talk show radio host or TV program.

“But we should beware and resist the rest of the ego-gratifying rabble who contribute only snark, sass and destruction. We can’t silence them, but for civilization’s sake–and the integrity of information by which we all live or die–we can and should ignore them.”

If you don’t like a blog, ignore it. And, likewise, I’m sure many bloggers will ignore Parker’s future colunns.

Now, the caveat for PR and other communications professionals: You can’t afford to ignore bloggers you don’t like. If they are pertinent to your client or your company, you must monitor them, and react accordingly in the best interest of your client/company. (How you should and can react is another post.)

So, while there is validity in Parker’s “ignore them” point, that can be a costly mistake for those who protect the brands of businesses.
– Mike

Technorati tags: Blogs