If citizen bloggers are Davids and big media is Goliath, then where do local newspapers fit in? In the U.S. roughly 1,350 dailies and thousands more weeklies report 100,000 circulation or less. Their content attracts more eyes than the vast majority of blogs but fewer than the most popular. Perhaps local blogs are a grave threat to these newspapers: a consortium of citizen bloggers might steal enough readers or advertisers to make the local broadsheet unprofitable or irrelevant.

Or perhaps blogs will help local newspapers to improve their product, attract younger readers and even to compete with regional and national newspapers as never before.

The innovation of choice…

My incomplete survey of small newspapers throughout America suggests that among those trying to innovate blogging is the innovation of choice (pod casting is also gaining popularity). If you wander onto newspaper Web sites at random (the Yahoo directory and Internet Public Library provide links) it seems that a majority of newspapers under 100,000 circulation lack blogs, though a sizeable number have them.

While a precise count is unavailable, the spread of blogs at smaller newspapers is well underway. Wherever editors or journalists gather blogging is a topic of interest. As an experiment startup costs are negligible. Newspaper staffers want to blog, too. Among my peers in journalism I know many who keep personal Web logs, and when I attend strategic planning meetings for the Los Angeles Newspaper Group, a consortium of LA area community newspapers, staffers from blog-less newspapers assume the form will be part of their future.

Among the smaller newspapers already blogging the innovation is a recent one; most blogs I visited were created since 2004. It’s a safe bet that if a smaller paper near you doesn’t have blogs yet, it will soon.

Broadly speaking dailies are more likely to have blogs than weeklies, and bigger newspapers are more likely to have blogs than smaller newspapers. It’s easy to understand why: blogging requires staff resources more available at bigger news organizations.

Yet I can’t help but think that the smallest newspapers have the most to gain from blogging. Consider the Daily Pilot (30,000 circulation), a community paper published by the Los Angeles Times that serves Costa Mesa and Newport Beach, California. It competes with the Orange County Register (356,970 circulation), a newspaper that steals Orange County readers from the Times by providing better local coverage.

With significantly fewer reporters, columnists, news holes and other resources, you’d think that the Daily Pilot would embrace blogs as a way to level the playing field with the Register—a staff blog, an editor’s blog and a columnist blog would generate feedback and news tips from readers, eliminate space constraints, get more news to customers and cost next to nothing. Yet the Pilot hasn’t a blog, at least as far as one can tell from their Web site, while the Orange County Register has 16 blogs.

If I’m right that the smallest dailies and all weeklies have more to gain from blogging than anyone, we might think of them as Davids who’ve yet to appreciate how powerful a slingshot blogs can be.

Some pace-setters…

Let’s turn our attention, however, to those many newspapers under 100,000 circulation where editors have seized the slingshot and asked staffers to start firing rocks. A comprehensive survey is impossible. But we can at least shed some light on the state of blogging at smaller newspapers.

• The Roanoke Times

The Roanoke Times offers two staff blogs—one on Western Virginia’s medical industry and another on college life.

Since October 2005 reporter Jeff Sturgeon has written Chat Scan, the medical blog.

“I’ve covered Western Virginia’s health care system for this newspaper since 2000,” he wrote on the blog’s first post. “It’s what the paper calls my ‘beat.’ This blog is an extension of that work, a place for me to tell you more about what I’m hearing and finding out.”

The next few paragraphs are interesting because they tell Roanoke Times readers more about their beat reporter—and his perspective on the topic he covers—than five years of casually reading his beat coverage.

This blog is not about staying healthy and avoiding sickness. I don’t have health advice. I will tell you my personal health story is positive. After outgrowing childhood asthma, I am in good health (though I recently underwent foot surgery to address an inflamed joint). My family is in good health (though the family dog is chronically ill with diabetes and blindness). My parents and in-laws are in their 70s and healthy. In my grandparents’ generation, we’ve seen some cancer. My grandfather died in a farming accident.

This blog is about the business of medicine. People experience “health care” as doctor visits, prescriptions and procedures. But, behind every caregiver are strategists who track “patient encounters” through a business filter, their focus squarely on the payment, the market strategy and the efficient pursuit of quality.

Focused on the business end of medicine, I’ll seek to tell you their stories. The miracle cure may become germane, but these stories are mainly about power, ambition, greed, success, dedication, innovation, fun and, often, survival.

Return here time and again, and you’ll read about health care executives, doctors, hospitals, nursing homes, clinics, charities, insurers, home health agencies, specialized MRI centers, pharmacies, schools and medically-focused biotech companies with products on the market and products in mind.

Campus Watch, the higher education blog, is also written by a staff writer—it’s been updated more days than not since November 2005, touching on local and national news, and often adding after-matter to print stories filed by its author, Greg Esposito.

The Roanoke Times also links to 15 citizen blogs from a Web page detailing the focus of each one. A local dj blogs, as does a recent retiree, a trial lawyer, a husband and wife photography team, and an evangelical missionary.

The newspaper doesn’t seem to do much here—the blogs are hosted on different servers, run on different software platforms and boast different designs. Give credit to the Roanoke Times for aggregating them: the staff time necessary to find the blogs, write teasers for the aggregation page and upload mug shots of the bloggers pays tremendous dividends in the quantity of niche content available to the paper’s online readers, and the added traffic for affiliate bloggers.

• The Greensboro News-Record

Press Think readers are already familiar with the Greensboro News-Record, where blogging editor John Robinson—profiled at Blue Plate Special— has shaped an online edition that integrates blogs into the product as well as any newspaper, big or small, in the country.

Go to their Web page. Scroll down just a smidge and you’ll see all their blogs aggregated in an easy to navigate list. Visit any one blog—editor John Robinson’s is a good one—and you’ll see a header particular to that blog that distinguishes it from the rest, links to all the other News-Record blogs and the navigation bars for the entire News-Record online edition.

The newspaper’s blogging strategy is decidedly local. While events outside the News-Record coverage area are discussed it’s difficult to imagine a significant audience outside the newspaper’s coverage area for most if not all of the blogs, and all of the blogs seem as though they’d be a lot more interesting if I lived in Greensboro.

The purpose of the blogs is partly to supplement the newspaper’s print coverage.

“The line between what we offered in the paper and what we offer online is blurred in a good way,” Robinson wrote. “More people know that they can get a different take by going to our site online, reading and responding to our writers and others on the issues of the day.”

But the blogs are also meant to improve the print product.

“Our goal is to take the more accessible, more informal, more open style of writing for a blog and move it into the newspaper,” he explained in an e-mail to me. “Like most papers, ours is written with an institutional, authoritarian tone. If you read the blogs, they take on a whole new life, with a liveliness and conversational style that make them more readable and easier to respond to. We’re slowly shifting that into the paper, but it’s hard to do. We’ll get there.”

Has blogging caused any problems? Here’s Robinson:

Before they started I told the bloggers that they represent the paper and that all the professional ethics, standards and courtesies exist in the blogosphere as they exist in the paper. I didn’t want the blogs to be edited because I wanted the bloggers’ voices to come through. At the same time, I encouraged the bloggers to use the benefits of the form - links, transparency, feeling, the first-person. I told them that if they had any doubt about a post to run it through an editor or one of their peers nearby. I also told them that if they were spelling impaired - yes, we have a few of those - then they’d better find someone to check their spelling because we wanted it to be right once it went up. But we’ve had no issues with irresponsible, embarrassing or libelous posts.

• The Spokesman Review

The Spokesman Review has 30 plus staff blogs. Its blog directory also includes this note: “Looking for bloggers from the Inland Northwest? We’re keeping a list, as well as some featured bios. If you live in the Inland Northwest and are a regular blogger, email us and tell us about yourself.”

All told these blogs make it among the most prolific blogging smaller newspapers.

Another blog headlined “Recent entries from our bloggers…” jumbles together posts from individual staff blogs. A sports post is followed by a post on state politics is followed by a hyper-local post… and readers who like what they see can click through to the mother blog for more. Self-aggregation.

Video Journal is one of the most unique blogs published by The Spokesman Review—every entry includes streaming video or a multimedia slideshow, a rare feature among blogs at smaller newspapers (and bigger newspapers, for that matter).

Other Spokesman Review blogs: Ask the Editors (self-explanatory); the Daily Briefing (Covering The Spokesman’s daily news meetings, discussing today’s paper and tomorrow’s coverage); Huckleberries Online (D.F. (Dave) Oliveria is a recovering flamethrower with conservative tendencies who dominates the center ring of this online circus); Wheel Life (Julianne Crane exchanges information about the ever-growing recreational vehicle lifestyle)… and many more.

I’m not just an observer…

• The San Bernardino Sun and Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

My own employers, the San Bernardino County Sun and Inland Valley Daily Bulletin newspapers, provide a contrast to the efforts of the News-Record. We’ve just begun blogging, for one thing, and how it happened is instructive.

When hired as a beat reporter at the Daily Bulletin in 2002 I couldn’t imagine a staff blogger in the newsroom. Managing Editor Frank Pine is tech-savvier than most people in his position. Often he talked to staff members, myself included, about how to improve the newspaper. Yet staff blogs never came up, even as late as October 2004 when I left the paper and spent 10 months living in Europe.

Upon my return everything had changed. By summer 2005 Executive Editor Steve Lambert and Pine both wanted to launch a blog about immigration politics and policy to complement Beyond Borders: A Special Report on Immigration, a multi-part series published by the Daily Bulletin and its sister paper, the Sun.

“We knew we wanted to make a major commitment to the issue, but there was just no way we could print everything relevant in the paper every day,” Pine wrote. “The blog renders the concept of finite news hole moot. Also, we were looking for an opportunity to promote public discourse, and this seemed like a good way to achieve that.”

As a former employee whom the editors trusted, I proved an ideal fit to fill the new staff blogger position—a new hire would’ve been a hard sell for both Lambert and Pine, both unaccustomed to staffers publishing without an editor signing off first. Nor did they know whether to expect success or failure: I began blogging with the understanding that we’d try out the arrangement for three months, I’d work mostly from home, and if it didn’t work out for either party at the end of the trial period no hard feelings.

Beyond Borders Blog quickly gained readers. Within a week it attracted 250 page views daily, mostly due to refers in the print newspaper and a twice-weekly print column on immigration that I sold to editors as a way to draw print readers to the blog and blog readers to the newspaper.

Soon, however, readership began to grow beyond our coverage area.

Seven months after its launch Beyond Borders Blog counts more than 1,000 page views daily, it has more readers outside California than inside it, and it is viewed daily by people on four continents.

How does it differ from the News-Record blogs?

For one thing, it isn’t integrated into the Web sites of its parent newspapers. Why? Frankly, if we’d have waited until we had the staff time and technical know-how to integrate the blog into the site it’s possible we wouldn’t have launched it even now. It’s on the to-do list, though. “We really need to integrate the blogs into the newspaper’s main Web site, and there are lots of things we can and will do to make them easier to navigate and stronger in content,” Pine writes.

For another thing, I aggressively target readers beyond the coverage areas of the newspapers for which I write. After all, my topic is immigration—the same information, commentary and analysis that broaden coverage of that topic for our readers are relevant to people the world over. Thus they’re potential readers for my blog. If you read it regularly you’ll know far more about immigration than if you regularly read any newspaper in the country.

Hence I submit posts to blog carnivals each week, engage other bloggers who write about immigration, comment whenever (for example) The New Republic enables a reader comment thread after an immigration related article, and generally try to attract readers all the ways a regular blogger would.

Now when the Daily Bulletin breaks an important story on immigration or runs another installment of its Beyond Borders series I direct my many readers to our Online edition and other immigration bloggers are made aware of our work. Our reporters also benefit—I pass along occasional news tips offered by my blog readers, forward them feedback on their articles and generally put their work in front of more eyes.

The interplay between my blog and my twice-weekly column is also complementary. In the course of blogging I get dozens of column ideas. Without the blog I’m certain I never could’ve written two columns a week on immigration for 8 months. And my columns all become blog posts, generate comment threads and get my views into the national discourse on immigration in a way that wouldn’t happen if they only appeared in our online edition.

I’ve recently launched a new blog, The Missing Link, meant to address matters other than immigration. (Its guiding philosophy is here.) It too aims to attract readers locally and internationally, and to creatively engage topics whether gravely serious, relatively frivolous or just plain cool. During the recent Danish cartoon affair the blog, just days old, attracted 1,000 unique readers daily, thanks in part to trackback pings sent to Brussels Journal and generous links on Real Clear Politics blog coverage.

With that wave passed I’m back to the slow business of building readership and trying to cultivate a comments section where robust and respectful discussion occurs. My ambitions are great. My first duty is to our subscribers. I feel certain, however, that among the features that will ingratiate them to our newspaper is a general interest blog that notes local matters of importance but doesn’t so limit itself.

Here’s how I think of it: small to mid-sized newspapers like the Sun and Daily Bulletin can’t compete with the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal when it comes to international and national breaking news. We can’t break the budget chasing Pulitzers by contriving extravagant, resource intensive stories. We can, however, publish the best blog on the Internet, and we ought to aspire to nothing less. If a general interest current events blog is one thing our readers want, why wouldn’t we use this David friendly medium to establish ourselves as the blogging equals of bigger newspapers (and successful independent blogs), competing for readers and one day soon for ad revenue generated by blogging?

Of course, I see the need for purely local blogs too—a third blog I managed is Troubled Town, an effort launched after a little girl was murdered in San Bernardino. It requires very little—I simply repost all the Sun’s stories related to crime. While the content isn’t new, the medium allows a forum for reader comments and discussion that we wouldn’t have otherwise.

Ultimately commenters on the blog met in person, founding a community group geared toward reducing violent crime. In the future I suspect the newspaper will have a discussion board to facilitate that need—the format would certainly be better for discussion than a blog. But we could launch a blog in a few minutes, and without it the community group never would’ve coalesced. I’d call that a blogging success story, and I expect there will be many more blogging success stories, most of them tied to hyper-local blogs, in the future of our newspapers.

And elsewhere…

The Bakersfield Californian has 14 blogs.

“There are about 85 newsroom employees,” Citizen Journalism Editor Ray Hacke writes. “We have one employee, Steve Swenson, whose job specifically involves blogging — he does 1-2 a day, if not more. Davin McHenry, our Web editor, chimes in on occasion… In my case, I’ve simply blogged as I felt so led — be it about music, movies, sports, religion, whatever. We have other reporters who blog on occasion if there’s something big on their beats or if they just plain want to.”

Hacke says blogging is one of the most enjoyable parts of his job, though it has caused some trouble for him. His experience is worth quoting at length:

Without getting into specifics, one particular blog post I put up was considered outside the bounds of good taste — it created some workplace issues that I didn’t anticipate, and it was promptly removed. Another was perceived as an attack on another group, which is why I had to send all my blog posts through our Web editor — and to the managing editor in his absence — from that point on. I would strongly suggest that a) any blog posts go through editors so they can screen out anything that might be of concern, and b) specifically defined boundaries be set. Part of why my supervisors asked me to focus on other things for three months was that no one ever said, “Don’t do this or that,” and I did this or that without knowing what the rules were — in other words, they just knew what they felt was appropriate when they saw it. That doesn’t help bloggers like me who are open books and unafraid to be brutally honest. Should that happen to one of your bloggers, it could be a major source of frustration for both the blogger and his or her supervisors.

The Daily News of Longview, Washington has three blogs. Staffer Michael Andersen says that among the newspaper’s roughly 30 editorial employees there are grizzled veterans who mostly aren’t interested in blogging and right-out-of-school rookies who mostly are. He writes:

The stressful thing about our blogs is that all comments must be approved, because our editor (prompted by orders from his bosses at Lee Enterprises) is worried that we’ll be liable for any libel. So in order to send people’s comments up in something approaching real time, the five reporters and our ME all get emails whenever anybody posts anything, and we’re supposed to read them all as soon as we see them. I’ve set up a rule to redirect my emails, but my colleagues’ boxes are pretty much constantly black. We’re trying to develop a formal standard for what to approve, but at the moment it remains sort of a gut thing—slightly less attention than a letter to the editor, but not much less. At the moment, we have a tough call along these lines once or twice a week.

(I approve comments pretty much exclusively at my paper; I’ve been unsure about whether to approve or not and consulted an editor just twice.)

The Times Union (99,242) in Albany, New York has an impressive blog page. The range of topics? In one blog a woman who served in Iraq returns as a civilian and blogs about her experience. A recent post: a passionate argument about why the United States should stay there. In another, the “Diet Challenge” blog, reader teams compete to lose weight and post their experiences. The newspaper has also invited local high school athletes to blog; a range of sports are covered.

The Fresno Bee dutifully teases its stories in the Beehive blog.

The Vanguard News apparently launched a blog on May 4, 2004 and never went back.

The Chico Enterprise Record wins the award for most blogs that cling to the Movable Type default template. Someone needs to tell them about Style Monkey.

And there are so many more blogs at so many small papers I’m unable to visit, innovating in ways I’ve been unable to imagine. Perhaps there ought to be a blog carnival for newspaper bloggers at smaller papers. Or a blog where newspaper bloggers share their blogging experiences. I’d visit.

CF writes: " If you read this piece and want to inform me of blog innovation at your newspaper, send me an e-mail and I may add it to the Notes section."

Also new at Blue Plate Special this week: Find the Fanatics in Your Newsroom and Give them a Mike.

One theory says: never blog about the things the newspaper normally writes about. Only blog about the stuff the paper never writes about. Follow that rule and your blogs won't suck. You'll add value, draw younger users, broaden the range of your site, and uncover talent in your staff. Plus, your non-bloggers can't gripe because who wants to write about bowling, anyway? BPS Correspondent Emily McFarlan explains, casing the St. Pete Times and other joints for examples. With lots of links.

Someone should tell Steve Spears.

Spears, the online news editor of the St. Petersburg Times, has, for the last year, been rehashing decades-old news with cohort Gina Vivenetto on the Times-sponsored blog, Stuck in the 80s.

Stuck in the 80s, which details what its bloggers were up to then and the celebrities of the time are up to now, is one of 20 blogs written by or associated with the newspaper, most of which are devoted to very specific, decidedly un-newsy topics, such as poker, pop music, and the college admissions process.

“We wanted to push for blogs that really offered unique or interesting coverage that a daily newspaper normally wouldn’t reserve space for, but which still has a potentially large and devoted audience,” Spears says.

That audience, in Spears’ estimation, includes young people, people outside the St. Petersburg Times’ readership in Central Florida, and “people who mainly get their news online and don’t want to read the same thing that’s in the paper.” To the latter, he says, “We have to offer something different.”

Something Different, Something New…

Newspapers are beginning to venture away from the tried-and-true printed in the column inches of their morning editions to different and detailed content online. Some offer a different take, others a different topic.

“[Blogging] is a great way for our writers to express more personality in their work,” says Spears.

Rhiannon Gammill, a.k.a. Miss Adventure, and globe-trotter Chris Garcia lend their personalities to the Austin American-Statesman, blogging about interesting, amusing, and entertaining - but otherwise not particularly newsworthy - events in the everyday. The Dayton Daily News also presents A Guy’s View alongside Chick Chat.

But most successful blogs, Spears points out, are “the ones where the writers really love writing about their subject matter.”

“We’re really fanatic about what we write about,” Spears says of himself and the St. Petersburg Times’ bloggers, “and I think that comes across.”

That infectious fandom and unique voice comes across in many newspaper blogs. Popular culture writer Leanne Potts of the Albuquerque Journal is Shock-ed by what passes for culture in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Meanwhile, several female writers at the Atlanta Journal Constitution share their Misadventures in Atlanta, specifically in the dating scene. The San Antonio Express-News blogs about everything from bowling and beer to speaking geek, and the Denver Post even boasts a photoblog. And while objectivity is the rule in serious journalism, sports writers let out their inner fan in team-specific blogs. The Bonita Daily News, Courier Post, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Salt Lake Tribune, and Tacoma News-Tribune, among others, root for the home team online – at least during the season.

Something Borrowed, Something Blue

There are some perennial hot topics that beg to be blogged. Both the St. Petersburg Times and the Dayton Daily News delve into topics related to motherhood (DotMoms and Adventures in Motherhood, respectively) and weight loss. A Little Will Can Go A Long Way and The Skinny detail their bloggers’ struggles to lose weight, get healthy, and, at least in the case of Times blogger John Cotey, “finish typing a sentence without losing his breath.” Similarly, the San Antonio Express-News encourages its readers to Get Fit, and the Commercial Appeal pushes for a Healthy Memphis. The Philadelphia Daily News gears their Web weight-watching toward women with Girlfriends’ Locker Room.

Sometimes what reporters are interested in is what’s interesting. According to the Tampa Bay Tribune’s Web site, electronic entertainment writer Wes Phillips “doesn’t just play video games, he lives them.” He also blogs about them in the paper-produced Gaming Life. The Salt Lake City Tribune and St. Petersburg Times blog about the latest in electronic games, as well. And there’s a surprising number of newspaper blogs devoted to all things animal: the Orlando Sentinel’s deputy managing editor and resident animal enthusiast, Ann Hellmuth, is clearly Animal Crazy, and Cindy Wolff at the Commercial Appeal has pets on her mind, while one local humane society worker who blogs for the San Antonio Express-News agrees that Animals Matter.

Beyond advancing the aims and audience of the daily newspaper, Spears says that in the end, he wants people to think of his blog, Stuck in the 80s, as “a guilty pleasure that’s actually good for you.”

“People should enjoy reading,” he says. “It doesn’t have to be a chore. There’s no reason a newspaper blog can’t help them do that.”

Also new at Blue Plate Special this week, Conor Friedersdorf, our correspondent in the Inland Valley, says Small Can Be Big in Newspaper Blogging. "...We can't break the budget chasing Pulitzers by contriving extravagant, resource intensive stories. We can, however, publish the best blog on the Internet, and we ought to aspire to nothing less."

Our review of the blogging efforts at the top newspapers around the globe revealed surpisingly few that are active in the blogosphere, although here and there the practice is catching on. This is not a comprehensive search but a list of highlights— noteworthy blogging by newspapers outside North America. If you have additions or corrections, e-mail us.

Western Europe

The Guardian in England is among the most advanced of all newspapers online. Though they’ve got the standard blogs, like technology and news, the bloggers tend to be thorough writers with their own styles and voices. Ask Jack is a good example; readers e-mail Jack with technology questions, and something about him keeps his readers coming back.

The Guardian newest project is a large undertaking: Comment is free… is a group blog modeled on the Huffington Post in the U.S., with 200+ contributors including well known writers, public figures, and academics. The Guardian’s own columnists are thrown into the mix. No other national newspaper has tried something like that.

If you want to learn more about the workings of the Guardian’s blogs, check out this Q&A with the Guardian’s Director of Digital Publishing, Simon Waldman. In one response he claims:

“We actually have quite a few staff who have been keeping personal blogs for a while…I might be missing something, but I hardly ever see personal blogs from staff at other newspapers or media organisations. Frankly, unless you’ve kept a blog for a while, it’s very hard to understand the attraction of it and how to do it successfully.”

And the Guardian’s been at it for a while. Their first blog was launched in July 2001, simply titled “The Weblog.” The current incarnation—and my personal favorite—is- NewsBlog, which took over in September 2004. The original, ‘The Weblog’ is archived here.

The International Herald Tribune, owned by the New York Times and run from Paris, is doing some interesting and unique things with blogging. Earlier this year the editors launched Digital Dialogue, where IHT journalists pick topics and ask readers from around the world to comment. One post asks for opinions about the recording industry’s complaints against people who sell Ipods with their music libraries still intact. The next month they’re back with: “Are the French crazy to think that they can legislate “interoperability” in digital music? Or are they just ahead of the rest of the world?” The public that participates is international, and the correspondents that blog are themselves stationed all around the world. That makes the International Herald Tribune’s blog the first truly international blog by any newspaper. It wouldn’t be surprising to see other newspapers around the world follow suit. There’s a lot of potential there because the Web is “world wide.”

Two European newspapers are notable for stretching beyond the traditional uses for blogging. Le Monde, one of the leading dailies in France, allows users to create their own blogs to be published on the Le Monde site. There are a lot of photography blogs at the LeMonde site, like Acros, for example. The Spanish equivelent to this is Spain’s ABC, an online-only daily newspaper that has multiple blogs and allows users to create their own.

Also in Spain, El Mundo has a number of light-hearted spanish blogs like Smart Shopping, and a group blog for chefs called Cocina para levitar, in which each post describes a particular dish and offers a recipe and directions. El Mundo also has a very popular political blog by Victoria Prego, which has high activity at its comment section. El Mundo’s handling of comments shows their experience; rather than listing the number of comments—which often leads to the dreaded comments(0) tag— they just invite readers to “Opine o lea comentarios sobre este tema” or “Give your opinion or read commentary about this topic.”

The Times of London has 24 blogs by different writers that range in genre from a religion writer’s blog to a book club.

La Repubblica, a national newspaper in Italy, has seven blogs. Blog da Locri is politics and national affairs with an active comment section.

The Telegraph in the UK has thirteen bloggers, most of whom are foreign correspondents, including Peta Thornycroft - one of the last independent reporters in Zimbabwe. Upload is a group blog where three of the site’s editors “look at the perils and advantages of reporting online and how new technology is changing the media.”

Most recently, they reported: “Our blogs are expanding and there’s a lot of debate in the office about their function. Should we use them to break news stories or should they just be for comment? A significant proportion of the Telegraph’s coverage of the Danish cartoon row was here, likewise the Google censorship story…”

Eastern Europe

Special thanks to Jeremy Druker of Transitions Online for pointing out that SME, a daily newspaper in Slovakia, with a humongous selection of blogs and bloggers on the left hand side of the page. According to Jeremy, “they blog on an extensive array of topics, from poetry to politics, from science to food and health…Most of these, if not all, appear to outside bloggers rather than staffers”. Transitions Online, a publication in Prague that provides focus and coverage on post-communist states, is planning to launch a project to promote blogging across Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

*On a side note, if you’re ever looking for a newspaper from pretty much anywhere in the world, Nettizen is a pretty handy tool.

Canada

See Blue Plate Special’s overview by Mark Hamilton.

Australia and New Zealand.

Blue Plate Special has commissioned a post on newspaper blogging there.

Near East, India

It seems as though blogging rises by region rather than individual country. While blogs are booming in Europe and North America, there is not a single official Newspaper blog in the Middle East and North Africa. Perhaps the ‘freedom’ of a country’s press determines its ability to blog or not, because the technlogy for blogging is everywhere. In Iran, a journalist for an online publication was arrested for his blog in which he criticized the country’s leadership. Perhaps newspapers in this region of the world are afraid of starting “unfiltered” blogs on their sites. A look at the right-hand column of the Committee to Protect Bloggers site shows the shocking number of bloggers who are imprisoned or threatened, most of whom are in the Middle East and don’t work for official newspapers. With such a list it may be somewhat obvious why newspapers in the region avoid blogs.

The Times of India is one newspaper that stands out for having blogs on its site ( in English.) There are four. They can be found on the left-hand column, under a prominent heading. Two, Futuristics and Mindsport, are written by Times of India reporter Mukul Sharma. One is an opinion blog, the other is about brain-teasers. ‘My Times, My Voice’ is a relatively new blog started in January 2006, and already has 24 posts and 221 comments. The last one, Informer, is a compilation of posts by different writers in different genres. It has a Picture of the Day section, with commentaries. Rediff.com publishes India Abroad, and they have a number of blogs on their site, including the option to create your own blog. Blogging about sports and cricket is pretty big in India.

South America

Brazilian newspapers didn’t appear in that global top 100 newspapers list, but they’re leading the pack in terms of blogging. Three out of the four leading Brazilian newspapers have blogs (‘O Estado de São Paulo’ did not). Two major newspapers in Rio de Janeiro alone have blogs. Unfortunately O Globo requires registration to see theirs - so let’s take a look at Jornal Do Brasil. They’ve got ten; the more unique is cartoonist’s blog. Bruno Liberati, the cartoonist, is renowned in Brazil for his illustrations, and he’s a regular essayist at the paper. He uses his drawing to complete what he writes about as a critic, which could be art and music reviews or political polemic. Lastly, Folha de São Paulo has two fairly extensive blogs written in Portugese by two of the newspaper’s well known columnists. One of them, Josias de Souza writes a political blog that draws hundreds of comments.

Another blogging South American newspaper is El Mercurio, the oldest and most conservative newspaper in Chile. They have an editorial blog, as well as a special supplements section with blogs by the newspaper’s well known columnists. Both sections have an introductory message which encourages discussion and non-confrontational feedback in comments. Thanks to Rosario Lizana, a freelance writer and blogger based in Santiago, Chile for this information. Also check out her post on the impact and background of participative news blogs in Chile. Clarin, a newspaper in Argentina, had to put restrictions on comments on their weblog section. Shortly after the blog’s opening, it was receiving over 2000 comments a day, making the blog seem like a forum rather than a source of information according to Mariano Amartino, who maintains the site.

A final comment.

Oddly, many of the links above are to blog-type sites that aren’t truly blogs that provide links to other blogs and attract comments. With the exception of the Guardian and the Telegraph, none of the newspaper blogs above really link to anything outside of their own newspaper’s website. That’s short-sighted.

However many of the blogs discussed here are new, started up in January 2006. In a year the picture could be very different. Make that six months.

Newly posted, March 30, 2006:

• Find the Fanatics in Your Newsroom and Give them a Mike. One theory says: never blog about the things the newspaper normally writes about. Only blog about the stuff the paper never writes about.

• Small Can Be Big in Newspaper Blogging “Small to mid-sized newspapers can’t break the budget chasing Pulitzers by contriving extravagant, resource intensive stories. We can, however, publish the best blog on the Internet, and we ought to aspire to nothing less.”

Posted, March 23, 2006:

• Globally, Newspaper Sites Are Slow to Adopt the Blog Blue Plate Special went looking for blogging at some of the top newspaper sites in different countries around the world.

Posted March 9, 2006:

• “It’s Always Sitting There Waiting, Happy for You to Go Tell it Something.” A close-up on reporters who get blogs, featuring Dan Rubin of the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Blinq. (starts below…)

Posted March 7, 2006:

• Mr. Rogers Comes to Blogging. Our profile of Greensboro News & Record editor John Robinson.

• Newsroom Bosses With Weblogs: A List. Compiled by Dan Miller.

• Newspaper Blogging 2012: A Look Back at the Early Days by Ed Cone, who projects himself forward in newspaper time.

• Blogging, Eh? Canadian Newspapers Lag Mark Hamilton surveys the scene

Our debut package was posted March 1, 2006:

• The Best Blogging Newspapers in the U.S.* By the Blue Plate Special team.

• Facts About the State of Blogging at America’s 100 Biggest Newspapers (Our nifty chart showing what all 100 are doing.)

• What the Chron Thinks it’s Doing. Featuring Dwight Silverman and editor Scott Clark.

• At USA Today, A Blog is Surveillance, Personality, or Breaking News. Kinsey Wilson, executive editor, talks about it.

Check back with us over the next ten days as we introduce new features and posts.

He’s covered cops, fires, courts and schools in Norfolk. Plus big investigations of the naval supply system, which forced Congress and the Inspector General to take a look. In Louisville, he covered schools and spent more than a year writing about a military charter plane that crashed. Metro reporter, feature writer, European correspondent for Knight-Ridder.

But talk to him today: Rubin doesn’t believe in objectivity, hears the Net calling to him at all hours of the day, and craves the freedom to talk about whatever the hell he wants to talk about—unfettered, unedited. Yup, he’s a blogger.

The cover story: trawling the blogosphere

Blue Plate Special sent me down to Philadelphia to interview him for a feature on reporters who have blogs. Rubin is unusual because blogging is all he does. He was named the Philadelphia Inquirer’s first full-time blogger in May 2005, back when there were still some who called them web logs. Blinq, named for the collision of blog and Inquirer, set out to “cover the blogosphere, trawling the millions of sites of vaunted wisdom and unvarnished pablum so you don’t have to.”

This was actually a cover story, so that Rubin could invent his own approach. He describes himself as “a hybrid, I fear, with the worst parts of each beast.” He admits to feeling resentment from both sides of the spectrum—his fellow bloggers, who see a co-opting of their terrain, and his newspaper colleagues, who envision Rubin sitting around at home in his pajamas all day.

He blogs “for” the newspaper, but not at it. “I’m a little detached from the newsroom and I’m at a different pace,” he says. “I need to go into work a couple times a week just to be part of it, to get ideas and to interact with people.”

While his job may not require a suit and tie, Rubin swears he does in fact get changed out of his PJs to blog. He’s at his computer by 6:30 each morning. Most of his day is searching the web, reading news stories, and checking up on one blog after another. He spends a lot of time pacing around the house from room to room, contemplating his next post. And—oh yeah—he also does a bit of writing.

Blinq posts have that “random, but not” quality that good bloggers show. Let’s take this week. NFL players lose millions investing in a bad hedge fund. New movie on Flight 93. A Barry Bonds book is out. Here’s a payola story. Bill Cosby’s lawyers go after a blogger. “My wife idiot-proofed the house before leaving.”

Asked where he went for inspiration before starting Blinq, Rubin recalled: “I read a lot, and interviewed a number of successful bloggers, entertainment bloggers, media bloggers, political bloggers from the left, right, and middle. The most portable advice came from Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit. He said to write about what’s interesting to me.”

Checking in on the blog on a regular basis, I’m pleasantly surprised to find posts on sites my friends only just started talking about. Rubin gives his take on Pandora.com (which lets you personalize radio stations and stream free music) and “Random Facts about Chuck Norris” (which, well you have to see for yourself to believe).

To Blog or Not to Blog…

It sounds like fun. But there is a price. “It’s always sitting there waiting, happy for you to go tell it something,” Rubin says about Blinq. “It’s all-consuming. To do it right takes everything I have. There might be people who are able to blog in addition to their normal jobs, but those are higher evolved creatures than I am.”

To do it right is the key phrase. What kind of traffic does the all-consuming Blinq earn back for philly.com? The blog began May 16, 2005 with 62,000 users in its first month. Now it’s more than doubled that, acording to Rubin, with about 15,000 readers on his best day. “On average, visitors tend to spend more time on the blog than they do the entire Philly.com site,” he says.

Across the country in Spokane, Washington, Ryan Pitts doesn’t share Rubin’s luxury. His job at The Spokesman-Review has left him less time for contributing to The Dead Parrot Society, the eccentric site run by Pitts and seven other bloggers from a range of locations and backgrounds. (“An epidemiologist in Seattle… an actuary in Arkansas…”) Pitts enjoys being able to “share cool stuff I find with my friends”— which means posts on everything from DVDs to sports to random angry rants in a section called HULK SMASH! But with responsibilities at work and at home, there isn’t always time to play.

“I used to be far more active on my personal blog than I am right now,” Pitts says. “It was fun, it was engaging, but it also became too time-consuming for me to justify. I’m slowly starting to post again, but I’m looking for the right balance. Some people want to be tied to their blog, and that’s great, but it’s not for me right now.”

New York Daily News reporter Derek Rose has found a way to balance blogging with newspaper writing—by not taking the blog too seriously. He says that he treats his self-titled blog as a hobby on the side, requiring only two to five hours of free time per week. He says the ability to be more opinionated is fun. So is the freedom from doing “serious” work.

“I write about dumb stuff, like dating and my recent trip to Vegas for a bachelor party,” Rose says. “Blogging is certainly more fun for me— no deadlines, no pressure. It’s great to be free from editors and the space restrictions of the newspaper.”

Occasionally Rose also uses the space to explain his newspaper pieces and the reporting choices he makes, but he knows to tread lightly when it comes to mixing his job with his blog.

“Editors have cautioned me to be careful,” he says. “They want to be sure I don’t write anything that tips off the competition or could lead to an accusation of bias against the paper. But I think they’ve been reasonable.”

Speaking his Mind

Fortunately for Rubin, his blog is his job. But that doesn’t mean he’s a mouthpiece for the newspaper to sing its own praises. In fact, on his site Rubin refers to the Inquirer as “the filtered, mainstream aggregator that pays me” and “the ivory tower on Broad Street.” And when the newspaper recently debuted its own editorial blog called The Fishbowl, he was the first to criticize it. Yet Rubin isn’t the least bit worried about upsetting the powers that be.

It helps that Amanda Bennett, editor of the Inquirer, was there at the blog’s creation and gave Rubin the green light. His posts are not edited; he reports to Michael Rozansky, deputy arts and entertainment editor, who edits Rubin’s Saturday column, a version of what’s already been in the blog.

“It’s part of the cost of setting me loose that I’m gonna have my own style and voice,” he says. “I’m always trying to counter expectations and that’s my personality, and you see it in the blog. To do this right you’ve gotta feel free and it’s gotta be unfettered. You’ve just gotta trust yourself.”

That kind of attitude is what landed Rubin on Philadelphia City Paper’s best-in-city list in 2005. Blinq was named Most Transcendent Blog:

Daniel Rubin’s Blinq — the webbed arm of the Inquirer, of all things — manages to outwit and out-entertain its peers by remaining refreshingly unhip and utterly panoptic in its interests. Yeah, he’s a blogger, so he often blogs about blogs, but Rubin’s professional attitude and personal touches make Blinq feel more like a column than a mere newsletter of the weird.

“It was a great compliment because it meant that I wasn’t trying to be something I’m not,” Rubin says. “So I didn’t mind it so much when a few months later they put me on the list of people who they wish would shut up.”

Actually it was a list of big-mouths and there was some mention of a ball gag… But Rubin hasn’t piped down and says that the blog itself is enough to keep him going.

“It’s a great confidence builder knowing you can do it,” he explains. “It causes you to be really at the top of your game, as fast as you’re working to be aware of not getting it wrong and still pushing it as hard as you can. Not being too conservative, too cautious, and that takes a lot of concentrating.”

Leap of Faith

Back at the Spokesman-Review, Pitts has his work cut out for him. As the newspaper’s online producer, he is not only in charge of site design and content production, but also the more ambitious task of converting a newsroom of reporters into blogging believers.

“When someone is hesitant about jumping in, we don’t try to do a hard sell,” Pitts says. “Usually we just offer to set up [a blog] and let them play with it a little. The interactivity is a big selling point, as well as the decoupling of their content from print-centric rules.”

One such successful convert has been Thomas Bowers, who covers food and drink for the newspaper and now online as well at his blog Taste of the Town. Bowers took to the blog because he says he enjoys the immediacy and the ability to constantly edit his writing from anywhere. But while he says he’s a huge fan of both blogging and newspaper reporting, he still doesn’t hold the new form in as high regard.

“One hopes that professional blogs are, or eventually will be, held up to the same journalistic standards of ethics as print media,” Bowers says. “But for the time being, the blog is a lax venue for unloading unlimited amounts of information. Relevancy is determined solely by the writer, without an editor or a copy desk to determine worthiness. As such it is, at best, a casually dressed younger sibling or even distant cousin to traditional journalism.”

Getting into blogging wasn’t any easier for his coworker at the newspaper, Dave Oliveria. The associate editor and columnist describes the start of his opinionated blog Huckleberries as “a monstrous change.” Oliveria is a newsroom veteran who says he has been involved in virtually every form of newspaper production “from the old linotype machines and hot metal presses to offset printing.” Blogging has won him over.

“I still enjoy traditional newspaper [journalism],” Oliveria says. “But it’s so slow by comparison. We can have a broad discussion about a controversial subject online within an afternoon or an evening that would take weeks in the newspaper—and have a better interactive discussion.”

While Oliveria says the blog takes up all of his free time (including lunch hours), he’s actually writing his weekly newspaper column, which is now a compilation of his online posts from the previous week.

“I thoroughly enjoy the blog because I view it as my personal online newspaper,” he says. “I’m realizing my dream as a young journalist of producing my own publication. I almost bought a weekly newspaper once to scratch that itch.”

Lax venue or the fulfillment of the newspaper dream? “It’s all just writing to me,” Pitts says. “The sooner we start recognizing that blogs are just a publishing platform, the better. I think we need them both.”

Rubin agrees: “Blogging is this incredible tool to go tell stories with. I don’t know how long newspapers will be around but I know that reporting will be around forever, maybe just in a different form.”

Say What?!

In crossing over to this new form, the biggest change for Rubin has been the overwhelming response from readers of his site. He says that newspaper reporters don’t hear much from readers other than the occasional complaints; as a blogger he spends hours sorting through and responding to comments. Rubin and Pitts agree that it’s important for news to be a conversation.

As Pitts explains, “One of the things I like about blogs coming from a newspaper perspective is that they let our readers discover that we are, in fact, real people—not just interchangeable pieces of a faceless institution. And once we build up those personal relationships with the community, it can’t help but make our reporting better.”

Will Bunch, who does Attytood for the Philadelphia Daily News, shares this general perspective. Now senior writer for the Daily News; he used to cover political campaigns. He does miss the old-fashioned newspaper scoop, but says journalists should be encouraged to blog.

“I think it’s exactly the kind of conversation that journalists can and should be having with their readers, rather than the stilted, one-way lecture we’ve been giving the public,” he says.

Attytood sets out to cover Philadelphia culture, sports, and “dangerously unbalanced” politics, so it’s no surprise the site announces itself as “the No. 1 place to rant in the city where ranting was practically invented.”

“I get much more feedback with the blog and I thoroughly enjoy it—even though a great deal of it is negative,” Bunch says.

Rubin is used to the tough Philadelphia crowd, and he likens receiving comments to being heckled on the job.

“It’s interesting to pour your heart out, to work for a couple of hours on something and have someone say ‘I’m not so interested in this,’” he laughs. “In Philadelphia especially it’s a contact sport. People are direct, they can be rude—they’re often hilarious. It takes a little bit of getting used to, to get rocked that often, and it toughens your skin.”

Not surprisingly, Rubin’s most commented-upon posts have been the ones that give Philadelphians a real reason to rant. Last summer Rubin wrote “Hip to be Square” when the New York Times described Philadelphia as NYC’s unofficial sixth borough.

Blinq readers came out swinging in defense of their city with angry posts about New York like: “screw those arrogant Yorkers. They really do think the world revolves around them.”

Some even attacked the Times itself, calling the Sunday Styles section “consistently retarded, ill-informed” and written “like eighth-grade merchant ivory.”

The Blinq post that stirred up the most noise was the aptly titled “Fight! Fight!” It drew more than 100 comments. Predictably, the topic at hand involved Philly sports and the issue was over a feud between two local talk radio personalities. Things got so heated on the blog that Rubin had to block one reader’s IP address after he posted homosexual slurs. Luckily, he makes a good referee.

“The comments keep me on my toes and I have to figure out which ones I want to respond to,” he says. “Do I want to let people fight among themselves or do I want to get in there with them?”

The answer is a balance of the two, and Rubin says he has worked hard to create a space where readers feel invited and comfortable to post comments. His efforts seem to be paying off because even in Philly the feedback hasn’t been all bad.

“My favorite is when I hear from readers who like the personal pieces or who appreciate when something is heartfelt. It’s really encouraging because if I never heard from anybody when I wrote something personal, I’d probably stop writing.”

Spoken like a true blogger.

First among posts: Daniel Rubin's favorites from Blinq

• I was jogging a day or two after Katrina, listening to a recently released Dylan performance, when his words started conjuring all these images.

• Again Katrina. Blogging a sprawling monster of a story as it is happening

• Something sounded fishy from the start about the New York Times piece about Philadelphia becoming the Big Apple’s sixth borough: The best part of the post might have been the comments – it turned into a forum for Philadelphians’ feelings about its neighbor to the north.

• An attempt to play with the medium. Take someone’s good post and remix. Turn into an interactive parlor game, the answers appearing on the jump.

• A personal story, taking the most difficult moment of my boyhood, and plowing it into a blog entry. This is where not having editors helps. Maybe.

• A way to write about the paper, looking back and forward, especially forward

John Robinson, 53, with his thinning gray hair, and handsome, not just wholesome but Mr. Rogers-wholesome face, looks like the kind of guy who’d barely be able to work his e-mail.

But he’s a technology pioneer among newspaper editors. On August 24, 2004, Robinson began his double life as blogger-editor with this statement: “Welcome to my weblog. Its purpose is to engage you in public conversations about the newspaper. The key word is public.”

Robinson is the editor of the Greensboro News & Record and the boss of the newsroom. He’s the author of The Editor’s Log, which is one of 19 blogs the N & R has launched since 2004.

My assignment, as a contributor to Blue Plate Special No. 1, was to find out from Robinson and others in Greensboro what difference it makes if a man keeps a weblog and edits the local newspaper. In a town with a remarkably strong blogger corps people do have opinions about that. So did Robinson when I asked him.

When the person with power starts a weblog

He says he created The Editor’s Log primarily to talk to the public. But Robinson is the first to admit that sometimes they—the public—are the very reason that more editors aren’t blogging. There are a lot of people out there “eager to bring you down,” he says. Of course in any town with a monopoly newspaper the newspaper editor is not just a public figure, but a person with power, an authority figure. And so when the person with power starts a weblog, there’s a chance to topple an icon, or at least chip away.

The boss also gets extra scrutiny from readers. “There is an assumption that what you’re saying is ‘corporate speak’,” he says. “People really do dissect everything I say and then apply it to the newspaper.”

Just because he’s the editor doesn’t mean he won’t feel hurt, insulted, or disrespected. Robinson mentions the controversy over his recent post about his decision not to publish the cartoons from Denmark that Muslims in many countries have protested against, sometimes violently. “If you read some of the comments on the Danish cartoons… you say, ‘Why am I doing this again?’”

The topics that rile up his readers the most are, like elsewhere, politics and war coverage. Robinson (J.R. to people in town) adds that “issues of race, at least down South are still…” Long pause. “…out there.” In fact, Greensboro has its own Truth and Reconciliation Commission, inspired by the one in South Africa.

Always on your best behavior

To explain this week’s judgment call is one thing. To be consistent in your reasoning, and thus believable over time, is another. Because he has a blog and he uses it to explain himself, Robinson has to worry about the Ghost of Positions Past. He mentions the parallels readers drew between the Danish cartoons (not published) and the graphic Abu Ghraib prison photos, which the N & R did publish. He constantly worries, to echo the Walt Whitman phrase, “Do I contradict myself?” And with the archives to his blog available, readers can let him know when he does. In no other part of the newspaper are past statements so accessible.

Of course, right there is the reason Robinson started the blog: to make himself more accessible.

Robinson confirms the fears of your average stressed-out editor when he says the Log takes a significant commitment of time, not only to write thoughtful posts, but also to monitor and maintain the site. If you’re going to have open comments, you have to know what people are saying— and saying about you. He responds to many of the comments, but also has to be careful not to over-respond and take up all the air.

Because there are no editors as there would be for a newspaper column, you have to always be on your best behavior. That means discipline: thorough research, spell-checking, and curbing your temper when responding to things people say. “If you’re remotely thin-skinned, you can be provoked into saying things that are just…not the right things to say,” he laughs.

Six constituencies for The Editor’s Log

J.R. will admit to occasional feelings of inadequacy. “It’s intimidating to read the better blogs writing about newspapers,” he says, naming PressThink and BuzzMachine. “You kinda have to keep your head down. I’m not a fast writer, or a particularly articulate writer. I’ve gotten over it, but it’s a reason not to do it.” Putting all the reasons together, “if you want a peaceful Sunday afternoon, you think ‘Ahh, I’ll start the blog next month!’”

But he has no second thoughts.

“Actually, these aren’t reasons [not to blog], they’re excuses not to…. Just because something’s hard doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it.” (And there are others who do it. See Blue Plate Special’s Newsroom Bosses With Weblogs: A List by Dan Miller.)

In Greensboro, there’s a waiting list forming for staff members who want their own blogs. “It’s really a technology problem,” says Robinson. “We’ve had nothing but technology problems since we started this.” About six months ago, he says, the “tech people” asked the staff to stop adding more bloggers because of a move to a different software platform. But that’s not a pause, it’s a delay. “We’re really in a bit of a holding pattern,” says Robinson, somewhat apologetically.

The Editor’s Log is not. Starting with a vague mission, “to engage you in public conversations about the newspaper,” Robinson seems to have figured out the different groups he wants to engage. If the readers in Greensboro are the basic audience, he has other ways he can face. Different posts speak to:

• The N & R staff, to whom he can explain priorities;
• The other bloggers in town, a special category of reader.
• Newsmakers, the movers and shakers who often have dealings with the paper
• The press conversation going on nationally about ethics and practices.
• The future of newspapering, which he along with every other editor is trying to find.

Robinson is fond of his future-of-journalism posts, but he says he does them “just because it interests me. It’s really for myself and my staff.” In posts meant for the N & R’s core readership, the intention is transparency: to explain what the newspaper is doing or not doing, and why.

“He’s in the game. He’s not just waiting for his column to come out.”

News & Record staffer and “citizen-journalism coordinator”’ Lex Alexander sees real benefit in that kind of post. “Sometimes the newspaper is a part of the story, and when that happens, we need to make our motives and interests as clear as possible so that they can be judged on their merits, rather than on the basis of rumor and suspicion,” he says. “This approach doesn’t win over every last critic, but I think it has led some people to better understand why we do what we do, even when they don’t agree with it.”

More transparency is one thing. More transparency when you can post in minutes to The Editor’s Log is another. “When people question something, he writes about it in his blog,” said Greensboro journalist Ed Cone in American Journalism Review. “He’s in the game. He’s not just waiting for his column to come out next week to answer a challenge made yesterday.”

Robinson, Alexander, and most of the local bloggers will refuse to accept credit for the rise of “Blogsboro,” but they all point to the pioneering spirit of Cone, a former contributing editor at Wired and current senior writer at Ziff-Davis media who has a blog (Word Up) about politics, tech, basketball and living. Cone, who also writes a column for the News & Record but is not on staff, “has been a tireless advocate for the medium in general and Greensboro bloggers in particular,” Alexander said.

Cone describes the onset of Greensboro blogging as a sort of epidemic. “This is a viral medium. As someone who got into it fairly early, and who had a newspaper column from which to proselytize, I was able to spread the meme quickly.” He says he started blogging after writing a 2001 profile in Wired about Dave Winer, one of the founders of blogging. “So, the virus came to me from one of the source carriers.” In 2005 Winer came to Greensboro to meet with News & Record people, along with local bloggers at the newspaper’s offices. (See Dave Winer’s post and podcast about it; both are interesting.)

That Cone, a colleague, had gone first made it easier for Robinson. “I think my position as a professional journalist with a blog may have to some degree legitimized the medium for J.R. and others at the paper,” he said. As a close reader of Cone’s site, Robinson was surprised at how often people were “ripping on the newspaper” in the comments, often speculating incorrectly, and generally showing how little they really knew about the workings of a professional newsroom.

“I had the choice between commenting on their sites, or doing my own,” he says. The Editor’s Log was born from that. Which is what Ed Cone means by viral. (See Cone’s post for Blue Plate Special: Newspaper Blogging 2012: A Look Back at the Early Days.)

“Part of it’s a leadership thing…”

A good number of Robinson’s posts trickle down from national stories at sites like Romenesko; in them the News & Record either follows or bucks the rest of the profession. His apology for publishing the initially incorrect information about the survival of the West Virginia coal miners earlier this year is a heartfelt transparency post. But even in response to an apology, readers are not afraid to criticize the reporting that led to the error.

Sometimes Robinson will get an interesting e-mail or phone call from a reader, and respond to it on his blog, in the hope that it may answer questions other readers have as well. On Christmas Eve he wrote A Visit from the Klan, about a Greensboro woman who, that morning, found a flyer for the KKK folded into her copy of the News & Record. He explained that it was a familiar Klan tactic across the country. He gave some links. He did not apologize.

At bottom, all the posts are about one thing: humanizing Robinson (and his staff) before the big community of readers. “The J.R. you get in the blog is the same J.R. you get in person: competent, committed, but low-key and modest,” says Alexander.

“Everybody thinks we’re just this cold, unfeeling institution,” Robinson says about the facade of seamlessly mechanical fact-gathering. “I wanna be able to tell them what we’re trying to do, and the good things we do, too.” If you believe in your editorship then in an editor’s blog you express that. “It doesn’t really have to be me,” he says, “but part of it’s a leadership thing…”

“That, and because I knew it would make me famous.”

“Touch readers in the way that they need to be touched”

He jokes, of course, but the situation in Greensboro—blogging culture plus newspaper and editor wide open to it—made ripples in the blogosphere and in the national press about a year ago. (See PressThink making waves about it here and here and here.) Robinson downplays his role in that story, giving most of the credit to others, like Lex Alexander, who had his own personal blog for years before his N & R site (The Lex Files).

“I had blogged off and on since late ‘97, when my wife was pregnant with our first child.” His first blog was just to keep friends and relatives up to date on the event, said Alexander. “I know that J.R. read my blog, but I really don’t recall our ever discussing it,” he says. “I think he did mention to me once that he was thinking about blogging and I encouraged him to, but I also think that if he mentioned it to me then he probably already had made up his mind to try it.”

Robinson says he learned something valuable by writing his blog. “Blogging is just another way to deliver readers your journalism. Not everybody receives or uses newspapers the way that I do.”

“You need to touch readers in the way that they need to be touched,” he says, without sounding even a bit New Age-y. Touching readers, as Robinson sees it, can be done by the interactive platform of a blog, or audio interviews, or streaming video. “A lot of non-newspaper readers out there might go there and get civic value out of it.”

Robinson and his team didn’t learn about blogging from American Journalism Review— or PressThink. They could see the potential in Greensboro’s own community of bloggers, as found on the aggregator and forum site, Greensboro101. It was created by Roch Smith, Jr., a local entrepreneur who once ran for mayor.

Getting beat on local stories by bloggers

“Having a high profile person like J.R. blogging is good for local blogs,” said Smith. “There is no doubt that, on balance, his efforts and the blogging of other N & R reporters and editors have elevated the credibility of the medium locally.”

Another local blogger, Billy Jones (aka Billy The Blogging Poet), agrees. “In doing what John has done, he has allowed the local blogosphere to influence how the paper does the stories and made the N & R a better newspaper. That one fact has empowered our local bloggers to the point that local politicians seek our input, attend our monthly meet-ups, and on occasion ask certain bloggers to float ideas on their blogs to see how we will react before they go public with their ideas.”

Relations between the more organic community of bloggers and the professionals who blog for the newspaper are, for the most part, friendly. But there are tensions. Smith tried an analogy. “We [community bloggers] are like junior high school students at a homecoming dance: interested, tentative, intrigued, and cautious. Some local bloggers see the N & R as not to be trusted. Some of that is unjustified paranoia. Some is understandable, justified by past innacuracies in N & R reporting and editorials.”

Though there is interaction between the two groups, from Smith’s point of view it is lopsided. “Local bloggers frequently comment on N&R blogs, N&R staffers only very occasionally participate in discussion on non-N&R blogs.” To which Robinson says. “The staff definitely reads the local bloggers.”

Why? Because sometimes the bloggers are the first to local stories. (See this list Smith put together.) “When you get beat on stories that should be in the newspaper, you build a respect for them,” says Robinson. “We know that we don’t know everything- the old Dan Gillmor mantra, ‘My readers know more than I do’? We believe it.” (Some of his wisdom is more practical: “It’s not unique to me, but never drink and blog,” he says.)

Blogging’s a slice, Lex’s report is the pie

Robinson is unquestionably a believer in blogging, but he does not see it as transformative in itself. “It’s a really narrow slice of the pie,” he said. “Lex ’s report is the pie.”

Lex’s report, News-Record.com as Public Square, was commissioned by Robinson and appeared at Alexander’s blog in January of 2005. (With several follow-up posts.) It’s full of chilling statistics about fading newspaper readership (the majority of it is “over 55”) and says journalism at the N & R must become two-way. (See PressThink’s summary.) Alexander wrote:

Journalism, as traditionally practiced, has been a lecture, almost completely one-way, from journalists to readers. But it’s changing now to a conversation between and among journalists and readers, one that breaks down artificial barriers between us and readers and involves unprecedented levels of transparency in how we do our work. Our online form and content, and our internal culture as a news-gathering and -disseminating operation, must reflect, facilitate, even lead that change.

That’s scary to a lot of people in the business. For one thing, it means giving up a privileged role we cherish: mediator of the news. More significantly, it means giving up a significant amount of control over our own product, which runs right up against our industry’s (rightly) cherished tradition of independence.

But, I would argue, we have very little choice. For one thing, not to move, in this direction or any other, is to exhaust our current readership, thus killing us, within a generation. For another, moving in this direction is what our audience wants us to do.

To Robinson’s credit, he doesn’t seem to be threatened by the leap into the unknown that Alexander recommended. He still wants to see where the rocketship takes him. In the more immediate future, Robinson wants another 20 staff and non-staff bloggers. “Right now,” he says, “the blogs are based around newspaper ‘beats’. Our desire is to go off in two other directions.” One is what he describes as “lifestyle” blogging by people with expertise in non-newspaper departments, like perhaps, stamp collecting, or pets.

Cone agrees, and thinks the concept could be pushed even further: “Narrow-focus blogs that attract readers and engage writers make a lot of sense. And I know he’d like to get specialized, but large audiences attract as well, like NASCAR and college basketball fans. Those are huge and passionate constituencies, but his sports writers have not yet bought into blogging in a way that will engage them.”

The other direction is building online “communities of geography.” Robinson wants the smaller towns and suburban neighborhoods that orbit Greensboro to have their own forums to discuss things like local government.

Cooperating with local bloggers: harder than it sounds

These ideas sound a bit like the terrain that Greensboro101 already covers. Robinson clarifies: “We’re all supporting the same thing— a robust, growing, healthy community of bloggers. He’d [Roch Smith Jr.] like to make money from it, we’d like to make money from it, but I don’t see us as competing.” Robinson says that Greensboro101 and the News & Record will “probably get to a point where we partner on journalism stories,” and that Lex “is making inroads” to that end.

Are the local bloggers even interested, or willing to work with the newspaper?

“I can’t speak for other local bloggers, but from my experience, you are asking the wrong question; it should be, is the N & R willing to cooperate with local bloggers? J.R. and Lex seem to be, but they apparently are facing obstacles within their enterprise,” said Roch Smith.

Smith said he recently offered three story ideas to the paper, two of which were ignored. One was about airport construction affecting local water quality. Indeed the New York Times reported in July 2005, “Mr. Robinson is considering joining forces with Greensboro101 to pursue an investigation on local water quality that the Web site has begun.” Smith said “no article yet and no cooperative investigation.”

The second story was about city inspectors entering occupied apartments without tenant approval. Smith left a comment on J.R.’s blog: “More partnering with citizen journalists, eh? Any intention of reporting on this story?”

Robinson replied with: “Roch, that’s the sort of story we’ll partner on, although I doubt we’ll join with you on that one. Hats off to you.”

Smith: “My question wasn’t about whether or not we might partner on it, but rather if you have any intention of reporting it to your readers.”

Robinson: “Yes, we’ll follow up on your reporting.” That was in mid-December. “To date, the N & R has yet to report this story,” Smith told Blue Plate Special.

A third story he said the paper agreed to investigate, but declined to involve him, instead assigning it to its own reporters. “I mention these examples not to embarrass Lex or J.R., but to hopefully, in some small way, help them break the logjam that seems to exist when it comes to actually undertaking cooperative projects. I’d like to see their ideas implemented,” he said.

“Distinctly different sets of understandings”

Robinson said the difficulty lies not in a resistance or resentment, but in a kind of fundamental clash of expectations that still needs to work itself out.

“In this case, if my memory serves me correctly, Roch did reporting on the first two stories and posted them on his site. To me, that seems to put cooperation between the paper and him in a secondary position. Perhaps this is old-time thinking, but he’s done the reporting and given it his shot. He can continue pursuing it, but he doesn’t need the newspaper to do that.”

“The fact is that Lex is going to look for opportunities to work with citizens on stories as part of his new job, which starts next month. The fact is also that many citizen journalists and newspaper reporters operate under distinctly different sets of understandings and guidelines … We don’t yet know how these differences will affect a working relationship. We know, though, that our guidelines for newspaper journalism are well-founded. We also know that many citizen journalists disagree with them. So, we have some exploring to do. And it is exploring that we’ll do mutually, from the beginning of a story, not after it has been reported.”

Robinson also points to the mythology of reporter-as-lone-gunslinger. “[Reporters] like pursuing their own stories, figuring out the order of interviews and the pacing of questions. They want to write the stories themselves, measuring the words and phrases in their minds. Sharing all that, well, think Woodward and Bernstein in the early days of their reporting,” said Robinson. “So, asking a reporter to work with a citizen and leap over the hurdles of working with a person you don’t know and who doesn’t necessarily share similar journalistic values and experience poses some obstacles. They aren’t insurmountable, but they’re challenging.”

There are material challenges as well. “ We have a lot of initiatives on our plate and a lot of obstacles in getting them done,” said Robinson. “We still put out a newspaper every day. Doing blogs, video, audio, multimedia and citizen journalism are also part of our workday. I appreciate the impatience of people who want us to move faster. But it doesn’t help us move any faster.”

“The issue is resources, not will,” said Alexander.

“If you don’t enable comments, it’s really a one-way discussion.”

Though Robinson had been contacted by some online editors, and some ombudsmen, few of his counterparts at other newspapers have sought his counsel. “Bill Keller? No, he hasn’t called,” he deadpans.

But one who did is Dwight Silverman, interactive journalism editor at the Houston Chronicle, who paid a visit to Greensboro. On March 1, a Blue Plate Special study called the Chronicle the top blogging newspaper in America, for papers over 100,000 circulation. Clearly Silverman learned something. The problem with most newspapers is that “they all think that they need to invent everything themselves,” Robinson said.

What advice would Robinson give editors interested in blogging, should they ever want it? He’s already written a long and eloquent post about it. More succinctly, he gives these three maxims:

• “Don’t be afraid of this, take some chances.”
• “You’ve gotta be totally honest, and blunt, and straightforward.”
• “If you don’t enable comments, it’s really a one-way discussion.”

About the future: “I have to say that blogging is not it— it’s a piece of what we’re going to get. It’s one piece of the whole revolution.” That revolution is already happening with other real-time and multimedia advances like streaming video, and podcasting, and Robinson is quick to give credit to other “innovative newspapers” out there that are using these tools.

He thinks newspaper editors will figure the blogging thing out. “The only reasons I can think of why they don’t have blogs are: a) they don’t understand the medium, b) they don’t have the time, or c) they aren’t technologically able.”

What’s there to be afraid of? he says. “If you like communicating with readers about stuff, the fact is, it’s just fun.” He ends on a note of consolation. “You’re not really falling behind in cyberspace. You can start a blog tomorrow, and you’ll have caught up with me.”

Briana Mowrey is a graduate student in magazine journalism at NYU. Originally planning to stay in New York after graduation to pursue her career, she is seriously considering a relocation to Greensboro. "A movable type," she says.

Over at We Want Media, other talented NYU J-students show they know what a weblog is for. It's edited by Patrick Phillips of I Want Media, a must-read site for followers of the industry.

Chris Cobler edits Colorado’s Greeley Tribune, and blogged at Virtual Greality until being granted a Nieman fellowhip. He updated most days, writing engagingly about debates in the Tribune newsroom and the broader challenges facing news—it seems like a combination of PressThink and an ombudsman. The comments section is also very active—most posts get at least 20 comments, and some several times that, with a high signal-to-noise ratio. Cobler responds in comments as well.

Don Rogers edits the Vail Daily, and also maintains Off the Press, a blog of press commentary, often focusing on the Vail Daily, interspersed with entries about his daily life and the novel he plans on writing. Vail Daily is owned by Swift Newspapers, which also owns the Greeley Tribune, but neither Rogers nor Cobler is forced to blog. Unlike Cobler’s blog, the comments section here is lifeless. Rogers doesn’t update as frequently as Cobler, but usually posts 2-3 times per week.

Melanie Sill is the executive editor of the Raleigh News & Observer. She blogs at The Editor’s Blog, which bills itself as “a conversation with N&O readers about…coverage”. The entries are almost all about the N&O itself (its reaction to the Danish cartoons, debates over its front page, and so on). The blog gives readers a window into the creation of the paper—interesting mainly for N&O devotees. Her posts usually get 10 comments or fewer, mainly from a few recurring cranks and critics.

John Temple is the editor of the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, and blogs at Editor’s Blog. There, he writes on most weekdays about issues facing the media, and specifically how they affect the Rocky. The blog frequently features Temple’s personal opinions on press issues of the day, so the blog is interesting and relevant even if the reader doesn’t know much about Denver. The comments section doesn’t reflect this, however, with many posts getting fewer than 10.

Pat Butler is the editor of The Union in western Nevada County, CA and blogs at Editor’s Blog. He writes near-daily about the decisions made by the paper (Publish the Danish cartoons? Cover Cheney’s hunting mishap?) as well as events within the newsroom (for instance, a visit from a state senator). The comments section was moribund, with most posts getting only a handful. Interestingly, his posts were very willing to show opinion on non-media issues (e.g. this response about big-box retail).

Ryan Tuck is the editor of U-NC’s Daily Tar Heel and blogs daily at A Word from the Editor, mostly about procedural issues at the 40,000-circ. daily (e.g. new public editor, new PDF edition) or personal notes about good things to read or life in general. He also posts the letters to the editor for people to comment on, though almost nobody takes up the opportunity. The blog is primarily used as a resource for those looking for information about the paper.

Jack McElroy edits the Knoxville, TN News-Sentinel and recently began blogging at The Upfront Page. He blogs about the paper itself, such as its columnist balance and what goes on the front page, but also discusses larger issues relating to the future of newspapers. The blog is written in a very personal tone, which is extremely readable; it also has a great site design. Most entries get five comments or fewer, but the blog is young.

This last is a different category, but…

Keven Ann Willey is editorial page editor of the Dallas Morning News; she and 11 other editorial page staffers/writers have a group blog called Dallas Morning Views where they maintain an ongoing conversation about editorial page decisions. For instance, they have a multiple post debate about the Danish cartoon scandal and how the editorial they published handled it—it gave readers a fascinating insight into their negotiations over the editorial page. No comments are allowed; however, there is a link to email the authors.

Dan Miller is a graduating senior at American University and maintains a personal blog which is hosted at TPM Cafe. He lives and searches for work in Washington, DC.

As late as 2007, many papers were only dabbling with blogs – if they were using them at all. Even as the Internet was blowing up the ancient newspaper business model by unbundling advertising from editorial, a lot of editors and writers disdained blogs and bloggers as faddish and frightening and somehow unclean.

Some of this resistance stemmed from a misunderstanding of what blogs actually are: a drop-dead simple publishing platform that allows any user to post text, images, audio, and video onto the web without much technical know-how or support.

One possible reason for the confusion over blogs was the hype about “citizens media” and the avalanche of adversarial rhetoric aimed at the professional press by noisy amateurs, which perhaps caused journalists to confuse the tools with some of the tools using them. And there was also an aversion by underpaid staffers to doing what they perceived as more work – writing online in addition to print — for the same meager wage.

Today, of course, journalists understand that blogs make their jobs easier and their papers better, and blogs have been incorporated into almost every phase of the profession. Reporters post their notes and discuss stories with sources and readers before publishing the big article, resulting in a more transparent process, better organized work, and more accurate reporting; the article itself, complete with comments from readers and sources, is a routine entry on the reporter’s own blog.

Blogging editors, once a rarity, now provide as a matter of course insight into the process and the people behind the product; eventually, even the high priests of the profession quit being so damned sensitive and started engaging with their readers, building a heightened sense of trust and community.

Making readers – and other non-staff bloggers – part of the process is a given these days. We all link to non-newspaper blogs from news pages and even within online stories, and it’s long been the norm to feature (and pay!) local writers at company websites, and to troll blogs and comments for leads, sources, and a sense of the public pulse. What a change from the Us and Them mentality that pervaded some newsrooms in the old days.

Of course, it was money that convinced a lot of newspaper people that blogs were worth using. The breakthrough came with sites created by North Carolina beat writers covering NASCAR and college basketball during the 2007 season – blogs put into public view the inside poop that fans love, and brought advertisers flocking to the hugely popular sites. With the drawing power of these frequently-updated specialty sites established, it was easy to justify other blogs for smaller audiences along the Long Tail, which when packaged by ad staffs created tidy new revenue streams for the publishers.

Other things that just seem natural now were once considered radical, like equipping every reporter with a digital camera. These days it’s as hard to imagine a newspaper website without lots of video footage as it is to imagine a newspaper income statement without all the ad money taken from television – but like the familiar, in-depth podcasts and blogs themselves, such things are fairly recent innovations.

Blogs and blogging didn’t save a newspaper business that once seemed destined for decline – but in terms of energy, content, and revenue, they surely helped reverse its fortunes. Not all of this was obvious back in ‘05 and ‘06– but as we look back, we can see that some people were starting to figure it out.

Ed Cone is a senior writer at Ziff-Davis Media, an opinion columnist for the Greensboro News & Record, and the author of the semi-popular weblog EdCone.com.

Cone at his blog, March 7: "Here's a well-done profile of John Robinson at the NYU j-school site Blue Plate Special, written by grad student Briana Mowrey. Keep reading past the part where he's described as handsome, the credibility increases from there." Robinson is the editor of the Greensboro newspaper and he has a weblog.

Saving the newspaper business from itself.
News & Record column, Dec. 11, 2005.

Making the Inside of the Newsroom as Big as the Outside
News & Record column, Jan. 30, 2005.

Greensboro sees birth of new alternative media
News & Record column, Dec. 12, 2004

10 Questions for Ed Cone
Interview with Terry Heaton, Donata, Dec. 27, 2004.

Thoughts on editing newspaper bloggers.
EdCone.com Aug. 21, 2003.

News & Record columnist dumps on blogs; Cone inquires
EdCone.com, Dec. 4, 2005.

Eliminate the editorial page or reserve it for the right occasons
EdCone.com, June 15, 2004.