Journalism and the impact of blogging

Next session is with Mitch Perry, who recently joined Creative Loafing in Tampa; William "Windy" March, who blogs for the Tampa Tribune (and its affiliated media outlets) at "March on Politics;" and Adam Smith, proprietor of "The Buzz" blog for the St. Petersburg Times.

Each of them has an interesting -- and different -- approach to journalism and blogging. Adam says that there is a risk of the blog kind of overwhelming the print news version, Windy is concerned about the encroachment of blogging and the fast turn-around time onto the traditional print media, and Mitch (who just a few weeks ago came out of a broadcast media background) is finding that because he works in a weekly format, the blogging becomes key for timeliness and convenience.

Windy also doesn't really understand why having so many "hits" helps a media organization. "How much money [is my organization] going to see from that? The answer, of course, is zero." A family-owned newspaper, says Windy, would exist to control public opinion in its town; now, though, newspapers have been "corporatized" and the majority in circulation are corporate-owned; as a result, there is a greater motivation for profit, although certainly the family-owned newspapers wanted to make money.

What about blog comments, asks moderator Susan Smith? Adam: anonymous comments are something we're struggling with ... we want to reach a balance, but the blogs can be more "loose and free-wheeling." Point is, adds Adam, the comments can be entertaining and there's also an indication of where candidates are trying to spin their campaigns. "I don't always read the comments ... but I try," he concludes. Windy: "I don't spend a lot of time looking at comments ... the noise-to-signal ratio in comments is extremely high."

Question from the room: what is the future for editorial endorsements of candidates? Windy: "the lower down you go on the ballot, the more important newspaper endorsements are." What's happening now is that because of the economic decline of the newspaper industry, according to Windy, many papers are no longer doing these endorsements. Adam: the impact of early voting means that endorsements have to come sooner, too.

Question: Do you see newspapers falling back to exclusively Internet publications, or can legitimate news sources arise from the Internet? Adam: Internet and print are just two different platforms ... I don't really foresee the print product ending. Also, almost all the money we make still is on the print product, so we can't give it up. Windy: that's true -- the "legacy platform," or newspaper edition, is paying the salaries of the online version. However, some newspapers (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, for one) have gone exclusively online. Mitch: Creative Loafing decided to go heavily online for a while but the paper version is being read even more now.

Question: Blog comments are so vile and racist ... they just all seem mean. So what's the purpose of anonymous online comments? Adam: Well, we don't know who the commenters are. If someone is really horrible, we'll block the IP address, but for better or worse, it's pretty free-wheeling. Windy: we require registration, but it doesn't really help because someone can create an email address and sign up that way. So even so, we get a lot of vituperative comments, a lot of which comes from the same people over and over -- we call them "trolls." "I guess I got a lot of trolling when I did a story on Mark Foley a week or so ago."

Question: if the influx of blogs leads to hasty reporting, how can the quality be preserved? Mitch: the industry thing is to be online and whether appropriate or not, it happens. Adam: I'm not going to put something up that's not true, but I might -- on the blog -- put something up without waiting for Karen Thurman or Jim Greer to call and confirm. Sometimes I'll post something to get Karen Thurman to call me back! Windy: there is a problematic side to this, because you're going through the normal process in judging the importance of events, but instead of doing it yourself or with your editor, you're doing it through publication. It used to be considered that only weekly publications gave time for thought and that dailies were too quick to be vetted, but the speed of reporting today means that judgment calls are more public and more frequent. Adam: I don't pay much attention to traffic on the blog, so it doesn't affect what we write. But with regard to fundraising, I was writing for print and thought I'd throw something on the blog to see if I'm "all wet" on this ... it may have shaped what I put in the paper. Also -- we're being struck how seriously the campaigns take our blogs.

Question: will people pay for quality journalism online? Adam: the more "niche" it is, the more opportunity you have to charge for it ... also the aggregators (Yahoo, Drudge, Sayfie) perhaps ought to pay for the privilege of using our information.

Question: reporters are being asked now to do more things -- photography, blogging, etc. -- so it affects what they can do as a reporter. Mitch: Well, I'm having trouble learning how to crop photos! But I'm an editor, so there is an expectation that you'll write and report, but do other things too ... this was a frustration for my predecessor, Wayne Garcia. Newspapers have been doing this for a while ... we've been doing it on radio, even, because of websites: a link is one thing, but a link with a photo drives eyeballs. I prefer to just write and report, but that's the way it's going right now.

Question: Can e-book readers, like Kindle, have an impact since people can read newspapers on there for a few dollars a month? Moderator Susan Smith: well, remember there have been censorship issues on Amazon?

Question: how can we get you to cover a story more carefully? Adam: well, email or call us. Windy: letters to the editor still get more attention than a blog comment.

Question: what about Facebook and Twitter? Mitch: what I'm doing on the Web is a challenge because of all the content available out there. But the thing is, especially at our paper, it's critical to put links onto Facebook. Adam: I tweet (yes, he does -- Ed.) and always link to my posts.

The Political Whore

No, I'm not talking about Fred Thompson's wife. I mean Wayne Garcia's blog.

Wayne writes for Creative Loafing, Tampa's alternative weekly newspaper. He e-mailed me last week when I was on vacation to say he was blogrolling me, but I was out of the country and, besides, I didn't recognize his name right off ...

Well, I do now. He even linked to me today. So, with apologies for the delay, I'm pleased to add The Political Whore to the blogroll.

Of course, as a long-time cigar aficionado myself and a Bucs season ticket holder to boot, I can always use another cigar-smoking pal in Tampa.