By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher


I’m listening to a conversation between editors at two large established news organizations; and they are asking each other how they deal with blogs and news. What do you call a news story, and what goes in the blog? Do you have editors for the blog items? Do you get involved in the comments? Is it extra work? Can you write in your voice, or is it still the “house” voice?




All great questions; but I’m beginning to realize that “you can’t get there from here.”

You can't get there not only from news organizations, but also from PR firms, ad agencies, or in-house communication departments. You probably have to leave those houses behind, and start anew with what we call the NewRules enterprise, free from legacy cultural baggage.

Established news organizations, no matter how new, if they didn’t start with the blogging format/culture first, will find it nearly impossible to fully embrace blogs. The journalists working at these places are already way overworked; they are in already under-staffed offices, cut even tighter from natural attrition, layoffs, and the lure of greener pastures. Blogging is even more work, and they hate it.

Also, they cannot develop their blog “voice” in such an environment. Blogs at established media organizations are more like a column, and a place to dump second-class news items that couldn’t make it into the newspaper or the main online news section. One friend who has left the ranks of the news media for a place in the blogosphere tells stories of editors rewriting her blogs for "style."

Plus, the “are bloggers journalists” debate has strange applications at a media organization where writers blog. Are its journalists no longer journalists when they blog and thus their work is less trustworthy? (The first decision in the Apple v. Does case certainly didn't help matters here.)

You also can't get there from here by thinking and reading about blogs; and I have serious doubts that PR firms and corporate communication departments will be able to effectively integrate blog culture into existing operations. Some kind of skunk works (a la the IBM group that developed the PC far from White Plains) is probably necessary.

I keep telling people, "Start blogging, start small, start quietly, start simply, just start. You’ll find out what it is." It is like Tivo. You read all about Tivo; but you didn't get it until you've got one. Once you start blogging, you'll get it; and you'll get that it is the key to understanding the power of these asynchronous media technologies, like blogs, RSS, wikis ...

Some thoughts on Internet 2.0. . .

It seems that the survivors of Internet 1.0 are: technology-enabled media companies such as Yahoo, Google, EBay, AOL and Microsoft.

I think that the survivors of this next phase, Internet 2.0 will be: media technology-enabled companies; but we don't yet know who they are.

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