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Commentary by blog and social media consultant Josh Hallett on the use of blogs for public relations, media, marketing, communication & branding and from time-to-time the unsolicited opinion.
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The newspaper in my area published an article today about how local blogs are impacting a CSX development project.
Readers of this blog may find the story familiar. I wrote a post on how the CSX story developed in cooperation between bloggers and traditional journalists.
I've posted my thoughts on the article over at my hyperlocal blog: Empirical Polk.
Of course the story does feature a picture of me 'blogging'. That's what's always funny about stories like this. The photographer shows up and says, "I'm supposed to get some shots of you blogging......so blog."
Joe Thornley is doing his usual bang-up job of conference coverage from MESH in Canada. Here is the choice quote from Mike Arrington's opening session:
The best thing that traditional journalists can do is to start wrting their own blogs and to build their own brands. This will protect them against downsizing in traditional media.
Amen, I tell this to reporters all the time. When I deal with reporter that 'hate' blogs I usually ask,
"Do you know the names of your readers?" It's that relationship that will determine who is successful in a few years.
"This is a cool way to do the news"
That's what Billy Townsend, a reporter with the Tampa Tribune told me a few weeks ago on a Friday afternoon. We were in the middle of piecing together an interesting local story that would lead to bigger things. The news story would eventually unfold on the newspaper's web site and a number of local blogs. It was also an interesting exercise in how news is transforming, specifically the relationship between newspapers and local bloggers.
Here's the backstory.
CSX, a major rail/transport company is considering building a intermodal facility in Winter Haven, Florida. CSX and the City of Winter Haven are promoting the project as an economic boom for the area that will create jobs and increased tax revenue. With any development of this nature there are concerns over: growth, traffic, environment, etc. For the record, I believe the project will be a benefit to the area, but the proper steps need to be taken.
From CSX's standpoint the project/permitting process was moving along nicely. The surrounding communities in Polk County paid little attention to the project, it was perceived as being a 'Winter Haven' thing. At first, the local newspapers did very little reporting, mostly discussing some of the economic benefits.
I run a hyperlocal blog in our community called Empirical Polk. The first post about the CSX project appeared on EP on February 1, 2006. For the most part, with EP I can only comment on issues or share insights I've found from other news sources. In the case of CSX project, my blog along with other local blogs have all contributed to the ongoing story.
The first newspaper to do any sort of digging into the story was not really a local paper. The Tampa Tribune does not distribute their paper in the area and just recently hired Billy Townsend to cover the region. While Billy does file stories about Polk County for the print edition, his primary publishing tool is the Polk County News Blog. Billy is a reporter that has truly embraced blogging. He posts often, links to the competition and interacts with bloggers in the community.
On his blog, Billy began to look into the CSX numbers and how the development would impact the rest of the county. One of the issues was the increase in rail traffic. In Florida, CSX operates two main freight lines, a North/South and East/West. As part of the Central Florida commuter rail deal CSX will be shifting much of their traffic off of the E/W line to the N/S line. This can also be combined with a general increase in freight traffic related to the intermodal. How much of an increase is still up for debate. Freight traffic on the N/S line will mostly likely double, and might even triple.
On March 28th Billy blogged about Polk County's central location within the CSX freight system. The N/S and E/W lines cross in Polk County. The question was where? At first CSX didn't even know where. For any geek/blogger, of course Google Maps can help with a question like that. The problem was that we were looking for a natural crossing, as in X marks the spot.
On a Friday afternoon, I think I had figured it out. The lines didn't cross in a perfect X, instead they joined and ran along the same corridor for a few miles. In other words, all the N/S traffic would run on the E/W line for a short stretch. The problem though, was that the short, joint stretch runs through downtown Lakeland, FL. Like many towns in the south, the main rail line bisects the downtown Lakeland region. This causes traffic and noises issues downtown. With this discovery, it seems that those problems will double or triple as a result of the increased freight traffic from the Winter Haven intermodal facility.
Billy and I exchanged e-mails discussing my find and we eventually met up at a local coffee shop in Lakeland to go over things. The evolving story was spelled out on Empirical Polk and the Polk County News Blog. Being the reporter that he is, Billy followed-up with CSX to confirm the crossing and then he began talking to Lakeland civic leaders. While they had heard about the CSX project, the increase in rail traffic in downtown Lakeland was news to them.
Suddenly, the 'Winter Haven' project was having a major impact on Lakeland. Lakeland community/business leaders requested a meeting with CSX and the local media finally woke up. Lakeland-specific blogger Chuck Welch began following the story at LakelandLocal.com and has even created a content archive of all things CSX.
To this point the CSX project had avoided a DRI or Development of Regional Impact classification. A DRI brings with it a process to study and approve any development. That process takes time and money. With the increased media attention, the county and surrounding cities began requesting DRI status for the project.
What will happen next remains to be seen.
It was during our coffee break on that Friday afternoon that Billy said, "This is a cool way to do the news." I imagine it was like any group of reporters working on a story, except that I wasn't on the paid staff of the paper.
I have said before that what I do on my hyperlocal blog is in some sense lazy journalism. I don't have the resources to investigate or the contacts to get the interviews I want, but Billy (and the traditional media) does. I can pose a question on my blog and a reporter can follow-up on it. One local news-pro once joked that Empirical Polk was a great tip-sheet for their newspaper staff. The funny thing is that he was only joking halfway.
What can be learned from this?
Obviously we know that the business and reporting of news is changing, and fast. The tracking and reaction to news is just as fast, if not faster. From a PR standpoint the traditionalists might not like this, but there is a some benefit. All of this is happening out in the open. As more reporters blog (and blog more frequently), and hyperlocal blogs become more prevalent, the stories are now out in the open for all to see.
Reporters and bloggers are asking questions first on their blogs and the writing the stories later. Savvy PR practitioners can answer those questions if they're following along. Imagine knowing the question before the reporter calls, of better yet calling them first. Can't get to the reporter? Contact the local blogger, or leave a blog comment. The good local reporters are reading the local blogs.
The media and blog coverage of the CSX project will only increase and leave a detailed digital-paper trail for anybody to read.
So what is a PR person to do? Later this week in Part 2 I'll talk about what CSX and the Winter Haven Chamber of Commerce have been doing with blogs.
I run another blog that some might call hyperlocal. It deals specifically with Polk County, FL. Much of what I post are small items that would be overlooked by the traditional media in our area. But there will always be a need for journalists. Perhaps not in the current business model of newspapers, TV and radio, but the profession is needed.
While I try my best to 'report' on my other blog, many of the items are what I call 'lazy journalism'. Take a recent example. I posted about a local political issue that is going on. In typical blog style I summarized and linked-up all the relevant information and offered some opinion. At the end I posed a few questions. Now the power of blogs is that others can help contribute to the story and perhaps answer my questions (or maybe not).
As I mentioned in the post, I don't have the capabilities (and the time) to do an extensive investigative report, i.e. calling around to county and city offices to find out additional information. That's something that journalists do all the time and they have an extensive network of contacts and resources to get things like this done.
What will the future business model be? It's apparent that the traditional models need to change.
In the case of my 'lazy journalism' will something like Jay Rosen's NewAssignment.net be a solution?
At New Assignment, pros and amateurs cooperate to produce work that neither could manage alone. The site uses open source methods to develop good assignments and help bring them to completion. It pays professional journalists to carry the project home and set high standards; they work closely with users who have something to contribute. The betting is that (some) people will donate to stories they can see are going to be great because the open methods allow for that glimpse ahead.
With New Assignment I could post the question and then let a professional journalist take over, perhaps helping them in the process.
Will a collaborative newsroom like Media General runs in Tampa work? Over in Tampa the Tampa Tribune, TBO.com and WFLA Channel 8 all share the same space. I imagine there is a bit of redundancy in some of the positions so the staff could be reduced and still provide a good mix of coverage.
Will Reporter 2.0, i.e. the new breed of reporter that combines all the best traits of print journalism with a video/web skill-set take over?
In any case it's an exciting and painful time in the traditional newspaper business. I have a few young friends that are working during this time of change and I think they're generally excited about what is coming. Do their older editors share the same excitement? I don't think so.
With all the emphasis that is being placed upon new media and other types of collaborative journalism many old-gaurd editors are behind the learning curve. I always refer back to something I posted in 2005:
If these editors or publishers were interviewing for their jobs now, they would not be hired.
How is it they still have their jobs then?
Steve Rubel talks about USAToday's blog fetish and a little bit about the use of blogs in newspapers. I've been following the USAToday blogs since the first launched in November of last year. They are all run off of TypePad and even they face problems when TypePad goes down (see error message below).
Previous USAToday related posts:
- Defining Blogs - A Misconception - 5.10.06
- USAToday Launches Yet Another Blog - 01.17.06
- Travel Blogs Article in the New York Times & USAToday's New Travel Blog - 01.17.06
- USAToday Rolling Our More Blogs - 11.29.05
I'm still writing Part III of my series of posts comparing corporate media and personal media (Part I, Part II). In the interim let's look back at something I posted in November of 2004: Feedback: Bloggers vs. Reporters. I looked specifically at the feedback mechanisms available to traditional reporters and bloggers.
With most of the major blogging software any blogger can receive feedback in a number of ways:
Stats
Traditional web server stats, via your server or a service such as SiteMeter, allow a blogger to know basic information about how many readers they may have (i.e. readership/circulation). Stats will let you know page views, session lengths, referrals, search phrases, etc.
Comments
One of the more powerful tools of the blog. Anybody (in most cases) can provide a comment about what you have written. A conversation begins. In some cases a comment may provide a correction, or more information on the subject.
TrackBacks/Links
TrackBacks allow the blogger to know who is linking to their blog. In a sense a blogger can begin to see what type of influence they have on the blogosphere. A-List bloggers often have up to a hundred or more trackbacks for a single post. That's influence.
Read the entire post...
Bloggers have always benefited from these feedback tools. Journalists that are starting to blog might also receive the same benefit.
Over at CrunchNotes, Michael Arrington talks about objectivity and to some degree transparency within blogging/journalism. I agree with much of what Mike says. I know that the media strive to be objective but true objectivity will never exist. I'm talking about little things that sometime get overlooked. Not because of personal agendas, but because a reporter just can't research and write about every possible aspect of a story. Mike nails it with this quote:
Or here’s the real mind bender - what if I don’t write about a competitor to a company that I like? Doesn’t inaction count as much as action when we’re talking about conflicts? Am I not writing about them because of the company I like, or not writing about them because I just don’t like the service? Should I write about them simply because they are a competitor to a company I wrote something positive about? Some people say yes, absolutely. Well, if I were to do that the blog would get pretty boring pretty quickly.
Here's the audio from the morning keynote by Steven Schwartz of Reuters.
Syndicate-Reuters.mp3
The past few times I have spoken as part of a panel or a program at a PR or media event a similar thing happens. Somebody speaking before me that represents what we can loosely term the 'old guard' complains about the current trends related to blogs, new media, citizen's journalism, etc.. The issues are (choose all that apply)
- The youth don't read/watch newspapers/traditional media
- Paid subscriptions are down
- Blog aren't credible
- There is no fact-checking
- We can't make money
- Only a few people read blogs
- (insert your own choice here)
Media worries about revenue, page views - PR worries that they can't just deal with the same contacts/journos they've always dealt with, plus how do they bill for this stuff?
What is my response to the 'old guard'? Depending on the audience I am speaking to it's either: a) Deal with it or b) Like it or not they're not going away. Of course that's not all I say. What I begin with is something like this:
As we've just heard from X, these are the major issues that face your industry. But guess what, these problems, (problem, being your word, not mine) are not going away. You need to learn to work in this new reality. I understand that identifying the problem and acknowledging it is the first step, but consistent complaining about how things are changing (for the worse in your minds) isn't solving anything. Let's start by learning about this new world and how you can live in it.
People fear what they do not understand and many don't understand blogs. But far worse than the unknown, is the known that conflicts with an established business model. That's what corporate media fears.
Will corporate media be able to adapt? Should they? When talking to groups here is an anecdote I always use:
In the early 1900's I used to make a ton of money delivering ice to homes in the city. People needed it for their ice boxes. Then one day some jerk invented the refrigerator and I'm out of business. What do I do?
Let me think. I have all these trucks driving all around the city. Maybe there is something else I can deliver? Like refrigerators!
It's something I just made up, but it's probably based upon some fact. The important thing is that it illustrates to many that these changes have always occurred. Just ask the passenger rail system about that. Hmm, let me think, I have all these right of ways across the US but no trains to run on them? What if I buried fiber optic cables along those right of ways?
Recently during a meeting with a newspaper client one of the editors stated that "They don't blog". This rather abrupt statement came from a viewpoint that all blogs are opinionated and personal in nature and violate some of their journalistic ideals. I think this stems not from a lack of a definition of 'blog' but from too many definitions.
On one level you can define a 'blog' as being a personal journal, or perhaps a conversational style of writing. Others might define blogs as being frequently updated web content featuring reader feedback via comments. Both of these definitions are correct, and can overlap.
From a purely technical standpoint you can define a 'blog' as an easy-to-use content management system. In that sense, a blog can be pure news with no opinion. Look at what USAToday does with their On Deadline blog or the Orlando Sentinel with their Crime Blog. In both of these cases the 'blog' is used to quickly post breaking news and receive feedback from the readers.
When you look at it this way, that newspaper just might blog after all :-)
In response to my post yesterday about the candidates for Florida Governor needing to track social media I set up a Blogdigger page to aggregate all blog and news content that mentions their names.
For some reason though, the Blogdigger account is not updating often enough so I created a NewsGator account that features the same information. Go to: http://www.newsgator.com/ngs/subscriber/WebEd2.aspx and use the following information to login: U: FloridaGovernor P: fl2006
If you want to subscribe to the individual RSS feeds here they are:
Charlie Crist - Technorati / Google News
Jim Davis - Technorati / Google News
Tom Gallagher - Technorati / Google News
Rod Smith - Technorati / Google News
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at 10:22 PM:
I wish I still had my 'One For The Thumb' t-shirt from 80's.
There are a number of reasons why newspaper columnists should blog, but I want to focus on just one aspect.
Many newspapers have a number of columnists with a local following. In the current model I only care about a columnist once a day (or perhaps three times per week). For the other 23 hours and 55 minutes I have no reason to care. If that columnist would start a blog and post a few small items each day, I begin to care about them more.
Joi Ito posted this morning that Vint Cerf has left MCI to work for Google. This is very interesting news. (Google press release via SiliconBeat)
Joi puts the news in context of eBay buying Skype, but I see this adding to the speculation about Google building out a separate network.
Publix has been celebrating their 75th anniversary for a few months now, but today is the actual 75th anniversary date. On September 6, 1930 George Jenkins opened the first Publix in Winter Haven, Florida.
In honor of the date there was a small event held this morning at the original Winter Haven location. The exterior of the store was remade to look like it did in 1930. (The current tenant in the location is Scores Sports Bar - Plazes Link).
You can review Publix's official history for their complete story or read the article from today's Ledger.
According to Apple Insider, Apple is working on a two-button mouse. Has there been a coup at Infinite Loop?
The thinking is that the success of the Mac Mini and Apple Switch campaign in converting Windows users over has forced the issue.
I wonder how Stubborn Steve will feel when current Mac users buy the new two-button mouse like crazy proclaiming, "This is what we always wanted!"
I will be interviewed on the Gulf Coast Live radio show on March 10th. The topic will be blogs of course. You can listen to the show live via the internet.
I'll post more details as the air date draws near.
Today I am 'officially' launching my blog consulting services. You can read the press release here. I say 'officially' because I have been counseling clients and speaking about blogging for a year now, but this is the first formal service offering.
This new addition fits in well with the information architecture and usability services I currently provide. I love helping clients with emerging web-based media (often showing a bit of restraint). To borrow Robert Scoble's title, I am a bit of a 'Technology Evangelist.'
What am I looking to do? For small clients I will be a one-stop shop, providing a range of services from strategy to technology. For larger clients I stick by my mantra of 'there is always somebody smarter than you,' and partner with the PR and marketing pros who focus more on the message than the technology.
When I first entered the web development business more than 10 years ago, my initial business partnerships were with public relations firms and advertising agencies. Since those early days, I have always worked to help organizations build effective web sites.
Hyku was formed two years ago to focus more on the 'effectiveness' of web sites, specifically through information architecture, usability and search integration. The addition of blog consulting allows me to utilize all my skills to help clients build effective blogs.
And now the shameless plug: call me if you want help with your blog (or if you still need to know what a blog is)!
Arrived at my precinct before 6am to work as a Voter Information Specialist VIS (lead up is detailed here). Set-up went very smoothly, and polls were opened at exactly 7am. We had voters lined up at 6am so the line was somewhat long from 7am till around 9am. There was a single Democratic poll watcher at our location.
A quick moment of apprehension when the first person to cast a ballot had it rejected by the machine, tried it another way, rejected again, but third time was a charm, and we're off and running! No more issues with the Accu-Vote OS machine for the rest of the day.
Continue reading "My Day At The Polls" »
That is my official title for this upcoming election. A VIS is just below the Precinct Clerk at each location. I will deal with any issue a voter has and make sure they get to vote, either at the precinct I work at, or send them to the correct precinct. If there is any dispute with their right to vote, i.e. no form of any ID or a few other circumstances we will issue them a provisional ballot. All these are returned to the Supervisor of Elections (SOE) for review at the end of the day.
Continue reading "Voter Information Specialist" »
If you did not watch till the very end of the Fox coverage of the ALCS last night you may have missed the Nike: Just Do It commercial that ran in honor of the Red Sox. If you did miss it, head over to Nike and watch it.
Nike has always made some great timely commericals.
Bonus Link: Nike's Lance Can Commercial
Received my shipment of LiveStrong Bands today. I guess I should place another order now (rather than wait till I run out) to avoid another dry spell.
I will be speaking this upcoming Thursday (Sept 16, 2004) at the Dick Pope/Polk County FPRA luncheon. With a limited amount of time to speak, I will be condensing part of my seminar I gave in May. I'll focus more on blogs and their influence on media and public relations.
Of course just in time comes this little battle: CBS/Dan Rather v Bloggers
The Ledger recently ran this graphic showing the paths of the two recent hurricances, Charley and Frances, and how they cross approx. 10 miles from my house.
Update (12:36PM): The Ledger has a reporter working on a story about the exact location of the X.
The blue dot on the map represents the intersection of the two storms. The red dot almost on top of the 'Winter Haven' title is my house.
Seeing this intersection, which the National Weather Service could probably pinpoint down to a few meters, I thought of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Perhaps people from around Florida and the country will be drawn to this spot.
Continue reading "Close Encounters of the X Kind" »
This morning the LiveStrong Band product pictures at the LAF Store have changed from 'Backordered' to 'Ships in 3-4 Weeks'.
This time it's Frances....except it's taking much longer. No power once again. Ivan is on the way, maybe living in Florida is over-rated.
One the Tonight Show with Jay Leno the other night Lance stated that they had sold 12 million LiveStrong bands, and that 5 million more were on the way. It seems that just as the last batch sold out the general population clued in on things.
Now more than ever, when I go out people ask me, "is that one of those bands" and "how can I get one"
Hurricane Charley came through and took part of our roof and our power. Estimates for power to be returned are anywhere from this afternoon to Tuesday of this week.
I am speaking at the upcoming Florida Public Relations Association's professional development seminar on May 21, in Orlando, FL.
You can find all the details on the program here. With specifics on the sessions here.
One of the other things I do in life is work with a Triathlon company on their electronic timing systems. Specifically we use the ChampionChip system, really cool stuff.
Big surprise, I also help them with their web development efforts. We recently launched their new site, www.sommersports.com. The new site is a consolidation of a number of different web properties that were developed as separate brands/sites over the past few years. Moving into 2004 we're working towards a unified presence. Makes thing easier for content management and to cross promote the events.
Newsweek tech columnist Steve Levy has written an article about the Diebold voting machine issues in the most recent Newsweek. The American public glosses over it :-)
I know Salon may not be a "fair and balanced" (can I use that term without paying a royalty to Fox?) news site, but sometimes they have some articles that after reading I say. "How come the majors don't pick up on this?"
There have been a recent string of articles in Salon and Wired about the electronic voting systems manufactured by Diebold, scary stuff. It would be one thing if these were just media speculation type things, but there has been actual research by major universities all listing major issues with the systems. The vulnerabilities lie with both the voting machines and the tabulation machines.
I had a supervisor of elections as a client and worked closely with them on posting election results for a number of years. This particular SOE did not use any of the Diebold systems, and the security of the tabulation machine was extremely tight. It was physically separated from the local area network, the only way to access the results data was via a floppy I was given. I was not even allowed in the same room as the machine.
One of the articles mentions some issues in Georgia, and they thought Florida had problems with elections.
