This reminded me of an article in the Globe and Mail here about blogging, Christie Blatchford, the columnist, has been around for a while, I think she has written for all the major dailies in Toronto, she has some interesting comments on blogging.

This is the link
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080821.wolympicsblatchford21/BNStory/beijing2008/?query=

Sarah

I don't have a ready answer to this but I can share a few thoughts from The Recorder's experience with Legal Pad and The Shark. 1) Blog items can take many forms -- objective mini-news items, subjective "what I'm thinking right now" contemplations, requests for information from readers (like this post), simple links to other stories/blogs of interest. 2) Some journalists take very naturally to this form, while others don't (just like some journalists excel at long-form narrative while others are better at breaking news). 3) The most popular blogs I've encountered usually center around an individual with strong blogging charisma (Above the Law and David Lat, for example). With a few exceptions, our company historically has not been aggressive about promoting "star-power" journalists. 4) As all of my editing colleagues are painfully aware, we don't have our own in-house blogging software. We can get by using Typepad and other off-the-shelf solutions, but it is far from ideal. Long story short, I think we should hash out some of these issues before asking all of our journalists to blog. -- Scott

I don't think blogging skills, per se, are essential or should be required. Good blogging is driven by the same skills as good newspapering: solid reporting and writing. (Although the writing styles are different.) In my experience, media companies that allow journalists who are enthusiastic about blogging to run with it reap rewards; coercing or pressuring reporters to adopt this medium usually backfires.

I would say blogging is increasingly essential for me. It's a convenient way to accomplish several goals. It helps develop sources; it puts information on the public record in an immediate and accessible way; perhaps most importantly, as a writer at a niche publication, it allows me to reach multiple audiences. I write about copyright, trademark, and patent law; interest in these topics goes well beyond strictly legal circles, because they affect everybody nowadays (whether you like it or not.) I've gotten great story ideas and feedback from non-lawyers who are knowledgeable about one aspect or another of my beat but would never have access to our print magazine.

It also allows me to write more for a smaller legal audience that I'll call the "inside baseball" crowd. This is a small group of readers that wants to follow certain stories and events we report about very closely; they truly are interested in every turn of the screw, not just getting a 'wrap-up' of the issue at the end of the month. Blogging is a very efficient way to keep these readers involved and informed; linking newer content to old allows you to get across a longer story without jamming it down a reader's throat. (and without re-inventing the wheel for every story.) Blogging also allows for ongoing coverage, when it's called for. That's especially important when your print publication schedule is weekly or monthly.

So I wouldn't say blogging should be mandatory; but I do think it's one very versatile tool for doing our jobs as journalists.

Bill -- I think Scott and Joe both hit the nail on the head. Not everyone is a blogger, and I do not think it should be mandatory -- but those of us who do blog can use blogs for breaking news, news that doesn't fit in our pubs, and to help build a sense of community.

Our LTN unit has two very different blogs -- www.eddupdate.com is managed by law.com's tech editor Sean Doherty and myself, and has 20 authors. It is designed to be a way to quickly post breaking news, commentary, articles, and "white papers" about electronic discovery -- a hugely hot topic in legal tech. We put links to help our readers to quickly get to original source materia.

By contrast, my blog, www.thecommonscold.com, is a one-author blog, with a much broader agenda, providing not just a place for the latest legal technology news, but to address legal tech community issues as well (and yes, I'm often "inside beisbol," literally and figuratively).

For example, last week when the news broke about the gender pay discrepancies in our profession as a whole, and specifically within the legal tech community, I used the blog as a bully pulpit to challenge our managing partners, GCs and vendor CEOs to fix it, now. Each one fix his or her shop. Just do it, as Nike sez.

We had an amazing discussion in the comments.

The National Law Journal -- whose editor Steven Fromm sits next to me -- broke the story and continues to cover it. When I heard him talking about it, I jumped on the legal technology angle for the two blogs -- and then turned my rant into an editorial for the October issue of LTN. Synergy, synergy, synergy.

We all know that timing is everything, and having the blogs helps us to get the info our readers want out to them asap. Of course, it's crucial to have RSS, but that's another discussion.

Mon