Live Blogging the "Finding Your Voice on Line" Session

Now this session is going to make me self-conscious about writing for my blog. The panelists are Dan Froomkin, WaPo, Niemanwatchdog.org; Amber Macarthur, CityTV; Daniel Lyons, Forbes and Rick Hancock, Quinnipiac University.

DailyKos seems to be the "anti-paper of record" for these folks. The discussion is touching on how passionless the typical "He said, She said" style of reporting is, and what alternative styles of writing or expression are out there for bloggers. "There's a freedom to blogging...there are no rules..." says Amber. "It's not just text," says Rick.

Froomkin did it again -- referred to the DailyKos as "raucous"

I suggest he take a slow read of the DailyKos. It is political writing, but I don't see the raucous quality, at least on the front page. Could it be, he doesn't read it very often and is generalizing about it? I don't care for this thread.

Now the subject changes to "How to you have time to blog?" Working for a magazine that comes out bi-weekly makes it easy, says Daniel. Rick says he blogs once per week. Amber says it's about priorities. So, the A-List bloggers allocate time and attention to the blog.

The British tradition is characterized as "all style, no facts" versus "all facts, no style" and that gets a big laugh, probably because we all would like to be in the other tradition, whichever it is.

Froomkin likes beat reporters who blog about the mechanism of doing their beat. MTV is hiring 51 journalists whose primary platform will be blogging. The younger bloggers don't have the same understanding of unbiased. The panelists say the way to enforce or add in balance is to include reader comments. Rick says j blogs must include links, media, and be fact-based, not just as rants. Voice might best arise from experience and knowledge, as a beat reporter gains.

Rosen says understand that voice/voiceless and news/opinion are not the same distinctions. "The blog empowers the individual journalist. News formulas empower the editor and the organization" says Rosen. Start a blog to be more valuable to the "business" and then you will be harder to fire.