Online living

DigiDave, a blogger who has a keen interest in the news industry (his tagline is "Journalism = Process not product"), has an interesting blog post about personal branding as a new mode for journalists in the digital age. His advice: start "living your life online."

It is NOT personal branding - it's Just living your life online.

The logical flow goes like this....

• "Journalism will survive the death of its institutions."

• This leads to the conclusion that we will have lots of independent journalists.

• Which means independent journalists will have to create "personal brands" since they can't rely on institutions to warrant a readers trust.

This is true - but I think the word "brand" is loaded and as such "personal brands" are being mischaracterized.

[...]

So here is what "personal branding" means to me.

Being a "brand" doesn't mean anything. What we really mean is: Live parts of your life online.

• Be findable online.
• Show your personality - whatever that is (you can be shy....online)
• Just be yourself.

Journalists don't need to do "personal branding" but they do need to live their life online. In fact, that is what LOTS of people are doing anyways.

Young people live their lives online naturally (Facebook). Journalists will have to do so with a bit more fervor and transparency, because readers will want to trust them. To do that you must show who you are through various means. And that means using tools (blog, twitter, flickr, etc) to make your life accessible online.

Personal branding doesn't mean slapping a logo on yourself. It just means being exactly who you are right now (yes, you... the one reading this) but doing that online.

I think the post would also qualify as a good example of web-first writing. It's chopped into short, easy-to-digest sections with plenty of bulletpoints and links to further information. It's not going to get any awards, but it's engaging and personal and sometimes funny. Pretty good stuff.

Twitter

For that growing number of WSJ reporters who have found themselves asking, "What's the big deal about Twitter?" I present the the following well-considered piece from LA Times writer James Rainey:

Twitter's charms sort of grow on you
James Rainey
February 18, 2009

Twitter always reminded me of my dog, squirming around, tail wagging -- demanding a little more attention than I felt I could give. But when I devoted a few minutes of attention, it was usually worthwhile.

The Internet-based status-update service has been all the rage of late, with master Twitterers receiving awards, celebrity journalists pledging their allegiance and a research paper showing just who uses the micro-blogging system that delivers news morsels, 140 characters at a time.

Twitter -- -- will never be the New Yorker or even the Associated Press, but it's another window into a world that I find I'm liking, despite myself.

[...]

The site's entry prompt -- "What are you doing?" -- implies it's merely a repository for the banal, narcissistic drivel that chokes social networking sites. But many Twitter users have pushed well past daily minutiae (i.e. "I love my new Crocs"), as demonstrated by last week's first Shorty Awards.

Read on.

Trib's coverage of Gov. Blagojevich's arrest

I've been very impressed today with the Chicago Tribune's coverage of the arrest of their governor. The original breaking news page has been overwritten now, but I liked their style, putting quick updates on top of each other with timestamps as the story unfolded. This is how I think breaking news needs to look online, so I wish we could still see it. They've aparently done a write-through.

I also like that they've dedicated a gallery page to their coverage of the event. It's a good idea to have all the stories related to a specific subject in one place where readers can easily scan the available headlines. I think something like this would be fabulous for our 911 Center coverage, for example.

The last thing I'm pleased to see is some great reporting coming out of a paper who's parent company just declared bankrupcy. This settles the question of newspapers' worth for me.

Capitol Connect - JSOnline.com

Here's a link to an interesting, useful new feature at JSOnline. Could become a great way to track the status of issues. Click the following to access the sent link: Capitol Connect - JSOnline.com* *This article can also be accessed if you copy and paste the entire address below into your web browser. http://data.jsonline.com/news/capitolconnect/Survey.aspx