There are many different kinds of tensions that surround blogging.
- Depth – How far do you go? Does the reader want to know that much? Did I say enough?
- Quantity – Is the piece long enough? Have I posted enough content? Have I posted enough posts?
- Value – Is it worth a click? Is it worth a read? Does it increase knowledge? Does it perpetuate thought?
- Interest – Does anyone care? Does it hold the readers attention? Am I interesting?
- Timely – Am I too late? Does everyone already know? Is it out-of-season? Too, soon?
These are some of the tensions a blogger deals with.
This week, however, I experienced a new kind of tension.
Alan White defined the tension perfectly:
The pressure to post, get it out there quickly, vs. the call of journalistic ethics to wait, fact-check, and hear back from those involved or affected.
The classic newspaper man of the 1920’s is pictured in my mind. Capturing the buzz, weaving a story on a notepad, and then calling in the story to be set-to-type minutes away before going to press. It sounds romantic, but all this energy and dynamics have been compressed into one click.
Publish.
In most cases, the blogging I do is void of this tension. Nothing is that urgent. When the disaster in Japan hit on Twitter, I took advantage of my six hour head start and put together a Tsunami focused piece for ChurchMag. That was probably the closest I ever felt like a “newsman.”
Alan went on to ask:
How might you do this differently next time, do you think?
(If you feel a little lost and wonder what he’s referring to, you can get the scoop here.)
Since this “story”, or the lack thereof, wasn’t extremely time sensitive, I should have given me more cause to pause; especially considering the nature of the post. In the future, I will certainly dig deeper and look both ways before crossing. Focus more on the players in the story, and less on the story. The feeling of “breaking the news” can overwhelm your judgement and lead you down a road of assumptions and self-fulfilling prophecies. Something I never want to repeat.
Measure twice, cut once. Better safe than sorry. “Winning” doesn’t mean you’re the first one to cross the finish line.
How do you deal with some of these blogging tensions?
[Image via David Goehring]
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