Niles: Encourage newsroom entrepreneurship, don't kill it
By Leah McBride Mensching, Wednesday 15 August 2007 at 23:08 :: World Digital Media Trends :: #422 :: rss
Newspaper higher-ups around the world are trying to decide how to best deal with the issue of staffers writing blogs outside the newsroom.
Some have opened their arms and made the newspaper the blog's new home, while others have wagged a finger and required the employee to shut down the blog or else.
Robert Niles, editor of the Online Journalism Review, advises newspapers to stop being afraid of the blog and embrace it.
“You can't pay the bills with your reputation,” Niles writes. “Yet, concerns about newsrooms staffers doing 'something' that might hurt the paper's, or the station's, reputation are killing the news industry's ability to innovate at a critical moment in its history.”
Niles states he's received questions from several newsroom editors about what to do if a reporter is found to have a non-work-related blog. Should guidelines be set up? Should existing blogs be shut down?
“It's a fair question, and one that would deserve greater weight if newsrooms were not losing so many readers to blogs, discussion forums and other online information destinations,” Niles writes. “Newspapers need to be creating a culture of blogging and online entrepreneurship in their newsrooms, not choking it to death.”
Niles came up with a five-step approach to deal with this issue during this time of change in the newspaper industry:
1.The answer is 'yes' – don't be afraid!
2.If your tech can't support it, go outside
3.Forget the branding, but not the ads
4.Give 'em a taste of the action – encourage staffers to try something new, and reward them if they deliver
5.Help your innovators communicate
To read the full list and opinion piece by Niles, click here.
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