Getting on board with blog, tweets
My friend Dwight was the best reporter I've ever worked with when it came to getting the tough story — the ones where the people we needed to talk to refused to say anything to the press.
He just has a way about him that put people at ease and made them feel they could trust him. And he never violated that trust.
Sadly, Dwight is like tens of thousands of journalists these days who are doing something else for a living. But he wanted to keep his hand in the game though, so he started a blog.
Except he refused to call it a blog. "I hate that name," he would spit through clenched teeth. "I call it an Internet site on which my friends and I post stories and columns."
Well, that certainly rolls off the tongue.
I knew it had nothing to do with the name. It had to do with the changing times in our profession.
Dwight and I both consider ourselves old-school reporters. We spent four years in college learning the trade, then went to work for tiny newspapers in one-horse towns and started working our way up.
Then the Internet came along, and the blogs soon followed. All of the sudden, anyone with a computer and an Internet connection could set up shop and call themselves a journalist.
I gained a new respect for blogs on the afternoon of Dec. 18, 2006 when local political blogger Heath Haussamen scooped the entire Roundhouse press corps, myself included, and he did it from 280 miles away.
House Democrats were meeting behind closed doors to consider a challenge to Speaker Ben Lujan by his top lieutenant, Ken Martinez. There were about 12 TV, radio and newspaper reporters huddled outside. After about an hour, the doors opened, but they announced it was just a bathroom break and there was nothing to report yet.
About 20 minutes later, Santa Fe New Mexican reporter Steve Terrell got a call from his editor telling him Haussamen was reporting that Lujan would retain his seat. We didn't figure out until later that they had settled that issue first, then took a break before voting on the other leadership positions.
Somebody inside the meeting called Heath, while the rest of us were cooling our heels outside.
All of which is a long-winded way of announcing that I've finally broken down and started my own blog. And Twitter account too.
It's called "... And Another Thing" (I know, bold, starting with an ellipses), and can be found at http://waltrubelblog.blogspot.com.
From now until November, my focus will be primarily on the election. That and the start of the baseball season this week are the two things occupying my free time.
I'm starting with the basics — who is running and what positions are they running for — stuff that has already appeared in the newspaper. In the months ahead, I'll expand that to include more news and commentary.
My primary goal is to generate an ongoing community dialogue on the election, my weekly columns and other issues. Instead of people calling SoundOff! to decry what a biased leftist I am, I'm hopeful that they'll post to the blog, where I can respond. Who knows, maybe we'll even come to some kind of understanding.
One of my guilty pleasures in the past was reading the Topix comments to Sound Off! Some of the posts were absolutely vile, and it got to the point where we had to get rid of it. But I kind of enjoyed following a good war of words between Sarcastic Bombastic and Orville Wyatt.
I hope to re-create some of that with the blog — without all the vile stuff.
That's the goal, at least. I'm new at this and figuring it out as I go. But reporting is the same, regardless of the platform. I hope you check out the blog from time to time, maybe even follow me on Twitter, and let me know what you think.
Walter Rubel is managing editor of the Sun-News. He can be reached at wrubel@lcsun-news.com or follow @WalterRubel on Twitter.
No comments:
Post a Comment