27 Comments Add your own

• 1. Don Day  |  October 22nd, 2007 at 1:39 pm

  The even cooler part of that LAT Google Map is that it’s “public” - which menas you can use the Link function and plop it down on your page…

• 2. Meghan  |  October 22nd, 2007 at 2:17 pm

  FNC’s Adam Housley is live blogging the California fires — he has behind-the-scenes video and photos too.

• 3. peter arthurson  |  October 22nd, 2007 at 6:14 pm

  I’d love to know WHY people think things like this always need to be BLOGGED anyway…

  If you have comments with your stories, why should this be a blog exactly??? Really. Riddle me this.

  I mean, you are not really going to have an opinion on the fire, right? (”Oh, I am going to go out on a limb and say this is a bad fire”)

  C’mon.

  This is why “blogs” won’t die… because now, we are using them as a breaking news story.

  The reality is that they are likely being used ONLY because the internal toolset is too complicated for everyone in the organization to use and the blog tool IS easy.

  So, now we have to hear about blogs are making some sort of “resurgence” when in reality they are just being misused because everyone’s CMS tools are too complicated or people are too lazy…

  And, in MOST cases, the blogs don’t even show up in the site search results.. for real…

  Also, wouldn’t this hurt how your story ranks on Google news? If you’re not updating a story, how does Google pick it up?

  Does anyone ever think this through??????????????????????

• 4. peter arthurson  |  October 22nd, 2007 at 6:22 pm

  Ah, 487 comments with the story about this from LA Times.

  No comments in their AWFUL, UGLY blog which is just story after story copy and pasted (with no photos) into a blog.

  So, why does everyone need to blog this again?

  Why IS there a blog on the LA Times at all other than to be able to say “We blogged the fire — LIVE”

  Blogging = cool?

  No, blogging = dumb.

• 5. Channel 4000 Alum  |  October 22nd, 2007 at 6:51 pm

  KNX1070.com is doing an amazing job ….

• 6. Rob  |  October 22nd, 2007 at 7:13 pm

  Not a news site, but follow the link in my name to NASA’s webpage where they have satellite imagery of the smoke visible from space of the Southland wildfires … and it appears these images are just from the Malibu fires.

• 7. Rick Ellis  |  October 22nd, 2007 at 8:18 pm

  After looking at a lot of the coverage, one of my takeaways is that the bar has risen for what is considered “average” coverage in late 2007. Livestreaming of your video is a bare minimum, and I suspect that is primarily viewed by out of the market visitors.

  The Twitter idea is interesting, and I would agree that most of the blogs I’ve seen are pedestrian.

  What I would do if it were my call…have someone blogging from as close to the scene as possible. Posting via email and grabbing cell phone video. This is also the time when a reporter with a laptop, webcam and sat phone could really make a mark.

  The Google Map idea is great, and mashing that with other public info (traffic closings, etc) makes it all very useful.

  I’d also like to see more use made of technology that allows people to call a number, record a message, which is then spit into a wav file that can be quickly posted online or used on the broadcast side. For instance, matching up voice mails with a location on a google map could be interesting.

  Ah….I love technology.

• 8. peter arthurson  |  October 22nd, 2007 at 8:33 pm

  Yes, more blogging is just what is needed.

  “Bad fire. I am certainly against the fire. But, the opposition party I heard is for the fire. I am not sure how this will stand.”

  Those blogs.. great with opinions but lousy for breaking news…

  Why, again, does anyone blog such a thing?

  I know.. lazy reporters and a bad content management system.

  Doesnt it make sense to do this all in your content management system?

• 9. tdc  |  October 22nd, 2007 at 10:27 pm

  another huge story and another huge missed opportunity to grab more than your fair share of searching viewers…

  thesandiegochannel.com intuitivelyand all other randomsearchresults.com are lined up at google..

  just think, some are actually paying (big) for those keywords to get in front of YOUR randomsearchresult.com

  sometimes big business thinkers are their own worst enemy

• 10. Rob  |  October 23rd, 2007 at 12:00 am

  Here’s a video clip - linked to my name - from CBS 8 reporter Larry Kimmel in San Diego doing a stand-up from the remains of the house he lived in for 20 years.

  Peter … When you have people that know how to blog that can write well and be able to update that content on the fly, there’s nothing wrong with providing another channel - blogs, mobile, Twitter, YouTube, whatever - where you can syndicate your content to in addition to your site CMS.

  We have a breaking news blog and when the news hits the fan we use it to keep a running tally of what’s going on and where and it gives people a blow-by-blow idea of what’s happening in their neighborhoods. People have responded favorably to it and we’ve found it an effective companion - not replacement but companion - to our site CMS.

• 11. peter arthurson  |  October 23rd, 2007 at 7:37 am

  So, Rob, if someone is putting stuff directly into the blog (this sharp reporter) how do YOU know (as a staff or news organization) what is going on?

  It seems this just funnels the news into a blog and keeps it hidden from the rest of the organization.

  I would prefer the reporter write something, email it to the assignment desk or a central person (so it can be analyzed for perhaps more deployment of resources or less) and then added to the site the RIGHT way at the RIGHT place.

  If this guy writes well for the blog, then his copy will be just as easy to slip into an updated story…

  Then, the whole organization learns of the story changes and updates. It doesnt just end up being in the blog silo…

• 12. Rob  |  October 23rd, 2007 at 8:31 am

  It’s called communication. It’s kind of what this industry is about.

  Reporter - or whoever is updating the blog - communicates with rest of news staff as to the nature of their updates while also connecting on a personal level with the rest of the community through their blog.

  For example. I sit next to the assignment desk when I’m updating the site so what they know I know and vice versa. I post stories to our website, encode video for streaming, file brief snippets to our Twitter account, upload video to our YouTube account, route pictures sent to our website to show producers, blog and do all of this in breaking news situations while keeping news management - and our show producers - informed as to what I’m doing and what’s available on the website.

  It’s kind of irrelevant really. You’ve got your point of view and you’re sticking to it. I’ll respect that … but blogging and other community outreach initiatives like blogging does work.

• 13. tdc  |  October 23rd, 2007 at 8:37 am

  “community outreach”???

  who edits your comments from the community?

  do you even allow community input?

  it ain’t much of a conversation if it’s all top down.

• 14. peter arthurson  |  October 23rd, 2007 at 9:17 am

  and, Rob, we know that everyone at our communication organizations communicate SO WELL with one another

  Look, I am all for blogs.. I am on one now.. this is a great use of a blog.

  But, creating yet another confusing place for users to go, creating yet one more product and scattering the content further around on your site during a critical news cycle just doesn’t make sense — especially if you have comments with stories….

  Even the blog itself on the latimes.com site is impossible to read… it is not organized and is one long story after another copy and pasted in… no graphics, no photos… yuck.

  as a user, WHY would I look at it? it’s HIDEOUS

  I think we have enough communication problems without letting reporters run around in a critical situation updating a blog with great prose and then HOPING they will tell everyone after (or gasp — before) they do it..

  One, good solid article for the USERS with all addional info appended to that (sidebars, links, photos, video) makes the most sense… but what do I know…

  Blogs are the emporers new clothes…

• 15. cat dirt  |  October 23rd, 2007 at 9:41 am

  @ peter arthurson :

  i am blogging this event because people are desperate for information about the areas that aren’t being covered as much by the media. i actually don’t have a fire story, nor am i writing about fire stories. mostly, i’m updating new communities that are being evacuated because the mainstream media aren’t really conveying that information promptly enough. Hello? Is this not obvious to you?

  my wives parents have a home in escondido, one of the under reported communities, and that was basically the impetus on monday morning when they showed up on our doorstep with their luggage at 5 AM monday morning.

  hope that is satisfactory in terms of an explanation for you.

• 16. peter arthurson  |  October 23rd, 2007 at 10:43 am

  cat person… yes, I dig it… for YOU

  again, I am not opposed to blogging WHEN IT MAKES SENSE

  but, news organizations that have a website do a lot of things to seem “cool” and say “yes, we did it” (In a Ted Knight voice…)

  Cat person… your blog does not duplicate any of your other work — and there is no user confusion. It’s great.

  good job in this case… but, you’re not really who I was aiming my comments at.. you dont have a traditional news site to start with (that I know of)

• 17. Rob  |  October 23rd, 2007 at 10:46 am

  TDC - As long as its kept relatively clean and free of personal attacks, we allow commentary.

  We solicit commentary from the community in our blogs, we chat with the community in our chatroom which our 5 p.m. news anchors host during the newscast, we solicit commentary from the community in our 6 p.m. Sound Off! segment where we push people to the website to answer the question of the day and then read their comments live on the air, we aggregate news headlines from other media outlets in our market on our website and aggregate blog feeds from across the Pacific Northwest and we even held a political debate recently with the local daily newspaper and a segment of the debate was composed of people submitting questions to our website as the debate was underway.

  If you have any other suggestions on what we can do to strike up a non-top-down conversation with the community I’m all ears.

  Gotta run … I have a blog to update.

• 18. tdc  |  October 23rd, 2007 at 11:05 am

  you asked for it…

  you don’t ALLOW, you encourage.

  you don’t SOLICIT, you request.

  you don’t PUSH, you invite.

  this may seem simple symantics, but it really gets to the root of the problem… and there is a problem. when “you” as an industry talk down to the “peoples”

  all the best!

  still on the island of molokai… an island locked in the ’50’s.

• 19. discreet_chaos  |  October 23rd, 2007 at 12:44 pm

  @peter arthurson

  While I see your point, the root of “blog” is “web log” and only one definition includes opinion. I really couldn’t say that a lot of opinion factors into “liveblogging”, which may be closer to what’s being done about the fires.

  CNN’s “Political Ticker” contains a lot of posts, but that which merits such treatment does find it’s way into regular stories. And, I can definitely understand how a blog-type device could be updated more frequently, in a less formal style and because the posts would be numerous, the subjects wouldn’t necessrily have to relate to a wide audience. If I may return back to my CNN example: If every post on the “Political Ticker” were to result in a full-fledged, self-contained story, then the “Politics” secition of CNN[dot]com would be harder to navigate.

  The same could be said for fluid content on a breaking news story and though RSS feeds might exist for the larger news source, it seems to me that a less formal, bloglike-format could be easier to distribute/update.

• 20. TIme to raise the Bar  |  October 23rd, 2007 at 1:23 pm

  Interesting what stations are doing with their live streaming during this tragic event. Applause to KGTV for making their live broadcast easy to find and simple to use from the get go. Thumbs down to KABC which doesnt seem to work at all (I’m on Firefox) and KTLA that works only in IE.

• 21. peter arthurson  |  October 23rd, 2007 at 2:06 pm

  @everyone:

  do a site search on CNN.com for a specific thing you see on their politics blog.

  see something? it doesnt pick up the blog in the search.

  messed up to say the least.

  this is a perfect case of the internal tools driving how and why an organization is doing something a certain way. and, if CNN is flawed in this way, why wouldn’t a smaller TV station or newspaper also be flawed in its thinking?

  I can’t believe how much of this exists in this industry — and it is not getting any better.

  we’re seeing more people who don’t care how and if things work or make real sense in this online news industry.. it is becoming more a debate about ethics and philosphy than “does it actually work” — and the people who help figure out if things work arent valued the way they once were.

  lesson: if CNN does something that doesnt make any sense at all, there is real potential for others in the industry to make the same mistake. even more potential, actually…

  (by the way, the Political Tracker is impossible to read.. if you printed out the page it would stretch 80 feet… and that is better than putting headlines — that are well-written and make sense — on a page and letting me select from them? right…)

• 22. Safran  |  October 23rd, 2007 at 2:36 pm

  What an odd time to be discussing the merits of blogging.

  2007, I mean.

• 23. peter arthurson  |  October 23rd, 2007 at 2:57 pm

  um, I think that is my point…

• 24. peter arthurson  |  October 23rd, 2007 at 6:30 pm

  Let me clarify…

  Actually, Steve, the discussion is really about the merits of doing extra work that is not included in your actual site, the problems that could create in a critical situation and the way it could mislead users….

  It goes to the heart of how users would like to use your site rather than how you would like to have your site used INTERNALLY…

  Given that this is such a huge story, it’s well worth talking about how confusing this might be to users and how much it might disrupt workflow (to the point of possibly not looping the assignment desk in and keeping show producers updated)

  The actual merits of blogging itself are only part of this…. (Given that comments are now functionality that is included with stories, this speaks to the overall concept of blogs being somewhat redundant — especially if they are not included in your site search and are hard to navigate and ugly, very ugly, to look at)

  I think everyone would welcome a discussion on this subject…

  (Don’t worry, it does not speak to the concept of creating dozens of different blogs as separate URLS that can “help” your main legacy site… how could anyone be bothered with discussing the merits of that? it’s certainly so successful it is above reproach… one of the key concepts of your consulting business is safely not discussed here… don’t worry…)

• 25. Steve Safran  |  October 23rd, 2007 at 11:10 pm

  My consulting business is never a concern of mine here. In fact, I’ve built my business on what I learn here. And if I’m preaching something that the LR Faithful shout down, I recognize that means I’m probably on the wrong track. You guys are my beta.

  I’ve been writing the same stuff since long before I sold my services. If I’m standing up for something or standing in opposition to it, it’s because of my beliefs, not because I’m twisting my beliefs too sell something.

  That’s a promise.

• 26. cat dirt  |  October 24th, 2007 at 10:32 pm

  @ arthurson

  point taken!

  @ everyone: the most interesting thing that happened from the perspectve of this comment string is how the san diego union tribune moved its “fire blog” from its crappy website blog format to blogspot, i.e. linked AWAY from their own website. That seemed to me at the time a critical admission of the superiority of indepdendent media source. I mean, the paper abandoned itself.

• 27. discreet_chaos  |  October 25th, 2007 at 3:10 pm

  Steve — It may be an issue of semantics and the actuality of blogging has outgrown the single term. Instead, the noun”blog” may need modifiers; For example “link”, “live”, “gossip” and “political” could be more frequently used, while the verb may not need as much enhancement.

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