The Plan:
To write a daily blog entry about an article appearing in the print version of the New York Times, 4 to 5 times a week. The entries would be opinionated commentary about forementioned articles. I would try for 500 word entries and use several links throughout each post to give the reader more information. I hoped to get a lot of comments, seeing as I was sharing my opinion with the world.What I Did:
I started out gung-ho, posting everyday. It was really nice to be able to do part of my homework (reading the Times) away from my computer for once. I developed a formula for posting:Writer
Publisher
Date
Link to online version
Pages in newspaper
One to two sentence summary
Block qoute of text to begin my commentary.
By spring break I began to be burned out on this "formula" as well as creating several links per entry. Often I would complete an entry except for the links, and go back and add them later before I clicked "publish". Finding material was easy, there was normally SOMETHING in the Times that I could rant about for at least two hundred words...
My early postings were long, but also contained a lot of blockquotes. After break I stopped using blockquotes and links so much, only putting them in where I thought them necessary, ie, to prove my point. I started with a goal of about 500 words, which looks really long in a blog. Most people would be scared to read that, even if it was mostly block quotes from another article. I became more concerned about getting my thoughts out than how many words I was actually writing. If I completed my point in 100 words, great, on the same hand, it could take 1000 to get out what I'm trying to say on another topic.
I stopped using the print version of the paper sometime after break, as well. It became a little bit of a hassel to make it to the bookstore everyday, and how many people online would actually go and get their paper to read the article, rather than clicking the link I provided? Even if I did happen to get my paper and read the article that way, I didn't provide the page numbers. Once or twice before I stopped putting the page numbers up I found the article online, and then searched for it in the print edition later.
I also didn't always use the New York Times. I commented about two articles from Glamour, and one day about the recent anorexic/obesity epidemic (which I'm strangely drawn to) after seeing Rachel Ray do a whole show about it, as well as on other tv shows and in magazines. One of my posts was just a repost of a brownie recipie from the Times that was in the top 10 emailed articles for almost a week.
I was hoping to get a lot of comments, which often happens when you put your opinion out there, I got one, about the second Glamour I posted. It was a positive comment, and was really nice to know that someone out there was reading, and liked what I was saying.
I thought I would end up following developing stories more, but I found that in a few cases, such as the Imus story, I didn't want to comment on anything until a) I knew as much as I could and b) things had dwindled down. With the Imus story, I really didn't know who he was, so my post about that is mostly a chopped up biography from his wikipedia page. There was a ton of coverage of this story, in the Times and beyond, but I find that I get burned out on a story that gets too much coverage, like the Anna Nicole saga.
Often I would find my articles and start my post, but finnish either later that day, or on a day that week I had more time (like the weekend). My articles weren't always from the same day as the post.
Why I Chose a Blog:
Wikis don't speak to me the same way a blog does. Maybe it's because the format of a blog is similar to a magazine column. Even Cosmo has a regular feature published in their print edition entitled "bedroom blog." Before this class I hadn't kept a very regular blog. I had one attached to my msn livespace as well as my myspace page, but my posting was sporadic at best. Like many people, I never thought of blogs as serious writing medium, at least not for the average person. I had heard of more serious blogs such as the Huffington Post, but I never realized how mainstream they are, especially in journalism. It seems that almost any "reporter" who works at a tv station or newspaper these days has a blog hosted by their employer.The Look:
I chose the layout for my blog (just from the pre-set templates Blogger had) because I thought the colors were professional, but creative. I did do a little tweeking here and there, like changing the color of the text and the links. I liked having my blog on the right, so that's the first thing people see as they see my page. I had my blogroll and what not on the left, for further exploration. I used my blogroll to promote other news blogs, including Emily's NYT blog. I also created a section titled "interesting links I stubble across" which was two links to pages with people's expressing what I find to be very radical personal opinions.What I Learned:
- It's hard to post every day.
- No matter how much you like something, you can become burnt out on it.
- It's a good feeling to get comments.
- It's an even better feeling to get positive comments.
- Even if you don't get comments, it doesn't mean that no one is reading.
- Senioritis does not help work ethic at all.
- Neither does nice weather.
What Worked:
- Using the New York Times as inspiration
- Posting at least 4 times a week
What Didn't Work
- Long posts, they just weren't practical
- Posting every week day.
- There's always gonna be a day here or there where spending an hour by the computer just won't happen.
