Should every newspaper journalist journalism student start a blog?

Cross-posted to my mass communications student blogs. -- pe

Answer: Yes.

In fact, in Communications 387 it's required.

We'll take one of our first days of class getting you started.

In the meantime, here's something for you to read. If you have any thoughts of going into print journalism, you really ought to read it anyway. Or if you're thinking about a career in public relations. Or advertising.

Or anything else that involves the written word.

(What am I leaving out?)

Here's an article ... a blog post, really ... by Scott Karp, editor and publisher of a blog called PUBLISHING 2.0: The (r)Evolution of Media. Karp's headline: "Every Newspaper Journalist Should Start a Blog." Kind of answers the question, doesn't it? Here's Karp's take on why:

The news that the San Francisco Chronicle is laying of 25% of its newsroom should be a clarion call to journalists. While most newsrooms aren’t in near-term danger of suffering such extreme bloodletting, the Chronicle is still a canary in a coal mine.

So a blog gives you something to fall back on if you don't have a newspaper job, let along a newspaper blog. (Don't laugh. More and more newspaper writers also blogs. Their blogs, understandably, read like newspaper columns. But it's a start.) Here's Karp again: "Starting a blog means ... Creating a platform for journalism that isn’t dependent on a corporate entity’s financial fortunes."

The trick, as always with the Internet, is figuring out how to make a living at it.

Another warning. Posted by one of Karp's readers:

I would add the caveat that it’s important to inform the publications you are working for about this “personal” blog. Whether it’s fair or not, drawing the lines between the personal and professional is harder — and therefore more important — for journalists, especially if you blog on the same topic in both places.

Of course that's if you already have a newspaper job.

(Important tangent: If you work for a newspaper or most magazines, you do your writing on a "work for hire" basis. That means, to oversimplify it a little, the stuff you write belongs to your publisher. The words may be yours, but they're your poblisher's property: You have to have their permission to have it republished in another market. So you can't copy-and-paste your riveting city council story from The Daily Dribble to your blog without permission. In fact, you should seek permission for any kind of outside work. You don't want to blunder into a conflict of interest.)

In several of my classes, I'm requiring students to blog.

IN COMM 387 (literature and journalism), you'll actually create a blog and post to it. If you started a blog last semester for COMM 317 (advanced journalistic writing), you can continue the same blog. Please email me a link to your blog as soon as you set it up, and let me know your preferred email address if it's not the one you use to email the link. In the next few days, you will receive an email invitation to join this blog comm387spring08 as a co-author. Once I receive all your blog addresses, I will also post a class directory so you can read each other's professional writing for the Internet. For more thoughts on professional writing, read on ... even if you're not taking COMM 317 or 209 this semester.

IN COMM 317 (mass media law and ethics), you will create a blog a little later in the semester. I want all mass communications majors to try their hand at blogging professionally. (This is a little different than the social networking sites you're probably used to. Main difference: You'll be using the blog to develop portfolio pieces you can show prospective employers. They'll be looking at your other pages anyway, so you may as well give them something you want them to look at. Right?

IN COMM 209 (basic newswriting), I will post questions to The Mackerel Wrapper. You will answer them as comments to that post or message. In all of my journalism classes, you should regard yourselves as professional writers. When you post to the Internet, you are in fact publishing your writing. You can use the informality on on-line writing to help develop your own voice. I strongly encourage that. But since it's on line, anything you post for any of my assignments should be stuff you won't mind having future employers see. Believe me: They know how to use search engines, and they will be looking.