Managing News as a Conversation
First of all, I find this book really hard to keep open when trying to reference to it. Other than that though, lets talk about this chapter.
This chapter goes into about how journalist do three things;
1. Participate in the conversation without sacrificing their objectivity or credibility
2. Using legal and ethical issues now that everyone can publish anything they want on a professional news site.
3. Wanting the audience to participate, but they refuse to.
It’s important to always try to initiate your audience and the conversation.
The book says to converse through comments. Now I doubt most popular bloggers could actually go through and respond to each and every comment. But if done appropriately it could really make your audience feel a connection with you.
Using social network can really help start conversations and keep your readers involved too. Most online journalist keep a twitter or something like that nature to CONSTANTLY keep their readers updated on stuff. For example, John Watson (prollyisnotprobably.com) at the national hand made bicycle show kept twitter updates constantly while he was there, so his readers could come back and read/reply whenever.
The benefits to news as a conversation are many according to the book, by providing transparency on the reporting process, enabling an immediate feedback loop, and by spreading awareness of news coverage through word-of-mouth marketing you can make your online writing easier to sell.
