Blogging Sections of the Newspaper

photo credit: Steve RhodesIf you’re a blogger there’s a good chance you don’t regularly read a newspaper. Bloggers (and actually most people these days) tend to get their news online. However if you’re a blogger, some of the conventions and reader expectations from the newspaper world still apply to what you write whether you know it or not.

Consider the various sections found in your typical newspaper and then think about where your own blog would fit. The expectations of that section still apply to your blog.

News

The key expectation of a the news section is objectivity. A reporter is supposed to report facts without their own biases or opinions. There are a lot of blogs online today that publish primarily news stories and the good ones at least follow the unbiased, objective reporting standard. There’s another expectation about the news section and that is that news be observed or researched. If your blog belongs in the news section then it can’t be based entirely on your own thoughts or feelings. Be sure that your news posts answer the “5 W’s” (who, what, where, when, why) of journalism and retain an objective tone and your readers will be getting what they expect.

Columns

The columnist must be the most coveted job in the newspaper world and it’s no surprise that this is where most bloggers would rightly place themselves. A columnist has a lot more freedom than a news report in the things they cover. The columnist is also expected to inject their own biases and opinions into a piece though the piece must be more than a simple emotional rant. A good columnist, like many good bloggers, specializes in analysis - they present a story or situation and explain its ramifications. A blogger who seeks to be a columnist will need to establish them self as an authority in the field they wish to cover. Be sure that over time and within your posts you cite reasons for why your analysis should be trusted. Famous bloggers don’t need to worry about this but if you’re not an A-lister you’ll want to interject personal experiences that helped you reach you conclusions and establish your authority.

Reviews

photo credit: habitatgirlWhile everyone working as a journalist might want to be a columnist, everyone else in the world wants to be a critic. Whether the movie critic or the restaurant reviewer who wouldn’t want a job where dining out or watching a movie is your work? It’s not coincidence then that a lot of blogs focus heavily on reviews. Reviews, perhaps more than any other type of blogging, rely on the blogger conveying a sense of who they are. People like to read reviews by people who have the same tastes they do. If you’re reviewing the real key is to build a consistent style to your reviews and build a following of people who trust that they will like what you like - or perhaps like what you hate.

Conclusion

You might not read a newspaper and your readers might not read the newspaper but consider how the newspaper conventions and expectations affect what you are writing. While you can mix various types of posts throughout your blog, you should be very careful to avoid switching mid-post and if you primarily write news stories for example be sure to make it evident when a post is breaking out of that mold. By sticking to the conventions your readers expect, you’ll make it easier for them to read your posts and more likely to return to read more.