Wordblog

Journalism in a changing world

What is the purpose of newspaper blogs?

By Andrew Grant-Adamson • Oct 22nd, 2006 • Category: Blogs, Journalism, Newspapers

For the lack of anything other to do on a wet Sunday afternoon — we were planning on lunch in Southwold but decided it was too cold and windy — I have started compiling the newspaper blog index. So far the data is just the numbers of blogs but I will develop it into a proper index by dividing the salary of the editor by the number of blogs, or something like that when another dull Sunday comes along.

The raw figures gathered this afternoon are Times 40, Telegraph 32, Guardian 12, Sun 10, Mail 5, Mirror and Independent none that I could find. The Independent should get a negative score of putting its site map behind its Portfolio barrier and demanding £1 before I could see it.

One can almost hear some editors shouting: “We need more of these blog things. Everyone has them my daughter tells me.” They have become one of the outward signs that the paper is up with the trends in journalism.

William Rees-Mogg at The Times likes to use questions as his headlines. He explained this on June 7 when he wrote: “I find the value of blogs is that they allow me to ask questions to which I genuinely do not know the answer.” On July 26 his question was: “A hung parliament in 2009?” Sorry, Lord Rees-Mogg even in the blogosphere none of us can help you with that.

Over at the Telegraph (list of 40 blogs) Natasha Cowan, one of four fashion bloggers, writes: “I’m not sure why, but I have got a niggling problem with the way the trend for leggings is being worn at the moment, and after discussing it with others it seems as though I am not the only one.”

More interestingly, at the Sun Louise Compton, the Girl with the Backpack, has discovered biodegradable knickers. I am not sure if this is really a blog as comments don’t seem to be accepted but the idea of reader-directed travel looks interesting.

At the Mail Peter Hitchens seems to take his blogging seriously. But a blog by an opinion columnist always makes you wonder whether you are reading the bits that were not good enough to get into the paper.

The Guardian’s score of 12 is rather misleading as only two of them have an author’s name as the title. They include readers’ reviews in the travelog blog, and the paper’s podcast feed. Jack Schofield has expanded his weekly computer agony column into a blog leaving Roy Greenslade on the media as the paper’s individual blogging voice.

This afternoon of browsing newspaper blogs leaves me confused. Some of the offerings are very good but too many seem like ways of presenting traditional content in a “look we understand the digital age” way, while others are dumping grounds for copy that would never get into the paper.

What would be really fascinating would be to know the numbers of visitors to the 99 blogs from the five newspapers visited.

Andrew Grant-Adamson is Andrew Grant-Adamson is a journalist who now teaches a new generation of writers, subs and editors at the University of Westminster.
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43 Responses »

  1. Fleet Street 2.0 on October 23rd, 2006 at 3:30 pm:

    Wordblog: What is the purpose of newspaper blogs?

  2. Martin Stabe » links for 2006-10-23 on October 23rd, 2006 at 5:28 pm:

    [...] Wordblog: What is the purpose of newspaper blogs? Andrew Grant-Adamson provides some examples of newspapers “jumping on the blogwagon”. (tags: newspapers blogs journalism) [...]

  3. Web 2.0 Newspapers » Try It, You’ll Like It: Ha’aretz, The Canuckian Libs and ‘HaBlogspherah’ on October 23rd, 2006 at 10:31 pm:

    [...] Counterpoint: Andrew Grant-Adamson questions the purpose of newspaper blogs (via Fleet Street 2.0) in particular for the U.K.'s many papers. "One can almost hear some editors shouting: “We need more of these blog things. Everyone has them my daughter tells me.” They have become one of the outward signs that the paper is up with the trends in journalism." True that, but perhaps he'll see why I recommended it here.  [...]

  4. Jonathan Watson » Blog Archive » Newspaper blogs on October 24th, 2006 at 9:59 am:

    [...] Andrew Grant-Adamson asks what is the purpose of newspaper blogs. Possible answers include: [...]

  5. Ben King on October 24th, 2006 at 10:58 am:

    Begs the question - what is the purpose of TV news programmes’ blogs? Are they better or worse?

  6. Neil McIntosh on October 24th, 2006 at 11:05 am:

    Hello Andrew - not sure *counting* blogs adds much understanding as to *why* newspapers run blogs, but at Guardian Unlimited we see them as a useful way to have a dialogue with readers, and do things with the way we tell stories that we could not otherwise do. It also gets our journalists used to writing in a different way; blogging is, for me, the first form of journalism born from the web.

    As for numbers - we have quite a lot of blogs… certainly more than 12. Comment is free is essentially an aggregator for more than 1000 blogs, although only around 700 are active at the moment. We’re about to launch a lot more in a new subject area, although we always favour group blogs over individual blogs. As our rivals’ efforts show, you quickly run into trouble if you insist that all blogs must be written by one individual.

    Do get in touch if I can tell you more about what we’re doing, and why.

  7. Megite News River: What's Interesting Right Now on October 24th, 2006 at 11:24 am:

    • What is the purpose of newspaper blogs? newspapersites hitchensblog newspaper blogs [IMG] For the lack of anything other to do on a wet Sunday afternoon — we were planning on lunch in Southwold but decided it was too cold and windy — I have started compiling the newspaper blog index. So far the data is just the numbers of blogs but I

  8. SacredFacts on October 24th, 2006 at 6:32 pm:

    Wordblog » Blog Archive » What is the purpose of newspaper blogs?

  9. Médiablog on October 25th, 2006 at 10:52 am:

    csomagolásban eladni. A médiában megjelenő blogokban felbukkan számosolyan gyenge szöveg is, aminek soha nem lenne esélye nyomtatásban megjelennie. Nem állítom, hogy Andrew Grant-Adamson a brit online lapokban megjelenő blogtermésről írt áttekintése nagyon meglepett volna. Inkább csak azért említem meg, mert az online lapok itt leírt blogos nyomulása még előttünk van. Az Internet Hungary előadásaiból, vitáiból egyértelműen kiderült, hogy a blogok mára elérték  a hazai

  10. cybersoc.com on October 25th, 2006 at 1:18 pm:

    What is the purpose of newspaper blogs?

  11. One Man & His Blog on October 27th, 2006 at 6:47 pm:

    by Andrew Rilstone. I spend hours telling people that blog posts should be short and frequent, and then Andrew goes and demonstrates that the opposite works too. Bah. And, indeed, humbug. Wordblog takes a look at UK national newspaper blogs, and finds them wanting. He’s right in that there are some gems and clunkers out there, but how is that different from any other group of blogs you care to name? Perhaps the point is that, as they’re written by professional journalists, the average

  12. Open (finds, minds, conversations)...: The Times now has 40 blogs - but does anyone read them? on October 30th, 2006 at 12:42 pm:

    [...] Andrew Grant-Adamson is rightly puzzled by the proliferation of blogs on newspapers’ web sites. Apparently bored during yesterday’s grey weather, he counted 40 blogs at Times, 32 at the Telegraph, 12 at Guardian, 10 at the Sun, five at the Mail. The Mirror and Indy, it seems, aren’t blogging. [...]

  13. Wordblog » Blog Archive » Religion tops Times blogs on October 30th, 2006 at 7:23 pm:

    [...] Recently, I questioned the purpose of many newspaper blogs, wondering whether they were the latest must-have accessory for editors. A check through the Technorati rankings, unsatisfactory as they are in some ways, seems to confirm the view that some bring little benefit to their papers. [...]

  14. mathewingram.com/media » Are newspaper blogs “real” blogs? on October 31st, 2006 at 4:51 am:

    [...] with del.icio.us   |   Email this entry   |   TrackBack URI   |   Digg it   |   Track with co.mments   |     |   Cosmos Click here forcopyright permissions! Copyright 2006 Mathew Ingram [...]

  15. Telegraph Blogs: Technology: Shane Richmond on November 1st, 2006 at 12:21 pm:

    analysis

  16. travel4you on November 1st, 2006 at 2:41 pm:

    analysis

  17. nem Pop, nem Cult on November 2nd, 2006 at 4:22 am:

    Qual é o propósito do blog de um jornal? Esta é a pergunta que o professor de jornalismo Andrew Grant-Adamson, da Universidade de Westminster de Londres, faz em sua pesquisa sobre a importância dos blogs em grandes jornais. [IMG ]A pesquisa de Andrew engloba cinco jornais de língua inglesa: Times, Telegraph, Sun, Daily Mail e Guardian. Sobre a pesquisa, Shane Richmond, do blog de Tecnologia do Telegraph, escreve um

  18. Online Journalism Blog on November 2nd, 2006 at 12:59 pm:

    What is the purpose of newspaper blogs?). He identifies five key reasons for creating newspaper blogs: Niche publishing Unlimited spaceExperimentationInteractivityPersonalityOr, to quote at length: “First of all, blogs are niche offerings. Everything in the print edition of the paper has to

  19. Web 2.0 Television » More Newspaper Blogs and Porpoises … er, Purposes on November 3rd, 2006 at 11:51 pm:

    [...] Still more responses to the blog fire Andrew-Grant Adamson set ablaze when he questioned the purpose of newspaper blogs (my previous post here):  [...]

  20. Media Musings on November 4th, 2006 at 5:03 pm:

    not get off lightly and can’t, apparently, assume that a loyal readership perhaps straddling the length and breadth of the country is justification in itself for airing their views via the medium of the blog. In his Wordblog, Adam Grant-Adamson asks, “What is the purpose of newspaper blogs?”, saying, “A blog by an opinion columnist always makes you wonder whether you are reading the bits that were not good enough to get into the paper.”

  21. Complete Tosh, by Neil McIntosh: Talking Tosh on November 4th, 2006 at 7:45 pm:

    [...] Ahead of next weekend’s Podcastcon, where I’m sitting on a citizen journalism panel, I was interviewed by John Buckley of Citizen Scoop. We covered podcasting, why newspapers blog (a fashionable question this weather) and the rather dull contents of my iPod podcasts folder. His podcast of our conversation is now up. [...]

  22. Wordblog » Blog Archive » What is the purpose of newspaper blogs? reprise on November 5th, 2006 at 12:54 pm:

    [...] It has been an interesting two weeks since I counted up the blogs in some British newspapers and asked, “What is the purpose of newspaper blogs?” I counted 99 at five newspapers and wrote: Some of the offerings are very good but too many seem like ways of presenting traditional content in a “look we understand the digital age” way, while others are dumping grounds for copy that would never get into the paper. [...]

  23. Wordblog » Blog Archive » Technology tops Telegraph blogs on November 5th, 2006 at 12:57 pm:

    [...] Related posts: What is the purpose of newspaper blogs? What is the purpose of newspaper blogs? reprise. Telegraph blog rankings [...]

  24. Ruth Gledhill on November 6th, 2006 at 7:14 pm:

    Again, thank you for all these articles you are doing and have inspired, I think this was the first. ‘What is the purpose of newspaper blogs?’ you ask. Well as befits my job as Times religion correspondent, I don’t see that question as much different to asking what is the purpose of anything. I notice that you wrote this originally on a wet Sunday afternoon when it was too cold to go out for lunch. I am no psychologist, but I can see how on such a grim afternoon in Southwold, life can seem to lack purpose. It can even lack purpose on such afternoons in Kew sometimes. And that, I guess, is the purpose of newspaper blogs. They get us through those rainy afternoons, those meaningless mornings. Whether it is writing them or reading them. You just have to have faith, really, that it is all worthwhile. Now all join in and sing with me: ‘I believe in blog….’ (No I haven’t finally flipped, but it’s the end of a long, long, hard day in Wapping and I am procrastinating writing a fact box for page 3 which I absolutely must get on with now.)

  25. Charles Arthur on November 6th, 2006 at 10:16 pm:

    Personally, I find our blogs are good for putting out stories or snippets that just won’t work in the context of the section I edit and write for (the Guardian’s Technology section).

    Not all events that journalists come across merit a big (or even small) piece in the paper, yet they can find a readership - not even necessarily when the piece goes onto the blog; don’t forget the long tail of reading.

  26. Richard Burton on November 7th, 2006 at 2:06 pm:

    If I had any doubts about the power of the pen in a blogger’s hands, it disappeared when Andrew Grant Adamson questioned the purpose of blogs in national newspapers. His Wordblog entry certainly touched a nerve at the Telegraph who lined up a defensive wall of their finest online columnists with the online news editor Shane Richmond in goal behind them. Why? It may have had something to do with the fact that

  27. Strange Attractor: Picking out patterns in the chaos on November 12th, 2006 at 8:55 pm:

    blogging as a content-management system that allows comments. If that’s your goal, just adapt your content-management system to accept comments. Recently, Shane Richmond of the Telegraph wrote: What is the point of newspaper blogs? in response to Andrew Grant-Adamson’s post, which questioned whether newspapers were blogging simply to get snaps from the kids (Bob Cauthorn was a little more adamant that newspapers needed to get a clue and stop blogging, which I disagree with). Andrew wondered if blogs were just content that

  28. Brad's Blog on November 14th, 2006 at 8:04 pm:

    Andrew Grant Adamson

  29. bojo » So much, and so little on November 14th, 2006 at 11:27 pm:

    [...] Some of it goes a little way back, like the question of why newspapers bother having blogs. My answer: Why does anyone? I’m not going to dictate to a newspaper what a blog should be, just as I don’t dictate whether you write a fictional hookers’ diary or humdrum tales of everyday life or comment on politics. Journalists are going to use blogs in different ways; most obviously to connect and talk to niche audiences, to trawl for ideas or to publish material that is not suited to their normal formats. Although I’ve been doing it for years, on and off, blogging for me has taken a backseat to the rest of my life (most obviously here, a wasteland of writing for some time now) but it can serve a hugely valuable purpose for the journalist and their readers alike. People use different voices for different conversations - and who are you to tell them otherwise? [...]

  30. BBC - Radio Five Live - Pods and Blogs on November 16th, 2006 at 10:53 am:

    [...] A couple of weeks ago Andrew Grant-Adamson, who teaches journalism at the University of Westminster, used his blog to ask “What’s the Purpose of Newspaper Blogs?”. [...]

  31. What is the Value of Newspaper Blogs? » The Bivings Report on November 17th, 2006 at 7:58 pm:

    [...] There is an interesting conversation taking place over in the United Kingdom about the value of newspaper blogs.  Andrew Grant-Adamson, a journalism professor at the University of Westminster, started the debate with this a post asking “What is the Purpose of Newspaper blogs?”  [...]

  32. í•œRSS on November 18th, 2006 at 11:24 pm:

    [...] OLPC 프로젝트에 대해서는 이전에도 몇차례 언급한 바 있다. 니그로폰테 교수를 존경하기에 관심있게 지켜보고 있던차 얼마전 드디어 100달러 노트북의 시제품 공개소식을 접했다.(공식위키의 사진과 떡이떡이님의 기사 참조) 사실 뜨거운 반응과 달리 구체적인 정보를 찾기가 쉽지 않은데 OLPC의 성공을 바라는 두명의 열정적인 청년이 비공식 OLPC블로그를 운영하고 있으니 한번쯤 방문해 보길 바란다. OLPC는 우분투와도 조금 연관이 있다. 공식 우분투 가이드를 펴내기도 한 데비안 해커(Canonical의 직원으로도 일했다), Bejamin Mako Hill이 MIT 미디어랩 소속으로 OLPC프로젝트에 참여하고 있다. 신문사 블로그의 존재 이유는 대체 뭘까? 고민하고 토론하고 사랑하고 2006-11-18 18:24 작성 | 뉴미디어 소식모음, blog/ newspaper/ technorati 제가 구독하는 블로그 포스트를 번역했습니다. 제목이 눈길을 잡아끌어서입니다. 저또한 이 질문에 대해 곰곰 고민한 적이 몇번 있었는데요, 나름의 결론을 내기엔 아직 역부족이란 생각을 많이 했습니다. 국내 신문사들 대부분이 지금은 블로그 서비스를 하고 있죠. 하지만 주목을 받은 블로거는 많지 않은 듯 합니다. 그나마 조인스 블로그가 대중들로부터 인기를 얻는 것으로 알고는 있구요. 아마 대다수의 언론이 트렌드나 대세에 따라 구체적인 전략모델 없이 블로그 서비스를 도입했기 때문이 아닌가 합니다. 또한 고급 정보를 유포하는 것만으로도 일약 블로고스피어에서 스타덤에 오를 가능성이 농후한 고참 기자들은 습관적으로 정보를 공유하기보다는 정보를 독점적으로 소유하려는 관성을 지니고 있죠. 이러한 특성이 자신의 블로그 서비스 활성화에 걸림돌이 되고 있지 않나 생각됩니다. 이글의 출처는 : http://www.bivingsreport.com/2006/what-is-the-value-of-newspaper-blogs/ 신문사의 블로그의 가치에 관한 흥미로운 대화가 영국에서 벌어졌다. 앤드류 그랜트-아담슨 웨스트미니스터 대학 저널리즘 스쿨 교수는 “What is the Purpose of Newspaper blogs?”에 답하면서 논쟁을 시작했다. 아담슨 그랜트는 영국에서 가장 큰 두 개의 신문사(더 타임스와 텔레그라프)의 블로그의 테크노라티 랭킹을 쭉 관찰했다고 했다. 쭉 관찰할 결과 테크노라티에, 이들 두 신문사의 블로그 가운데 상위에 랭크된 것은 하나도 없었다고 한다. 좀더 전체적인 시각으로 봤을 때, 테크노라티에서 비빙스리포트는가 영국의 신문사 블로그들보다 더 상위에 랭크돼 있었다고 했다. 테크노라티의 랭킹이 트레픽과 영향력을 측정하는데 있어 정확하다고 인정을 한다면, 이들 신문사 블로그는 실패일까? 그리고 트래픽 자체가 목표가 아니라면 대체 무엇이 성공을 판단케 하는 기준일까? 로빈 함만(그는 BBC에서 블로그 프로그램을 주도하고 있다)은 신문사가 트래픽을 넘어 블로그를 하는 표면적 이유에 대해 장문의 글을 쓴 적이 있다. 그는 오늘도 관련한 주제로 글을 썼다. 그러나 만약 신문사 블로그의 목표가 단지 더 많은 페이지뷰를 발생시키기 위한 것(또는 광고 수익)이라면 내가 읽었던 범주 안에서 그것은 잘못된 방식이라고 생각한다. 그러한 업무를 위해서라면 Gawker/Weblogs Inc. model을 따라야 한다. 이는 곧 당신이 블로그에 뉴스 속보를 내보내야 하고, 하루에 3~4개의 스토리를 포스팅하고 거기에 댓글도 달아야 한다는 것을 의미한다. 그것도 매일. 신문사 블로그가 순전히 페이지뷰만을 위한 역할이 아니라면, 나는 말콤 그래드웰의 모델이 고려돼야 할 훌륭한 대안이라고 생각한다. 글래드웹은 그의 블로그를 그의 [...]

  33. Era digital on November 19th, 2006 at 3:01 am:

    El valor de los blogs de los periódicos Andrew Grant-Adamson, profesor de periodismo de la University of Westminster ha iniciado un debate en el Reino Unido sobre el valor de los blogs que han creado los periódicos y lo que realmente aportan a la comunicación. Analizó en Technorati los ránkings de los blogs de dos de los principales peri

  34. Kristine Lowe on November 29th, 2006 at 1:31 pm:

    – at least in the UK (I follow UK and Scandinavian media in-depth, as I’ve got strong ties to both regions, and so far newspaper blogs are more prolific in the the UK). The main question here, which Andrew Grant-Adamson, a former lecturer of mine, posed a while back, is “What is the purpose of newspaper blogs?”, and subsidiary “What are they trying to achieve?” and “Are they achieving it?”. In his first post on the topic, he concluded: “This afternoon of browsing newspaper blogs leaves me confused. Some of the

  35. bojo on December 11th, 2006 at 8:20 pm:

    ’s a brief attempt to run over the ideas I’ve been thinking about lots recently… Act I: Can we stop talking about blogging now, please? Some of it goes a little way back, like the question of why newspapers bother having blogs. My answer: Why does anyone? I’m not going to dictate to a newspaper what a blog should be, just as I don’t dictate whether you write a fictional hookers’ diary or humdrum tales of everyday life or comment on politics. Journalists are going to

  36. Wordblog » Blog Archive » Times gets into the swing of blogging on January 24th, 2007 at 7:58 pm:

    [...] has been a real change in The Times’s blogs since I counted 40 in October and questioned their purpose. Now the number linked from the blogs home page is down to [...]

  37. Wordblog » Blog Archive » ‘Quality’ papers in blog skirmish on February 14th, 2007 at 8:39 am:

    [...] of newspaper blogs back in October I found the Guardian’s offerings were very different and wrote: The Guardian’s score of 12 is rather misleading as only two of them have an author’s name as [...]

  38. Untitled on February 20th, 2007 at 9:46 am:

    [...] The ideas grow. Someone links to their first post, or follow-ups, are linked to a website or news paper article or something else. Links are like roots, tendrils, reaching out between fragments, creating a [...]

  39. Press Gazette Blogs - Fleet Street 2.0 » Big Media Blogs - the debate continues on March 24th, 2007 at 6:54 pm:

    [...] the debate stirred up by Andrew Grant-Adamson’s critique of newspapers’ blogging efforts, at least one programme at one big broadcasting company is doing some introspection. Worth a [...]

  40. gallimaufry.ws on October 11th, 2007 at 2:37 pm:

    [...] questions the purpose of newspaper blogs. I’ve mainly thought of them as either (1) a way for papers to write a bit more about the [...]

  41. backofthebook.ca -- Canada's online magazine -- Media: Frank Moher on June 4th, 2008 at 11:53 pm:

    [...] their opinion columnists to simultaneously blog on the papers’ websites? I used to think — like media observers elsewhere — that newspaper blogs were meant to be dumping grounds for material the papers could not, or [...]

  42. What's the purpose of newspaper blogs? | Media | guardian.co.uk on March 10th, 2009 at 6:32 am:

    [...] is the purpose of newspaper blogs? asks Andrew Grant-Adamson after compiling a newspaper blog index. According to his “raw figures” The Times has 40 followed by the Daily Telegraph 32, The Guardian [...]

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