Telegraph Making News but not much of it
By Andrew Grant-Adamson • Jul 9th, 2007 • Category: Newspapers, OnlineThe Telegraph has launched a breaking news blog with the aim of rapidly updating developing breaking news stories, according to journalism.co.uk. I took a look at it today and the mystery is, why are they doing it?
Marcus Warren, the Telegraph site editor, is quoted by journalism.co.uk as saying the Making News blog will offer "updates and commentary on the day’s stories" throughout a news day.
His comment on the site’s other blogs is rather grudging:
I, for one, was more than conscious of the shortcomings of our existing blogs.
I’m a great fan of them, of course. But if you want to know what is going on in the world or air your opinions about the events of the day as the happen, Telegraph blogs are not a lot of help. For the general, news-hungry, drive-by user they don’t offer much.
So this afternoon we find latest "breaking" story to benefit from exposure on the Making News blog is the refloating on the Napoli which ran aground earlier this year. At 37 words it is a brief that fails even to remind readers in which country (England, Branscombe beach) the boat grounded. As there is a picture gallery of the refloating linked from the site home page the purpose of putting a paragraph on the breaking news blog looks thin.
The previous item was the conviction of three terrorists. That was the front page news top to which the blog adds nothing.
The post before that was a link to the New York Times story that Bush was considering withdrawing troops from Iraq. Now there is an idea: a blog of missed stories we wish we had.
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.
Email this author | All posts by Andrew Grant-Adamson
[...] Wordblog » Blog Archive » Telegraph Making News but not much of it Great stuff from Andrew Grant-Adamson “The post before that was a link to the New York Times story that Bush was considering withdrawing troops from Iraq. Now there is an idea: a blog of missed stories we wish we had.” (tags: breaking news telegraph wordblog blogs) [...]
Surely their main site should be breaking the news and the blogs are for more in depth and interactive coverage of the stories.
Andrew
I’m going to interrupt my summer holidays to respond.
You call my comment on our blogs “grudging”.
In context http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/uptoapoint/jul07/makingmakingnews.htm
the quote was:
I, for one, was more than conscious of the shortcomings of our existing blogs.
I’m a great fan of them, of course. And I helped set them up. Or rather I encouraged, cajoled or pleaded with some of our foreign correspondents to launch their own because I thought they would be a great vehicle for their talents. More than 18 months on some of the pioneers are still going strong. (I suppose that one way of looking at it is that I persuaded them to do lots more work without doing a stroke more myself. But that’s not the way they see things. Is it?)
But if you want to know what is going on in the world or air your opinions about the events of the day as the happen, Telegraph blogs are not a lot of help - unless you are particularly interested in their niche subjects. They’re gloriously, but excessively, esoteric, yes. But for the general, news-hungry, drive-by user they don’t offer much.
Maybe “gushing”, rather than “grudging”, surely.
As for “Making News”, in http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/uptoapoint/jul07/moremaking.htm I stressed that it is a “work in progress”. From what I can see from holiday (in S London for the time being) it is indeed progressing. We’ll take a view later in the summer….