Monday, June 06, 2011

Enquirer Starts 'Breaking News' Blog

The Cincinnati Enquirer started a blog: This Just IN: Breaking News from the Tri-State on Friday. It appears to be mostly a quick news feed of selected eye catching stories with little more than initial reports and no analysis. I don't see this is as a blog at all, just a repackaging of the stories that appear on the front page.

What makes blogs different is that they can provide a voice and space. First, they lend themselves to commentary, as mine does. That is sorely missing at the Enquirer overall and is not present so far in this new blog endeavor. Second, blogs do well with long form feature stories. They give more space that can't fit into the newspapers and can utilize multimedia more effectively.

The one plus I do see in this blog is that so far the blog content on their website have not fallen into the pay archive. That gives a better online historical reference, but still not a complete one. This doesn't mean that these archives will stay open forever, something that makes this less of a blog.

If this more space for more hard news on Cincinnati.com overall, then that will be another plus. I don't find it has added more, yet. I can be hopeful it does.

1 comment:

  1. They're probably just calling it a blog because they are using the "blog software". Since the authors don't respond in their regular "blogs", I don't know if those merit the term, either.

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