July 1, 2004, 10.44pm • 31 comments » • 5,104 Views

Back from the Blog

This week, I wrote about how BBC journalist Stuart Hughes claimed a “blogging exclusive” on the early handover of power to Iraq. Now, Cyberjournalist.net interviews him about the event and more.

Stuart says that the story was picked up by colleagues at the NATO press conference in Istanbul. He confirms his main priority was to file copy to the BBC in London; then he bashed out a few lines for his weblog. And here’s one in the eye for those who bang on about blogs usurping journalism:-

I only got the story in the first place because I’m a journalist with a traditional news organisation.

Interesting comments about balancing of priorities between the the dayjob and the dayblog:-

I see the blog as a kind of “sketchbook” for ideas and subjects I’m interested in. I throw all the things that catch my attention onto the blog and over time some of them percolate down into my BBC reports.

That was certainly the case last year when I was writing a weekly column about my recovery for BBC news online. I’d write every day on the blog and then condense what I thought were the best bits of writing down into 500 words a week for the BBC — so the blog and my paid job complemented each other perfectly.

Certainly, when we were publishing Stuart’s column, there was a sense that, despite his blog being a nice - and reasonably popular - outlet, his work was going to be getting a lot more exposure on the BBC. Interesting, then, to note the use of a weblog as the starting point for mainstream journalism - a place to experiment and kick about ideas in a relative isolation.

And more on balancing the mainstream and the blog (I’m beginning to hate that word now):-

The BBC have been very tolerant of my blog….there’s certainly been none of the pressure that people like Kevin Sites have faced.

By the time (my managers) cottoned on to the fact I was expressing my own personal opinions on a blog I’d had my accident - and I think they thought it unwise to add insult to injury by complaining about it! I’ve never sought permission from my BBC bosses over my blog - nor have they asked for it.

I just don’t buy the fact that blogs turn everyone into a journalist — genuine journalism requires a level of insight, experience of a situation, and caution. Some bloggers demonstrate all three — many do not.