Better blogs through chemicals
- 2 Comment
On online newspaper has just been launched for Brisbane (Queensland Australia) called Brisbane Times and the site will feature a number of blogs. Nothing unusual about that to be sure however it is the first opportunity for me as a new media professional to witness a group of mass media opinion blogs starting from scratch.
When setting up the blogs they have ensured that they have a head liner act, in this case it is the author John Birmingham whom I do love (and is a blogger – check out his personal blog here) in addition to several other blogs with various themes.
Amongst them there is a man’s perspective or I should probably better define it as a stereotyped ‘blokes’ blog. Another is a Sex and the City clone, both of these are tried and tested formulas and should pick up a following. It was another of the blogs that really caught my eye though and I must admit it’s through morbid curiosity that I have added it to my feed reader.
Viva Bris Vegas suffers (and to be fair I think they all suffer) from it’s own promises. This one promises that if it is fun that you like, this is the place. The blog is written by a gentleman named Conal Hanna and the site includes the “drinking, bar-hopping and clubbing” writers photograph. I’m sure Conal is a really nice guy and he probably does bar hop and go clubbing but that photo makes him look like an obvious ‘suit’.
If you are going to be writing about clubs, gigs and where to party in Brisbane I want to believe that you actually live it. The problem here is that I just don’t believe him. Not one word of it. It’s artificial.
None of these blogs feel real. It certainly isn’t the real life story of Sally as she makes her way through the dating scene. People aren’t following her tips on fashion as she sees it because the blog rings true and speaks from the heart of a single girl in the city.
We are being fed a plastic prepackaged product written by journalists designed to mimic an authentic blog. My advice to any news site that wants to launch a digestible natural product take a look at the existing talented bloggers already out there pounding the blog pavement.
Don’t try and grow a tomato in a lab when you can go and pick one from the vine!
I refuse to believe there isn’t a blogger out there writing about clubs and music in Brisbane already. In fact a less than exhaustive search of Google found the excellent brispop.com as one example (maybe Conal has contributed in the past as the site does have a lot of contributors).
So go and find a blogger who is living that life! Because the people out there in the Valley going to gigs and clubs aren’t going to buy your mass produced plastic posts!
This should be a lesson to the business community too, if you are going to enter the world of business blogging don’t just let someone in your PR department issue press releases and adverts as your blog. Go out and get someone who is experienced at writing blogs naturally or someone who is naturally an advocate or expert in your business.
If you can get both that’s great!!!
A final note I do wish the bloggers at Bris Times all the best they are doing their job and I hope their natural voices do come out!
Next up: Your first post – are first impressions that important (prob tomorrow or the next day)
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2 Comments on this post
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John Birmingham said:
Lee, you’re point about mainstream media blogs is well made, but misses an obvious point. They’re mainstream media blogs. Run by multinational corporations to draw web traffic upon which they can float their ad rates. There are any number of constraints on them that don’t exist for a random punter bloggin away at home. The reality of defamation law for one thing. Example. I cut a line from a recent BT blog about a Brisbane real estate firm in which I described them as Satan’s Own Realtors. The sort of thing I wouldn’t think twice about writing at Cheeseburger Gothic (my personal blog) but the sort of throwaway line that would lead to court when published by Fairfax, if only because they are so much tastier targets for a hungry deffo lawyer.
The other issue is audience and house style. I’m foul mouthed git in person, and on my personal blog. But I can’t go droppin f-bombs every second line when i’m writing for a media company. They won’t print it. Never happen. They’re a billion dollar business and that shit is bad for biz.
I totally get your point about ‘voice’, however. There’s one blogger in particular who has a great voice in their emails, but it leaches out in the blog. I’m gonna see what i can do about helping with that. But in the end, no mainstream publishing house is ever going to produce anything as edgy as some punter writing for themselves with no rules and nothing to lose. Doesn’t mean it aint worth readin’ tho.
March 14th, 2007 at 6:56 pm -
Lee said:
All fair comments too. LOL I’ve spent the better part of the evening rewriting my response over and over again. Mainly because JB has written such a fair response to the post (it doesn’t hurt that it’s written by a writer I greatly admire either!).
In a perfect world the lawyer factor wouldn’t be a problem but as I illustrate by the very existence of the post anything produced by Fairfax or some other media outlet is going to get scrutinised more than your average blogger. Had Conal written the blog through blogger.com on his own I no doubt would not have even mentioned it – actually I may have encouraged him because the blog has only just started (see my article on your first post).
Like I said I do wish these new blogs on the block all the best and Viva Bris Vegas is still in my feed reader so it’s done something right LOL!
So the question that I’m going to have to ponder and hopefully write up a half decent post is how much harder is it to write a blog when you have those constraints!
Cheers JB for taking the time to respond.
March 15th, 2007 at 3:37 am