I never thought I’d stoop as low as becoming a blogger, or joining, as it is known in geek-speak, the ‘blogosphere’. But James asked me to because he says he “values my opinion”, and I’m a sucker for a compliment. Someone might even read it, and that’s always a novelty for a news editor.
So, here I am. And I’m feeling rather dirty about it.
But maybe I shouldn’t be. Overseas and, more recently, in New Zealand journalists are finally cottoning on to blogs as both a source of news and a way to interact with their audience. There have been some big mainstream scoops in America – I would link to some but I haven’t figured out how yet – where a lot of the original investigative work has been done by bloggers. And on the other side of the coin, even New Zealand Herald website is starting to become more interactive. It’s probably not a bad bandwagon for us to be jumping on.
James is quite right in that the Salient blog will most likely descend into self-indulgence. Probably quite quickly. Blogging is essentially a personal medium, the 21st century equivalent of keeping a diary, so to expect any more from us would be in vain. But we’ll try to keep it fresh and interesting, and to give you an idea of what happens behind the scenes at Salient.