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RELATED |
Live blogging tools:
CoverItLive -- A Web-based software that lets you publish content using one-click publishing. Blog updates are published in real time like instant messaging.
Odeo -- An online application that lets you share and record podcasts using Macromedia Flash-based interface.
Flickr -- An online photo sharing application.
Freeconferencecall.com -- Lets you record record interviews that can be e-mailed as MP3s.
Qik.com -- Lets you stream live video from your cell phone to your blog, or Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Seero -- A geo-broadcasting platform that lets you view video from around the world.
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Associated Press reporter Ben Walker watched as coach Roy Williams came back from the concession stand Monday night, posing for a cellphone picture while holding a box full of peanuts and hot dogs. Walker wanted to share this detail from Monday night's Final Four game with readers but knew it wasn't newsy enough for
his AP story. It was just right, though, for
his live AP blog entry.
"You
see something funny or interesting," Walker said, "and you think bang, I just want to
pop something out right this second."
Walker is one of many journalists who have found that live blogging can actually help us
grow as storytellers -- by teaching us to look for quirky details and be better listeners, note takers
and deadline writers.
"Your powers of observation are doubled and tripled when you live blog," Walker said. "You see things and look for things that you would not not look for in a story. You might look at a situation in a different way, and you might listen for a different type of quote."
Though some AP sports reporters blog during games, live blogging is
not common at the AP, Walker said, primarily because it can be difficult to write a quality wire story and live blog entry simultaneously.
Sports writer Greg Auman, who covers the University of South Florida's games for the
St. Petersburg Times (which The Poynter Institute owns),
live blogs from just about every football and basketball game he covers.
"I find that live blogging keeps you more aware of the stories developing during a game," Auman said. "You're constantly having to come up with complete thoughts and analysis about an incomplete game."
During a football game, he might post 10 to 15 updates -- one before the game, one with an update in changes on the starting lineup, then one after each score, and another at halftime. With football, he said, it's harder to write a final "game over" post because sports writers typically go on the field for the final minutes of the game.
"The challenge with live blogging is obviously paying as much attention to the game as you can while writing throughout. And it's a little harder to do during a night football game when there's tight deadlines that often call for a story to be filed as soon as the game ends," Auman said. "Again, a good live blog helps focus a game story for the next day's paper -- it's harder to overlook things and easier to remember the key points you want to squeeze into a comprehensive game story."
Live Microblogging, or Tweeting
One option sports reporters and journalists in general might want to explore more is microblogging. To highlight key points from the conferences she attends, Amy Gahran, editor of Poynter's
E-Media Tidbits, uses
Twitter as a form of "live microblogging," or "live Tweeting." Twitter, she said, has taught her to think in 140-character bursts, the number of characters per Twitter post.
Though she has
a blog, which she updates regularly, Gahran said she finds that Twitter is more conducive to live blogging because it's an easy way to post short, frequent updates. For the purposes of live microblogging, Gahran created an additional Twitter account with the username
AmyLive to avoid overflowing
her regular Twitter account with live updates. "It helps," she said, "to give people a special 'channel' like that to tune into."
Downsides to Live Blogging
A downside to live blogging, Gahran said, is that she misses some of the visual presentations. "Since I'm a notoriously sloppy typist," she said, "I tend to watch my screen more when I'm live tweeting an event so I can minimize typos."
Walker of the AP added that live blogging can sometimes distract reporters from the story at hand. While trying to make
sure their story isn't a regurgitation of their blog post or vice
versa, reporters may write something particularly well in a blog
post, but won't do as good of a job writing it in their story.
"When it comes time
to write the story, in the reporters' minds, they obviously don't want
to repeat the same information so they try to find another way to do
it," Walker said. "They might not say it as crisp and clear as they
said it the first time."
The story, in the end, is what matters most, said AP sports writer Doug Feinberg. He doesn't live blog because there's just
not enough time. "Live blogging," he said, "would take away from the main purpose of
having the best story I can have." Instead of blogging about the basketball games he attends,
Feinberg created an AP blog that is generated with content from
basketball players themselves.
Multimedia-driven Live BloggingDuring last year's Scooter Libby trial,
Kim Pearson, an associate professor of journalism at the College of New Jersey and an E-Media Tidbits contributor, live blogged
as part of a team credentialed through the Media Bloggers Association. In a recent interview, she described her experience live blogging at conferences and during the trial, saying she tends to focus more on crafting narratives than raw dispatches:
"I felt the kind of pressure one feels when covering a breaking news story, a need to make sure I got the quotes right, any stray bits of atmosphere for perspective I can pick up and work in."
Pearson has also experimented with multimedia-driven live blogging, using
CoverItLive,
Odeo and
Flickr. She records interviews using Audacity and is looking into using
Freeconferencecall.com to record interviews that can be e-mailed as MP3s.
Other bloggers, such as
Barb Iverson, new media professor at Columbia College in Chicago, say they like using CoverItLive when live blogging because it lets them publish posts in chronological order, making readers feel as though they are experiencing the information in the order that it happened. Iverson has also experimented with live videoblogging services like
qik.com and
Seero.com. You can read more about Iverson's experience with Seero
here.
'Intoxicated by the Immediacy'Charles Apple, graphic artist at
The Virginian-Pilot, has been live blogging at conferences since the 2005 Society for News Design's annual workshop in Houston. He's been told he makes live blogging look easy.
"That's definitely not the case. Blogging is a lot of hard work. You're typing narrative, uploading photos, doing some light coding," Apple said. "It's difficult to do all this and a.) remain engaged in whatever session is going on, and b.) without distracting anyone sitting near you."
While others are enjoying the conference or networking, the live blogger is under pressure to file a report. In this sense, Apple said, the blogger misses out on part of the conference experience. But he looks at it from a journalistic point of view: he's providing news to folks who can't attend the conference.
You don't have to be a reporter in the traditional sense of the word, Apple said, to benefit journalistically from live blogging. "Blogging is reporting. And reporting is a skill, just like designing a page or shooting free throws," Apple said. "The more of it you do -- and the more of it you do under pressure -- the better you'll get at it, the faster you'll become and the less likely you'll get rattled on deadline," Apple said.
For Apple, live blogging has taken instant gratification to a whole new level. He's intoxicated, he says, by the immediacy of it all.
"I thought I was in love with the idea of drawing a graphic and then seeing it in print five hours later. And for 20 years plus, I was," Apple said. "But forget all that! I can type up a few talking points about a speaker behind the podium, snap a few photos and upload a nice post about her presentation so folks around the world can read about it -- all before she's even done speaking. Once you get that kick, you find yourself hungry to do it again. And again."
[What questions do you have about live blogging?]
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