This edited transcript was drawn from an e-mail interview conducted July 28, 2003.
Poynter: What prompted you to start a blog?
Carla Johnson: I was the fourth or fifth blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Our movie critic, our wine and restaurant reviewer and our state capital reporter all had blogs before me. The transportation
writer and I started around the same time. We also now have a pop music blog. Ken Sands (of
The Spokesman Review) encouraged me to blog. We knew the Internet is one of the first places people go to research personal health questions, so we thought interest would be high... Some of us bloggers have a friendly competition to see who can get the most hits. That's why you'll find items on "breast enhancement" in my blog from time to time.
Poynter: How did your editor react to the idea?Carla Johnson: Richard Wagoner wanted to know how much time it was going to take. It turns out that it takes me only about 15 or 20 minutes a day. I try to post something new daily. Plus, I reprint most of the blog items in my weekly Health Notes column that runs in the regular newspaper. So it really doesn't take any time away from my work for the newsprint side of the paper.
Poynter: What’s your process for filing, editing, etc.? Do you file directly to the blog? Does an editor read behind you? Do you await editing on some entries before posting?
Carla Johnson: There's negligible editing. I post directly to the blog. Ryan Pitts, one of our online producers, reads the blogs every day. He'll correct glaring errors, but he feels that a few typos are tolerable in the blogging world.
Poynter: How has this process worked so far? Lessons learned? Any posts you wish you could take back? If you get something wrong, do you change the copy, post a correction or what?
Carla Johnson: I haven't had any problems. The software allows me to delete past postings. I haven't done that yet.
Poynter: What’s the response been like among readers? Is it mostly your most avid readers who follow the blog, or are you attracting more general interest readers as well?
Carla Johnson: I've sent the link to other health writers across the nation. I've been told -- don't know if this is true -- that I was the first health journalist to have a blog. I'll take the title, unless anyone wants to contest it. Got this e-mali from "Sydney Smith" (pseudonym) who writes the Medpundit blog: "Loved your blog. It's the first health blog by a medical reporter that I'm aware of. That means the Spokesman-Review is ahead of the technology curve compared to papers like the New York Times, Washington Post and LA Times. Great work."
People comment that my blog is fun to read. I try to look for quirky health stories, something I can make a wry comment about. I also concentrate on evidence-based medicine and the health problems that are killing us fastest: cardiovascular disease and smoking.
I keep items very short. It's changed my writing. It's weird, but different media demand different writing styles. I'm much more apt to write in the first person, which is taboo on the news pages.
I've pursued links from other blogs, blatantly asking others to link to me. A friend, who is science editor at MSNBC, linked to me from his blog. Other medical bloggers are linking to me.
Poynter: How much time does the blog add to your work week?
Carla Johnson: None. See above.
Poynter: What’s been the impact of the blog on your print stories?
Carla Johnson: I'm bringing a more casual tone into some of my print stories. For example, I recently wrote a Medicare reform story using "you," talking directly to the reader.
Poynter: I noticed your item earlier this month letting readers know that you were in the process of researching an upcoming story about the Medicare bills – and that you wanted to pass along a Web site you thought might be helpful to readers in the meantime. Most journalists don’t let the rest of the world know what they’ve got in the works. What’s your experience been with that approach? Have you used the blog to solicit comments or angles to print stories in the works?
Carla Johnson: I wouldn't tip my hand if I were working on a big secret investigation, of course. In general, I promote the blog in the newspaper and I promote the newspaper in the blog. At this point, I get about 100 hits a day to the blog. This doesn't seem to be enough to generate much interaction. We have other cool ways to get reader comments, though. We have an e-mail database that we can use to send out 300 e-mail questions on a topic. (The addresses come from readers who have used e-mail to write letters to the editor.) I use that a lot. (Also, take a look at the moderated chats I've done on health topics. (There's a link from my blog to those.)
Poynter: What’s surprised you about doing the blog?
Carla Johnson: The surprise, to me, was how I immediately changed my writing style just because of the change of media. The style is more intimate, playful and free. Let's have some fun here. I also feel free to have a point of view, which I share with blog readers in the "where she's coming from" post. I'm also surprised how often I hear, "What's a blog?"
