Blogging before journalism
: Business Week’s Stephen Baker has a great moment in journalism and blogging today: He asks the audience for questions before he interviews Arianna Huffington on her new blog venture. That’s the way to do it: involving the public in your journalism, asking them what they want asked.
My suggestions, posted there (eventually):
Thanks for asking!…
* I’d ask whether she will include only the famous or whether she’ll make some people famous.
* Did I read correctly that she has a relationship with Tribune? (Couldn’t believe my eyes and perhaps I shouldn’t.)
* Is she going to pay her contributors? Or is having rich people who don’t need the money the smartest business model going?
* Will she share the wealth with other bloggers in other ways: Will she have a blogroll to link out and give traffic love to the bloggers she loves?
* Will she insist that the contributors link (as any blogger must) or will they merely — as I blogged the announcement — throw bon mots that she catches?
* Will her bloggers end up in conversations (as they must to be bloggers)?
* What’s the essence of her blog — the bon mots of the famous? the Huffington party line? the first-person People?
: It’s also cool that they’re putting up Flickr photos with credits. And while I’m in praise mode, I’ll link to Henry Copeland’s praise of Baker.
