The South Florida Sun-Sentinel featured Photography is Not a Crime on its home page today as part of a recently launched initiative called “Blog of the Day.”
You can see the feature if you click on the home page and scroll a bit down on the center column. Here is a list of blogs they’ve already recognized. It also allows you to submit your blog or another blog to be featured.
The Sentinel also listed my blog along with a few other local blogs in its article about the video showing cops beating up a man because we all wrote about it. The other blogs included Man or Maniac.
For me, this is a nice acknowledgment. Just last month, my blog was mentioned in a New York Times article.
Considering this is a significant step for a mainstream media newspaper, I asked Deputy Online Editor Seth Liss a few questions about the new initiative.
Here is the interview in a Q&A format:
1. How did the decision to feature local blogs come about?
It’s an altruistic effort to get local bloggers more integrated into our site.
2. Was it difficult to convince your editors or did they see the value in it?
They were pretty excited about the idea and gave me the time to do it, so no not really.
3. Is the goal to feature a blog every single day? (this discussion came up on the South Florida Daily Blog)
That is the goal, though the updates will likely drop off on weekends. We also want to integrate individual posts from local bloggers into big stories as we have done with the elevator story http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/sfl-bn-0304video,0,1616907.story. And we are just starting to create rss feeds of local bloggers around specific areas of content. The first one is on the Dolphins page. http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/football/pro/dolphins/
4. How does this improve readership or credibility in one of the most dire eras for newspapers?
We are always looking to improve our content offering online and in print and this is a way to bring our readers some different views.
5. What criteria do you look for in featuring a blog?
Mainly, I check to see if they are local, regularly updated and have interesting content. People can sign up for the opportunity to be highlighted through our sign-up form http://www.sun-sentinel.com/community/sfl-0212-best-of-local-blogs-form,0,1820369.customform
6. Are there any future goals to further implement local blogs on the Sun Sentinel or for expanding the current format?
We just started this initiative, so no plans yet. We’ll see how this does and go from there.
7. How long have you been at the Sentinel and what is your technology/journalistic background?
I’ve been here for about a year. Before that I held various producer roles at the San Jose Mercury News for seven years. Before that, a few tech companies and before that I was a print reporter for various newspapers.
