I am not one who says blogging has killed mainstream media. Pew reports that 39 percent of Internet users in the U.S say that they read blogs (or 19 percent of the total U.S. population read blogs – pdf).
I don’t know how this translates worldwide, but it means that 81 percent of people still get their news some other way, through mainstream media outlets or word of mouth.
Moreover, many journalists have started to blog. Ten to one, your local paper has someone on staff that authors a blog, either through official channels or personally. For instance, in San Antonio, the Express News has a special blog section that lists more than 30 blogs authored by Express News writers.
As public relations professionals we would be crazy not to read the blogs of those that we want to pitch. Seems logical, doesn’t it?
Also, bloggers have something immediately in common with jouralists that have blogs. For instance, I am having lunch this Friday with a group of journalists that have their own blog, Musing Mama.
I am not looking to pitch them for anything right now (if ever), but I am looking to foster a relationship with other bloggers in town and the Musing Mamas want some help with public relations for their blog.
6 Tips to Find Journalists who blog
- Poynter Online: A website, resource and blog for journalists. I regularly read
- Romanesko, which is a popular blog there. You can find blogs of other journalists by reading Jim's excellent list of “Resources,” or blogroll of media source sand journalists on his left navigation bar.
- Look for journalists’ blogs at Cyberjournalism, which claims to have the “most comprehensive list of blogs produced by journalists.” That claim is a little overstated sine I couldn’t find many blogs that I know exist there, but it is a good place to start.
- Go to the homepage of the paper you are trying to pitch, and look for a “blog” navigation button, also type blog in the search box and see what pops up
- Google. Type the name of the journalist with the word “blog” after it and you will probably find any personal blogs that are out there.
- Technorati: Check out the category search for Journalist
Hat Tip: Thanks to David Scott Meerman, who is contributing editor of EContent magazine, for bringing this to the top of my mind in a post last week, Something is Very Wrong in PR Land, where he rightly makes the point, “How difficult can it be to read the blogs of the reporters you're trying to pitch? You learn precisely what interests them.”
Update: One of my new favorite bloggers Todd And, added a few more resources to my list, a list of Best Media/Journalist blogs from 2005 and a Business Week article on why journalists should blog.
Photo by noodlepie
