A Matter of Opinion

I’m familiar with Coke and Apple and Nike. They’re household words. But the brand of Betty Solomon?! I think that one needs some work. And it seems that it’s becoming more and more essential that we focus on developing our personal brand.

According to Mark Glaser at MediaShift, “personal branding is becoming more than just a hobby–it’s a necessity.” John Robinson, editor of the Greensboro News & Record advises young journalists to start now to develop their own brand through blogging and other social networks:

“In the future, personal brands will be everything. As newspapers and media companies get smaller and break apart, journalists will be known as much by their personal/professional brand as by the company they work for. Many will be their own company. The quicker you establish a digital brand — I recommend shooting for integrity, trust and authority — the better.” — John Robinson, Greensboro News & Record

That means thinking about how you wish to be known online and managing your identity. It may even mean starting over, grabbing a domain name and beginning to focus more specifically on developing an identity that will become recognizable over time. Integrating your varied media presences will also help: Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkIn.

How well are you doing at creating your brand?

September is here again with another semester of students in my Editorial & Opinion Writing class. I’ve added their names and blogs to the blogroll at the right. I’m already excited about what I’ve seen from them so far. I think the opportunity for them to expand their understanding of blogging is tremendous.

They will be posting to their blogs three times a week–or more if they get really inspired. Their goals: developing their own voice and building an audience, along with practicing their writing skills.

Blogging can be fun and profitable or it can be a drudgery and worthless– depending on your attitude. Students, let the blogging begin!

What’s that? you don’t know what a charticle is? Well, according to the Oct/Nov issue of American Journalism Review,

Bite-sized combinations of words, images and graphics called charticles are in vogue at a number of American newspapers. And they are not necessarily the enemy of compelling narrative.

Chart + Article = Charticle (otherwise defined as “combinations of text, images and graphics that take the place of a full article.”)

Charticles are the latest and most popular strategy to lure younger readers back to the newspaper. Accustomed to getting their news online, young people are attracted to graphic information that communicates quickly. Bylines and nutgraphs fall by the wayside with charticles.

Read the whole article to learn the history, the conflict and the future of the charticle.

I like charticles that are well done and that are done in moderation. Although I don’t want my entire newspaper turning into a chart + text, some stories can definitely be told effectively this way.

Politics is dominating the news of the day, along with the economic crisis, of course. One thing I’m noticing is the abundance of political cliches in political commercials as well as in the speeches and debates. Each side is accusing the other of “mudslinging”–quite a graphic image if you stop to think about it.

Other common political cliches include

• “in it to win it”   Hillary’s oft-repeated campaign slogan
• “it’s still early”   when speaking about the polls, especially if your candidate is behind
• “with all due respect”  usually used in a debate when you’re about to disagree with your opponent
• “at the end of the day”   a summarizing cliche, used to indicate the bottom line of your argument

We also often hear about “battleground states,” “resonating with voters,” “grassroots candidates,” “soccer moms,” and during this campaign, “hockey moms.”

The funniest image I’ve heard referenced was used by a commentator who was asked tonight what McCain must do now to stop his slide in the polls. How’s this for a visual? He said, “It’s time to turn mama’s picture to the wall and get ugly.”

What are your favorite political cliches? Do any of them work? Which are so overused that they are more negative than positive?

At the recent 100th anniversary celebration of the j-school at the University of Missouri (the nation’s first journalism school), the topic on everyone’s mind was where is journalism headed. Advocating a “different model,” journalism prof George Kennedy said, “The business model that’s sustained daily newspapers for 100 years or more – if not broken, is badly battered.” The idea that great journalism is all that’s needed is no longer accurate, but most in attendance said that the presses aren’t stopping anytime soon.

Whether it’s 10 or 20 or 50 years away, the demise of the print media is not the relevant question to ask. Instead, journalists and prospective journalists “need to develop [their] online muscles and work on reporting, design, multimedia and business practices.” For journalism students, the ground may be shifting under their feet, but they will be able to adapt.

Will today’s newspapers exist tomorrow? Probably not, but journalism will still be here in one form or another. What are your predictions for how journalism will change in your lifetime?

“Having your own blog is media career insurance.”

That’s what Poynter Online’s Amy Gahran says in a post at her E-Media Tidbits blog. She argues that building your own personal brand is the key to building a career that can withstand the ups and downs of the media industry.

The easiest way to achieve this is to use your very own blog to build a strong, persistent personal brand.The key to building your personal brand is to publish easily findable content on your own site — not just via your employer’s site, nor just within a community site or group weblog. Your very own site.

Gahran makes a case that blogging is essential to anyone who wants to be involved in the media. I’m a proponent of blogging, and even I was surprised by how adamant she is in making this point. Here are her six tips for journalists who want to make the most of blogging (but you should really go read the whole thing–it’s that good):

1. Get a good domain name.
2. Map your domain to your site.
3. Stick with your domain.
4. Don’t work for anyone who won’t let you keep blogging. Ever. It’s just not worth it. Consider blogging a basic right of being in the media business.
5. Join the conversation, and link back to yourself.
6. Keep your blog going even if you also blog elsewhere.

Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker is attracting a lot of attention for her recent column “Palin’s Problem,” in which she argues that vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is “out of her league” and should do the only thing she can for her running mate John McCain: drop out of the presidential race.

I generally enjoy reading Parker–she’s usually conservative, often humorous and consistently intelligent in her writing. I was surprised to find her attacking Palin in her most recent column:

Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.

No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I’ve been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I’ve also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.

I’m not arguing for unexamined support for a candidate, but I’m also not in favor of advocating what I am sure will not happen–Palin stepping out of the race. To recommend that she do so as Parker does is to sabotage the Republican ticket. Parker’s comments below go too far, in my opinion:

Only Palin can save McCain, her party and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.

Do it for your country.

What do you think?

From today’s Writer’s Almanac:

It was on this day in 1970 that the first modern op-ed page appeared in The New York Times. People sometimes think that “op-ed” stands for “opinion-editorial,” but it actually stands for “opposite the editorial page.” Op-eds began in the 1920s, but they were forums for newspapers’ columnists, not for outside writers. The modern op-ed was created by New York Times journalist John Bertram Oakes. Oakes received a commentary letter that he thought was excellent, but it was too long to print as a letter to the editor, and it couldn’t be published in the op-ed page since it wasn’t by a columnist. So he got the idea for an op-ed page that would include outside opinions. Oakes spent 10 years trying to convince publishers that is was good idea. Finally the Times editors agreed, and published the first version, and it’s become the model for op-ed pages worldwide.

It’s usually a surprise to students when we first discuss op-ed pages and they learn that it’s shorthand for “opposite the editorial page.” I think some of them still don’t believe me.

Of the top 25 articles in the New York Times today (see list here), nine of them are opinion pieces. These are the most read and most e-mailed articles on the site. It seems that readers are interested in opinions–in reading them, sharing them, disagreeing with some and offering their own.

Blogging likewise is popular, perhaps primarily because it’s another way to share opinions. The number of blogs in existence today is cited at more than 100 million, some of them defunct but many more alive and well. This year the Democrat and Republican conventions credentialed more bloggers than ever before–a sign that blogs have reached a status of public credibility.

The secret is not necessarily presenting views that everyone agrees with, but rather writing about topics that others are interested in–whether they agree with you or not. The resulting conversation (in the comments section of posts) is where the interest level can be measured. I’m not sure what it takes to get readers to take the step to share their views on a blog, but it’s what I’m trying to discover as I write. I’m also asking myself what motivates me to leave the comfort of lurking and move to the point of voicing my own views by commenting on a fellow blogger’s post. If I can figure that out, maybe I can use that knowledge to make you add your comments to this post!

John Robinson, editor of the Greensboro (N.C.) News & Record, has been blogging at The Editor’s Log since 2004–definitely a pioneer among blogging editors. He was doing it when the rest of the journalism world was questioning its value. I’d suggest adding his blog to your blogroll as a regular read.

Here’s what he had to say back in 2006 about what he expected from applicants who wanted a job at his newspaper:

I ask job applicants if they have a blog. Most of them don’t. Then I ask them if they read my blog. About half of them haven’t.

The two questions tell me a lot about the candidates. First, if they have a blog, it gives me an indication of their passion for writing and communicating. It also allows me to see how their unedited writing reads. I rarely pay attention to submitted clips; I know how good editing can make a mediocre writer appear positively Halberstamian. Finally, in answering the question, they usually let on what they think of blogging and digital. Believe it, some trash blogs.

Second, if they haven’t read my blog, it tells me they haven’t done their homework. That makes the candidate a non-starter.

Actually, it helps winnow down the candidates pretty quickly.

Today Robinson adds to the question about blogging and says he also asks applicants about their social networking–e.g., do they Twitter?  what social networks are they in? and are they working on their personal brand?

Definitely food for thought for aspiring journalists and other writers. How would you answer Robinson’s questions and do you think they are valid ones?