We Want Media

After learning that the New York Daily News was starting its own blogs with its own writers through some ads in its print edition, I was both excited and skeptical about the idea. It was great that the paper branched out into the new media, but at the same time I was worried that the writers would have a hard time transitioning from the print format to the blog format. After reading the paper’s first posts, my worries went away.

Upon accessing the News’s blog site, I was amazed by the paper’s strategy for their blogs. As of right now there are only three blogs, and they cover New York politics, the Mets and the Yankees. These areas are a very good starting point. Sports and politics are not only the most popular subjects in blogging, they are also subjects that the paper covers very well.

The blogs' content also amazed me. Whether it was a post on Newark mayoral candidate Cory Booker or a weekly critique of the Yankee’s performance, these writers know how to blog. Their posts are full of voice, links and for the most part are right to the point. Some might disagree that the sports blogs are too long, such as the recent David Wright post on the mets blog. However, when you have three-way interactivity among the players, writer and reader, you need a lot of information to keep that interaction going.

I hope the News continues to use these blogs and keeps up promoting them in its print issues. It will be very interesting to see how the News uses these blogs as a springboard for its foothold in digital journalism, and how the other New York City papers react and adapt to this development.