Professional journalists who have embraced blogging are wisely using it to own-up/fix minor errors they make in their weblog postings.
After all, this is the hallmark of a good blogger – when he/she makes a mistake, they fix it. And as human beings the pros are just entitled to make mistakes as the bloggers are, despite what anyone may say to the contrary.
Real-time editing is a big change for some of the pros. Usually when a journalist needs to make a correction to a dead-tree story, the “corrections” editor handles it and it runs the next day. These days, editing occurs in real-time – particularly as social media and traditional media converge. All a journalist needs to do when they learn they have erred, is edit and re-publish.
Two pros who have embraced this are journalist/author/pundit Ed Bott and Houston Chronicle columnist/new blogger Dwight Silverman. Yesterday Ed blogged about what he thought was a stealth Google personalized search tool. I posted a comment pointing to evidence of the contrary and Ed changed his post. Good for Ed. He’s listening and is more than happy to make sure he’s telling the truth. Bott’s ink blot never ran dry. Similarly, over the weekend Dwight incorrectly attributed an opinion to me on the AOL/TOS issue on his new blog, but when I pointed out that it came from someone else’s comment on my weblog, he changed his post. New evidence that listening and blogging are changing journalism.
Steve Rubel is a PR strategist with nearly 16 years of public relations, marketing, journalism and communications experience. He currently serves as a Senior Vice President with Edelman, the largest independent global PR firm.
He authors the Micro Persuasion weblog, which tracks how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the public relations practice.
