When it comes to covering live events, print arts journalists often use blogs to either 1) dump stuff from their notebooks online that wouldn't otherwise get into print; or 2) write in the same style and format as the print edition.When it comes to covering live award shows such as the Grammys and Oscars, however, the best thing is to think past the old mindset of the next-day wire-story-style wrap up. Use the advantages of the blog to create an immediacy and connection with your audience. We have a tiny staff at The Fresno Bee, but we manage to cover live awards shows that draws in readers in ways that a next-day wire story never could. Our pop music writer, Mike Osegueda, is really good at this with the Grammys. I did it last year with the Oscars as well, and we're already running promo house ads to join "Donald's Oscar Blog Party."
Here are some tips for making awards-show blogs work:
1. Update like crazy. Put your entries in chronological order, and be sure to denote the time of each entry. We've found that people like to sit with their laptops in front of the TV and refresh their pages every few minutes as they watch the show. Don't go for more than 10 minutes, say, without at least a one-or-two sentence update.
2. Be conversational. React to things in the telecast. Muse on what's coming up. Make fun of the dresses. Praise the good speeches. And be descriptive. Believe it or not, I've had readers tell me that they read my Oscar blog last year INSTEAD of watching the show. So if Julie Christie this year wears a shocking yellow cape that makes her look like a giant sunfish, say it.
3. Encourage your readers to post their own comments -- and respond to them. Usually you'll get a core group of commenting readers, 10 or 15 of them, who post their own thoughts on the show in real time. React to what they have to say.
4. Show some expertise. If "There Will Be Blood" seems to be losing early on in the technical categories, jaw a little about what that might mean for the big awards at the end of the show. You can speculate, of course. What's important to remember is that this stuff isn't really meant to be read after the fact. It's meant to be done in real time. (In that regard, award show blogs are like election blogs; they can be intensely interesting at the moment and completely worthless the next day.) You're writing about the experience of the event, not a recap for people to read in the next morning's paper.
5. Have fun. I didn't think I'd really like live blogging until I tried it. And what I found is that the live interaction with readers can be a blast. It's also THE way to make a local angle work out of a national event.
2. Be conversational. React to things in the telecast. Muse on what's coming up. Make fun of the dresses. Praise the good speeches. And be descriptive. Believe it or not, I've had readers tell me that they read my Oscar blog last year INSTEAD of watching the show. So if Julie Christie this year wears a shocking yellow cape that makes her look like a giant sunfish, say it.
3. Encourage your readers to post their own comments -- and respond to them. Usually you'll get a core group of commenting readers, 10 or 15 of them, who post their own thoughts on the show in real time. React to what they have to say.
4. Show some expertise. If "There Will Be Blood" seems to be losing early on in the technical categories, jaw a little about what that might mean for the big awards at the end of the show. You can speculate, of course. What's important to remember is that this stuff isn't really meant to be read after the fact. It's meant to be done in real time. (In that regard, award show blogs are like election blogs; they can be intensely interesting at the moment and completely worthless the next day.) You're writing about the experience of the event, not a recap for people to read in the next morning's paper.
5. Have fun. I didn't think I'd really like live blogging until I tried it. And what I found is that the live interaction with readers can be a blast. It's also THE way to make a local angle work out of a national event.
Bob, you bring up a great question: How do you blog and write a next-day story at the same time? The answer is that you really can't. And editors have to understand this. Instead of duplicating the wires and writing a news story about the Academy Awards, I opt instead to write a personal blog in real time. This is one of the trade-offs of the New Media paradigm: When you add new content online, that usually means you have less resources for the print edition. In the case of Academy Awards coverage, I think a local blog (with reader interaction) is better than running a news story that can be picked up from the wire. But if this were a purely local event, you'd have to bring in another staffer if you wanted to do both a news story and a blog.
I think i may have something small to add to this. It may sound a bit like an ad...but i am not making any money, just out for exposure.
In responce to the Academys lack of love for the horror genre I did my own award show
the SpookyDan Anti-Academy Awards.
The reason its fairly topical to this is that now i have even more to talk about an be engaged with, not just the Academys picks and who wore what, but since i write for a major horror site (www.bloody-disgusting.com) I can speak right to the other fans of the genre who may feel the same about the Academy.
Like your suggestion, I have created an online forum to interact with the viewers, and even have a give away for those who decide to participate... a bunch of my used DVD's :)
i hope this didn get too off topic
SpookyDan
www.anti-academyawards.com
Fine, I guess, to sit there writing while you report. But how do you take notes at the same time? Are you allowed to use your blog material in your piece? Isn't there a good chance you'll miss something while responding to your readers? If the paper wants you to live-blog instead of publishing a shaped report in the paper, I suppose that's a reasonable tradeoff, though I'm old-fashioned enough to privilege the shaped. But if you're supposed to do both, as I suspect you are, it does feel rather like what we union members refer to as speedup. And I note that when I used just this term to describe the online opportunities proffered to Village Voice employees four of five years ago, the editor got very touchy about it.