Inside View On Breaking News Blog

A Philadelphia editor is passing on the wisdom of his experience with setting up a breaking news blog.

The executive editor online/news for the Philadelphia Inquirer has revealed some of the decisions behind its online outlet for breaking news and shared some top tips with the Knight Digital Media Center.



Chris Krewson began the From The Source blog near the end of 2008 and said it has become an ideal place to put news stories with scant details.

“For the past nine months or so we’d struggled with what to do with information like that; posting news in a blog format helped us get over the mental hurdle that ‘we didn’t have enough for a story’.”

Krewson also explained that he ensured From The Source was well stocked with content from its launch date by getting newsroom desks, such as education and sport etc, to file “brief dispatches” to be posted the night before.

And the blog is particularly user-friendly and makes sure the details on how to contact its writers are made prominent to encourage story tips from readers.

The result? From The Source started in November and was placed 11th on Philly.com’s most popular blog charts.

By the following month it had risen to second place and accounted for almost 12% of all blog traffic on the site.

[HT – Editors Weblog]