Well, perhaps that’s not quite accurate. What I think is happening is that I’m beginning to censor myself. I’ll read about something and think, “That’s interesting!” But then I’ll say to myself, “My blog entry has to be about democracy, human rights, or government. I can’t see how this fits with any of those topics.” At other times I’ll think, “I wrote about that already; I shouldn’t repeat myself.”

I wonder if these concerns are really important, though. Why not let the blog facilitator decide if a potential blog entry is too tangential? So far my track record has been excellent; I’ve had only one blog entry rejected as too far off-topic. True, it was annoying to have all the time I spent writing that piece wasted, but perhaps I should trust myself more. And what’s wrong with going back to an issue and exploring a different angle or looking at it in more depth? The way the blog is structured, with different writers taking turns, it might be fine to write on a specific theme for a while and have some continuity.

One complication with the blog is that I don’t exactly know when a specific blog entry will be posted. This has made me reluctant to write anything time-sensitive. But I suppose scheduling is really the job of the blog facilitator, not mine. My job is to write.

But I still don’t know what to write about this week ….

For those who may be looking for my personal Web site, Peggy Hu’s Notebook, an explanation. Due to the recent closure of Geocities, which had been hosting my site for more than 13 years, I’ve had to transfer my files to a new domain. You can still read my old stories, book reviews, poems and other material on http://www.peggyhu.com/, but it may take me a while to make any updates to the site as I deal with technical issues. If you notice any broken links, please let me know!

Started the morning by attending Merrill Perlman’s session on “brain speed bumps.” She presented several stories that contained mistakes and asked the audience to find them. I had a terrible time with every single one of the exercises and am thoroughly embarrassed. I hope that the problem was that I wasn’t quite awake at that hour rather than that I’ve lost my edge as an editor! 

Perlman gave a list of things that should set off alarm bells for editors and indicate that something should be double-checked in a story:

– Coincidence
– Internal inconsistency
– Repetition
– Superlatives and modifiers

She also advised editors always to check names, foreign languages, and things that are often corrected in their own publications. Perlman also warned that errors often travel in pairs.

BLOGGING ETHICS

The second morning session I attended was titled “Blogging Ethics,” and featured Bryan Murley of Eastern Illinois University, David Sullivan of the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Bill Walsh of the Washington Post.

Murley started off by comparing blog entries with print articles. Blogs entries, he said, are written in a personal style, are shorter than news articles, include hyperlinks to other stories, are narrowly focused, and can contain multimedia such as videos or audio clips.

Murley said copy editors can help bloggers by:

– authenticating links
– editing copy before it goes live
– “adding to the link economy” (giving primary sources to draw readers back to the piece)
– gauging comments
– tracking online conversations about a topic

Murley also discussed Twitter. Twitter is a conversation, he said; do NOT dump your RSS feed into Twitter. Instead, manually post selected items on Twitter with headlines written to lure readers, and engage people on Twitter in conversations. (Julio Ojeda-Zapata also made this point in the “Twitter for Journalists” session yesterday.)

Bill Walsh talked about his own experiences writing The Slot, a blog about errors he finds in copy. He noted that bloggers write about things in which they are interested, and often they are unofficial experts in the subject. This is in contrast to regular reporting, in which writers are sometimes assigned stories about which they know nothing.

David Sullivan discussed workflow. How can publications feed Twitter and update blogs quickly while ensuring the accuracy and fairness of the material being published?  These things don’t go through the normal editing process, but there still needs to be some sort of editorial review for them before they go live.  Sullivan also brought up the difference between objectivity and fairness. People have their own opinions about everything; it is part of human nature. We cannot really be objective. But we should always try our best to be fair in our coverage.

Other topics discussed included how to handle blog comments and whether to notify readers when a story on the Web has been changed.

1. I got to sleep in until 10 a.m. today! This is a very rare occurrence because I have a 5-year-old son who gets up with the sun every day, if not earlier, and does not understand why everyone else around him should not be awake when he is. My husband was very generous and took care of him all morning, though.

2. I’ve made a good deal of progress today in customizing my LJ account. Figured out how to create a userpic within the specified 100 px / 100 px limit that isn’t too blah and upload it to the site. For those of you who don’t know how “graphically challenged” I am, this is quite an accomplishment!  Also found some nifty emoticon graphics to display my moods.

3. The formatting problem I’ve been having with some of my LJ entries seems to have sorted itself out. I don’t think I did anything to stop the automatic indenting, but I’m happy it’s gone.

4. A friend of mine commented on one of my LJ entries and notified me that she, too, has an LJ account. It was fun to read her blog and to see her comment. (I love comments; it tells me someone else out there is actually reading what I write!)

5. Tonight my husband, son and I went out to one of our favorite restaurants for dinner. The service was really efficient, the food was delicious, and my son was well-behaved. All around it was a very positive experience!