(Vickey Williams)

Consider the humble Web blog. As common as a cup of coffee - Technorati alone tracks 112 million of them - and better still, free to consume and free to produce. It is a modest vehicle to bear the hopes of so many.

Blogs are the platform of choice for young journalists searching for a voice and a grudging topic for study for old-media veterans looking for a venue to carry them from outsourcing to retirement. After some years of watching from the sidelines, most traditional media organizations have finally come to at least tolerate them by select members of staff.

The enchantment was apparent at the recent Unity '08 conference in Chicago a few weeks ago, a mega-event that brought together members of the National Association of Black Journalists, the Asian American Journalists Association, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and the Native American Journalists Association. It boasted a rich agenda with top headliners leading sessions on globalization, watchdog journalism and a host of major beat topics.

But the segments on digital journalism – and particularly on finding funding for new ventures - were the ones that attracted standing room only crowds.

It's easy to see why. A popular blogger can increase a Web site's traffic by 10 to 50 times, we were told by blogging glitterati in a session sponsored by Time, Inc.

After initial skepticism (or the change resistance we're famous for) most newspapers seem to have gotten on board. Nearly a decade after the blogosphere began being populated by online diaries, commentary, advice, whistleblower exposes and at least occasionally, breaking news, a mid-career television news anchor who had recently been told a blog was a new job responsibility was anxious for answers from the Unity panel.

It was a respite in troubled times to hear a few wild success stories, like that of Arnold Kim, a physician who left his practice to go full-time with MacRumors.com.

Even two years ago, I saw editors wringing hands over this fearsome new digital creation. It reminded me of the worry over yesterday's questions around who got the column slots in the news pages of the print paper. Will they protect and further the brand or will they be petty, opinionated - or worse yet, boring - in front of everyone? Will it make them a personality and difficult to manage if they develop a following?

In a talk on the Medill School campus last fall in which he described the digital transition in the newsroom of the Houston Chronicle, Executive Editor Jeff Cowan seemed to hold a more strategic perspective for a digital age. Noting how "narrow job descriptions have exploded," Cohen added: "Information is more free-flowing than we ever imagined possible." And if the journalists are the musicians, "today it is more like jazz than a symphony."

A key difference in today's scenario versus the old print column is that any blog worth its salt allows for reader comments. One of the Unity experts forecast "comments are tomorrow's blogs." So the better question today might be, what if there are none? What will media leaders do if they find out they resonate as little online as the most recent research indicates?

It will take aggressive risk-taking and experimentation to create the community-building that is the promise behind blogging. Great blogs insinuate themselves into ongoing conversations. Topics that don't connect will have to be abandoned and the search continued for those that do. Old media will have to learn to course-correct as they go - something news organizations are not accustomed to doing.

Not every voice will be the right cadence or tenor for success in the blogosphere. But any mode of communication that puts the audience on something closer to equal footing with the messenger seems healthier than the one-way delivery of the past.

Live, two-way communication with an audience? In the blogosphere, it's old news. For traditional media, it might be a much-needed avenue for digitally getting in touch.

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So you want to make it as a blogger?

A panel of experts on blogging at the recent Unity '08 Conference in Chicago had these tips.

What it takes: Blog readers want to live through you vicariously, said Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan, co-founder of Apartment Therapy, now with four interior design spinoffs. "Be your audience's biggest fan of the topic, not necessarily the biggest authority."

Popularity first, then pay: "Your blog is your prospectus," said Sree Sreenivasan of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Funders are looking for audiences, not ideas.

Dealing with comments: Have your own barometer for when you'll respond to angry, unreasoned or mean comments, said Ana Marie Cox, founding editor of the political blog Wonkette and now with Time.com's Swampland. Hers: "Put as much thought into the response as they did writing the comment."

Own your blog: If at all possible, Cox suggested, noting she didn't own Wonkette.

If I still work at a news agency, how far can I go in writing about my beat without compromising objectivity?: Panelists agreed reporters everywhere need to force this conversation in their own newsrooms.

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By Vickey Williams (vickey-williams@northwestern.edu)
Vickey Williams is director of the Media Management Center's Digital Workforce Initiative.