Guest Post: Journalist to blogger

Through the looking glass: exploring the blogosphere from a print journalist’s perspective.

Mum of two Amanda Whyte (nee Vlietstra) runs green parenting website Peas & Love, set up whilst on maternity leave from her job as features editor for It’s Fate magazine to ‘pass the time.’ She now officially has no time whatsoever.

I’m a journalist, so when I decided to set up my own green parenting website/blog and shop Peas & Love, I thought ‘how hard can it be?’ I mean, it’s all just writing – right?

Wrong. Diving into the blogosphere was like walking through the back of that wardrobe into Narnia. I’ve written and edited countless features for women’s magazines and I’ve worked on a number of websites as well. I’ve always prided myself as having my finger on the pulse – evidently quite wrongly, because I simply had no idea how big the blogosphere was, let alone what a phenomenon ‘mummy blogging’ has become.

And blogging for yourself is very different from writing for magazines. For a start, when you work for a large corporation like IPC Media (which owns the magazine I work for) you’re protected from the outside world by the fact that you’re a cog in a much bigger wheel. You’re not autonomous. You may represent the brand, but you’re NOT the brand, as you are as a blogger. It’s much easier to take criticism on the chin when it’s targeted at your whole team, editor and all, than it is when that criticism is, pretty much, just targeted at you.

The upside of that for the blogger is that you don’t have to toe a corporate line, you can write what you want within the confines of your own blog. (Well, within limits, it’s never a great idea to libel anyone. Most bloggers aren’t anonymous these days, and it wouldn’t be too difficult to track down the real identities of those who are.)

This represents a potential challenge for the mainstream publishing world; now anyone can, effectively, be a columnist – and in many cases, do it a lot better than the people employed by newspapers and magazines – why would the public pay to read someone’s opinions when they can get hundreds of equally valid, and often expert, opinions for free?

Another problem publishers face is that their audience increasingly expects engagement on a much more personal level than a magazine can offer, through social media and the blogosphere, but as I’ve already mentioned, an employee simply can’t ‘be the brand’ in the same way that a blogger can. ‘Being the brand’ is, I’ve discovered, really hard work – you have to get out there and sell yourself – but lots of people do it brilliantly. And of course websites like this one, BritMums, are also in place to help them achieve this to a high level.

Even now, although it’s engaging more with social media, I am not sure the mainstream publishing world really has any idea what’s bubbling away below the surface. As a general trend, magazine sales are falling, for a number of reasons including the current tough economic situation; many people can’t afford luxuries like magazines, but most still have access to the internet, either at work or at home, so can still get their fashion/lifestyle/hobbyist/opinion ‘fix.’

In order for magazines to thrive, they need to up their game – and start playing the bloggers at theirs. I’ve loved magazines all my life – and still do – so I am not going to start predicting their demise just yet (not until you can safely read a website in the bath, anyway) It’s still much easier to make money from magazines than it is from the internet. Publishers have got years of experience, money, and access to some of the best people in the business at their disposal – but what seems to be foxing them is the anarchic nature of the internet itself. It just isn’t all that predictable. Which is one of the things I love about it, along with the fact that it’s truly liberating in that it gives everyone a voice. Blogging is a social revolution, and that’s pretty darn cool.

Some things bloggers can learn from the ‘printosphere’:

• As a journalist, you’re protected by working for someone else, but bloggers don’t have that shield between their audience and themselves – it all feels much more personal. If you open up about an emotional matter, you can’t control people’s responses to it. Be aware that by pouring your heart out to strangers, you’re not only leaving yourself open to criticism that may be hurtful – but there are also some weirdos out there. Be careful about giving too much about yourself away.
• Be careful about using photos of your kids. Most magazines won’t show pictures of naked children – however funny the photo – which seems sensible.
• Read up on libel laws. You CAN be prosecuted if you publish online something factually inaccurate about someone else. As a general rule, don’t accuse anyone of anything without incontrovertible proof.
• Target your blog – write about what you know or are interested in, as unless you’re an incredibly witty and brilliant writer, vague ramblings generally aren’t all that interesting.
• It’s up to you what you want to write about, and a sensational headline/blog can certainly pull in the stats, but it might be worth noting that Julie Burchill – the original purveyor of the ‘provocative for the sake of it’ column – has just been dropped by The Independent. People get a bit bored with having their strings jerked.
• There’s just no excuse for poor spelling and grammar. Spellcheck is your very own sub-editor, so use it.

— Amanda Whyte

Visit Amanda’s blog Peas & Love

About Karin Joyce

Karin Joyce is the creator of Embrace Happy, an inspirational and motivational website where the focus is on celebrating the good in our lives every day. The Embrace Happy tagline is: Not every day is good but there is good in every day. Before starting Embrace Happy, Karin was one of the “old school” bloggers from the early days of what was then British Mummy Bloggers with her parenting blog Cafe Bebe. In between school runs, blogging and being a wife to Mark and Mum to Ella (6 1/2) and Sam (3), Karin also works as a freelance social media manager and consultant.

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