But now a group of upset Twitter users is trying to get people to stopping watch the cable news network. @dumpCNN is a Twitter account that was started yesterday, March 16, in protest of CNN’s announcement that they hired conservative blogger Erick Erickson as a political contributor.

The first few tweets from @DumpCNN criticize the cable network for its choice of commentators.

The Twitter account has 345 followers and 56 tweets so far, but is getting a lot of retweets and mentions.

I’ll follow this over the next couple of days and update this posts. Would be interesting to see how CNN will respond, considering how much weight they have put into talking with their viewers via Twitter.

Every person I follow or am followed by now is on a list. I have about a dozen lists, to separate local people, national news sources, journalists, politicians, friends and others. And increasingly I have started thinking of my Twitter lists as a digital Rolodex, allowing me to tune in to the people I need to talk to for certain topics.

It would be interesting to see how many Twitter lists actually exist, including the private ones. Only one of my lists is public, and I assume that a lot of other Twitter users keep their lists private.

And increasingly I think another use for Twitter lists will be to aggregate opinions during major news stories. As more politicians, celebrities, political activists and business leaders adopt Twitter, news organizations will be able to create Twitter lists about specific news stories. These can be used to can a quick glance at how the different sides feel about a story, but can also be embedded into a article but give readers a real time look at the discussion about a certain topic.

1. Headlines make the world go ’round

Your headlines have to sell the story, not tell the story. It’s as simple as that. After reading the headline I should be interested in reading more. This involves a change of thinking for most journalists. Headlines in newspapers often summarize the main part of the story. Add another deck below the headline and most people won’t bother reading the rest of the story.

But this is a different distribution model. If you have a reader with a newspaper in hand you want to make it easy for them to get through the whole paper. It’s called reader consideration. You’re supposed to make it easy for them to pick out the most important stories, read the ones that seems interesting and scan the headlines of the rest of them. But online, your headline is competing with a million other links that are begging to be clicked. Give the reader a reason to click the link.

2. Write Less

Brevity is king. Get to the point quickly. Readers will appreciate it. The intro paragraph to this post is three sentences, a mere 48 words. The headline promised you 5 ways to increase blog readership, not a display of my remarkable prose. Getting people to your blog or website is hard enough. Try  not to piss them off once they are there.

3. Don’t Use Links For Background Info

I see this mistake on most blogs and I am guilty of it myself. Somehow bloggers have been convinced that, instead of giving the reader a complete story including the background information, they can just casually mention it and provide a link. The theory is that those who know will keep reading, and those who don’t will click the link, read the other story and then come back to finish what you wrote.

Imagine reading a story in Newsweek that tells you to go find last month’s issue of National Geographic if you want to understand the rest of their story. Yes, on the internet it’s a lot more convenient and quicker to link to sources. But do the reader, and yourself,  a favor and summarize it anyways. You can still provide a link, but maybe they won’t feel the need to click on it. Because trust me, they’re not coming back. (p.s.: if you’re putting in links for background info leading to other sites, make sure the HTML code specifies to open them in a new window.)

4. Publish At Different Times

A good way to increase your traffic is to publish when people are actually reading (it seems so simple, doesn’t it?). If you are writing a news blog you need to publish your articles in the morning. You are targeting people who are checking the web briefly before they go to work and then several times during their work day. Publish between 6 a.m. and noon. I am writing this close to midnight, but will schedule it to run at 11:00 a.m the next morning.

5. Be Better At What You Do

Let’s face it, there are tons of blogs that look and read like no effort was put into them. If you are serious about increasing your readership you have to produce quality content. That doesn’t mean you need to break national news, but it does mean that you should take the time to read over what you wrote, check spelling and grammar, use the best possible artwork and all the other things that can make a difference. Make a commitment to read every post out loud before you publish it. Or print it out and read it over. If you don’t take the time to read your own stuff, why would you expect others to?

He argues that syndication is increasingly becoming a profitable strategy for online news outlets. In his words:

Some have said that in the digital world, news companies need to think of themselves both as creators and aggregators, doing what they do best and linking to the rest. Let’s amend that: creators, aggregators, and syndicators, doing what they do best, licensing with zest and linking to the rest.

Here’s the link: The Newsonomics of new news syndication

Add to the list of growing problems: plagiarism.

Most journalists used to think that bloggers were nothing but plagiarist; taking their reporting and rewriting a few sentences, then throwing up a link to the article. But then concepts such as the “link economy” and articles going viral through social media made a lot of news organizations rethink their approach to bloggers. Instead of scoffing at them, they hired bloggers for their own websites (or made reporters do it as part of their job) and welcomed the boosts in traffic that comes from lots of bloggers sharing links of their articles.

But the truth is, it’s hard to earn a living blogging the news. If you spend 3-4 hours on one blog post, with reporting, writing and editing, you aren’t going to get rich any time soon. So some enterprising bloggers are saying “to hell with it all” and just copy and pasting sentences and quotes from newspaper website

Here’s an example from yesterday. I covered President Obama’s trip to St. Louis and the protests downtown for the Riverfront Times (The Screaming Match Outside Obama’s Fundraiser Dinner). I spent about 3 hours walking around, taking photos, interviewing people and getting hassled by the cops to get of the street. But, reporting is fun for me, so I’m not complaining. But then I sit down to write the article and decide to see if anybody reported estimates of many people showed up. The first result in my Google search for Obama’s St. Louis visit is an article on Examiner.com, a website that allows local “bloggers” to publish news articles and earn money from advertising revenue. Here’s an excerpt from the article, “written” by Andrea Simoncic, the St. Louis Conservative Examiner.

64 year old Frank Scimo of Ballwin helped organize a group of about 100 people to stand outside St. Charles high school to support the president and his speech on health care reform.

“I believe the people should have health insurance,” Scimo said. He pointed to his step daughter, who has been denied insurance due to a pre-existing problem with her knees, as a representative of those who lack insurance but need it.

Organizer of the nonprofit Jobs for Justice, Amy Smoucha, 42, said she left the president’s speech full of confidence in the president and his plan for health care. “I’m happy to see he is so sincere about fixing the health care system,” she said.

And here is an excerpt from an article written by Jake Wagman, from the St. Louis Post Dispatch.

Frank Scimo, 64, of Ballwin, said he helped organize a group of about 100 people to show up outside the high school in support of the president and health care reform.

“I believe the people should have health insurance,” he said. He pointed to his step daughter, who he said was denied insurance because of a pre-existing problem with her knees.

Amy Smoucha, organizer with the nonprofit Jobs with Justice, said she left the speech feeling confident in the president and his plan.

“I’m happy to see he is so sincere about fixing the health care system,” Smoucha, 42, said.

Notice the differences? There aren’t many. On top of that, the few words that she bothered to change or add actually make the writing worse.

But this is not about writing. This is about plagiarism. Nowhere in her article on Examiner.com does the “writer” mention where this information comes from. Just from reading it, one would assume that she was there, that she talked to all these people and got all the quotes herself. In other words, one would assume that she did some actual reporting.

But reporting, too, is quickly becoming a commodity. Sure, news loses value quickly, and a scoop is not long lived. But I believe the day when journalists allow people to blatantly rip off their reporting and writing is the day they might as well retire. You can’t tell me that I’m going to work my ass off for half a day to write an article which is going to be copy-and-pasted two minutes after it’s published and thrown on a plagiarism haven like Examiner.com so that some lazy asshole can generate some ad revenue.

As far as the example I cited, don’t think that it’s an isolated incident or only a couple of paragraphs. All you have to do is copy whole sentences and paragraphs and do a Google search to see where the information is being lifted from. If you’re going to be a plagiarist and too lazy to rewrite the article, at least have the decency to say where you got the information from. Or alternatively, just roll over and die.

There’s a fine line between being a blogger and being a parasite.

Scalded Dog Web Hosting, a company owned by the Globe-Democrat's new owner Dan Rositano, is blacklisted on Google for being potentially damaging.

The announcement that the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, a newspaper that folded in the ’80s, would be revived in an online-only format was greeted with a bit of enthusiasm by people like myself (future unemployed journalists). A new outlet and possible place to freelance, I thought. Plus, the guy in charge, Dan Rositano, is the owner of an IT firm and former IT director for a TV channel.

Maybe an IT guy that understands technology better than some journalists is the right guy to start an online-only news organization?

After looking into Rositano’s business ventures, however, I am not convinced of that anymore.

Scalded Dog Web Hosting, one of Rositano’s businesses, has managed to get blacklisted by Google.

SDOGINTERACTIVE.COM, the domain in question, was registered June 13, 2007 through GoDaddy.com. According to the Missouri Secretary of State website, Scalded Dog Interactive, LLC was created January 15, 2008. It was registered by Rositano under the same address listed on the application for the St. Louis Globe Democrat, LLC.

A call to Rositano was not immediately returned, so I don’t have his side of the story. But, the fact that a Web Hosting company is blacklisted on the Web doesn’t leave a good first impression about the future of the new Globe-Democrat.

According to Google, the warning means that the website in question may try to install malicious software:

We want our users to feel safe when they search the web, and we’re continuously working to identify dangerous sites and increase protection for our users. This warning message appears with search results we’ve identified as sites that may install malicious software on your computer

The website is also blocked by Mozilla:

Here’s an example of the great jobs the awate those with great writing abilitys, curtosee of GetAFreelancer.com:

Yes, you read rite: “Quality Writers needef ro big project”

So, is you a quality writer? Cause if you is, you could make big money on this big project.

Heres the down-low-and-dirty-skinny on this bizniss:

Hello,
We are looking out for professional writers for a long term Job.
We want writers who can write high quality articles(magazine style) and can easily deliver 25+ articles in a day.
Our main concern is quality and we want only writers who can write high quality articles.

Our price for 500 words original article is $2.
We pay only through paypal and payment is on a daily basis.

Conditions:
—————————————
Should be able to write High/excellent quality articles.
Should check each article in copyscape to ensure its 100% copyscape passed.
Should be able to deliver a minimum of 25+ articles/Day.
Should be able to write in wide niches.

If you are following the above conditions then feel free to BID with your samples.

We have 2000-4000 articles per month project so if anyone winning this will have a full time job for a very long time.

If your writing is simple english then Plz dont bid as i want only high quality content.

Before you apply for this super sweet gig, please read the last line carefuly. “If your writing is simple enligsh then Plz dont bid as i want only high quality content.” Yous prolly askin yourself what simple english is, rite? Well, simple english is the stupid version of english when yous have to captalize nouns and get all the rite letters in the rite order a.k.a. spell rite.

The reporter, Finbarr O’Reilly, uses his photos to tell the story, while his narration reflects the mood and actions taking place. There are a lot of shots of soldiers marching,  soldiers in frantic combat, soldiers engulfed in dust clouds. The reporter talks about the “fog of war” and the lack of a clear strategy; the uncertainty felt by soldiers about a war that doesn’t seem to have an end in sight. The selection of photos and the tone of the narration work together perfectly to paint the picture of an uncertain and dangerous situation.

Another reason I love this slideshow is for its lack of cutlines. “Every photo needs a cutline” is a line that most journalists have probably heard before. But for a slideshow like this, I believe cutlines would only distract from the photos and narration.

Of course, most of us are probably more comfortable writing cutlines than recording narration. But you don’t have to be Morgan Freeman to be able to speak into a microphone and tell a story. View the slideshow below and consider how it would be without narration and with text at the bottom of every photo. It simply wouldn’t work.