Liberty's Blog: Houston Chronicle Number 1 Blogging Newspaper

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Houston Chronicle Number 1 Blogging Newspaper

The Houston Chroncle picked up an award as the Best Blogging Newspaper. I'm not surprised. The Houston Chronicles entry into the blog era was indeed rocky. They fired a journalist for having his own blog. They also inspired the since renamed blog Chronically Biased. If you can't beat `em join `em. The Chronicle has not only joined the blogosphere but has actively fed it and nourished it particularly in the local arena.
They often link to local blogs, and their own blogs have active comments. It isn't surprising they came out number in the survey, but no one else was even close.

The Chronicle was a runaway choice for top blogging newspaper. “The wizards of blogging in my opinion,” Andre Henry says. Points-wise, it wasn’t close. (128 to 69 for the second site.) The Chronicle is not the most adventurous in what it blogs about (exception: Bar Tab) but the site does everything well, starting with its Blogs main page, which features—before you get to any staff blogging— a section called Chron.commons, “Blogs from our Readers.” (They weren’t the only ones to do this.)
“This had pretty much everything I was looking for,” wrote Jessing-Butz. “It’s very evident that people read these; they comment on them. The page is easy to find and easy on the eyes. The writing is fun and clear. ” Krase: “The Chronicle makes access to archived blogs easy.”

The Chronicle has turned around and become more responsive to its readership as a result of the way she has embraced blogging. Other papers could learn some lessons .

The Chronicle “has gone down the route I would like to see all newspapers go,” wrote Galanis. He pointed to Dwight Silverman, the interactive journalism editor, writing in the dead tree newspaper about the changes blogging would bring to the Chron as a whole. When Silverman announced an update to Movable Type, “he essentially marked the rebirth of the Chronicle, and sealed the newspaper’s top spot in my ranking,” Galanis said.

If they would only hire Banjo back.