Buzz Bin's interview with the FCW Insider

Earlier, I mentioned the Buzz Bin blog, hosted by Geoff Livingston. He is a big believer in blogs -- his passion for it is infectious, to be honest. And therefore his blog is very readable, particularly if you are curious about some of this Web 2.0 stuff such as blogs and what they may mean for your organization.

A few weeks ago, he asked if I would do an interview the relationship between our print publications, online, and blogs. You can read the whole interview on the Buzz Bin, but... here is the first question:

BB: How do you like blogging versus managing a publication?

CD: I'll try to keep the other questions shorter, but I think it is important to lay out the framework here. The short answer is that, fortunately or unfortunately, this isn't an either-or kind of question. I get to do both.

The long answer is that, to be honest, this can be challenging sometimes. But I think that this is the way of the world these days. The world of journalism is facing some real challenges in an age where all you need to be a publisher is an Internet connection. (I might note that I don't think journalism is alone — these are challenging times for most organizations. What industry isn't facing steep competition?)

For publishers, increasingly, we don't get to define how we reach people. There are fewer and fewer monopolies. For journalism, that means that we have a print publication, and my sense is that the print publication is going to be the 'flagship' way of reaching people for some time.

I think that we have to justify the need for a print publication, and given the just incredible amount of information out there these days, the print publication is part of the agreement we have with our readers to keep watch over all the information out there to let them know what they need to know to do their jobs better. We also post stories daily online — our version of the wire service.

But in addition to providing news and information, a publication needs to provide insight, analysis, and needs to help build community. Blogs are an element of that.

So, in addition to my blog, the FCW Insider, we have a few others. Steve Kelman, a professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and the former administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy and an FCW columnist, has a blog. But we have used blogging software for letters to the editor where people can comment on stories, and we run all our corrections in a blog so they are out there for everybody to see.

I like to use my blog to give some of the behind-the-scenes views into the decisions we make.

So, yes, I get to both run a publication AND write a blog, but I think the two are very related to one another.