First off, thanks for taking the time to respond.

It’s been a few weeks, and I can’t remember exactly what the piece was about. I will admit on this particular day, I did have the sound turned down, but I was responding to what was on the site as much as what was on the air. Although your business editor might have been trying to kick off a discussion, I found the post still was too much of a traditional news piece online, what I might have rather uncharitably called in a fit of pique ‘more boring, flat content’. But as a viewer, not as a blogger or the Guardian blogs editor, I didn’t really feel much of an invitation or motivation to take part in a debate.

I can understand using a piece as the launching pad for a debate, but as a suggestion, you might want to use the two ways after the news item to actually lay out different parts of the debate or even see if bloggers are talking about the issues that you’re covering. You might use that blog research as the basis for your blog post. As I tell journalists at the Guardian, bloggers pay attention to who is linking to them. We often get a few comments from bloggers who we link to. Linking out and quoting bloggers is a good way to frame or kick off the debate, and I find it much more inviting than the traditional news treatments that I see often on the BBC or Sky with the throw away comment “What do you think?”

I’ve also responded to Julian March who commented on your blogs about my post. But again, thanks for making the effort to respond.

What we are trying to do is give our viewers a channel to comment on and discuss our stories and how we cover them. Whether that fits the definition of a blog is open to debate.

That said, you’re right about the need for more ‘conversation’ through these channels.

Peter Hoskins, Senior Business Producer, Sky News

David Cameron’s a Guardian blogger, is he?

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/david_cameron/index.html

I think that some of this is down to commonly held misconceptions about blogging. Many in the media think that blogging is just opinion - mistaking opinion from people just blogging about their lives. They think that they do opinion and commentary better than just about anyone and go about setting up a blog.

It may be a basic misunderstanding of blogging, but it’s a commmon one.

thanks everyone for the comments.
k

The examples given, london lite and Sky News, show companies that are actually responding to the meta tag culture. Blog becoming quickly attributed to something quick, a thought, a dash, a note underlined.

If anything at least it’s perhaps enabling non blog readers to engage with the term, then visit one, then comes thier first comment, then comes their first subscription (wow i can get all the content in my toolbar!).