The Purpose of a Blog: Response to Mark Briggs

I agree with Mark Briggs’ perspective on the purpose of having a blog and what that blog can mean to you and your audience. Briggs specifically describes a blog as “an ongoing conversation” between you and your readers. This gives the blog a sense of freedom from outside of the typical print media model of how information is communicated. Writers write, readers read and so on and so on. With a blog however, the writer is less talking to his audience from a podium, and instead is engaging with their fans in a small group. In a blog, individual readers can write comments either positive or negative that can lead to entire conversations between readers and writers which a print journalist simply cannot replicate. I also agree with Briggs that having a blog can significantly sharpen your writing. Once again, having the freedom to use your own unfiltered writing style can be liberating for some writers as they have no editor demanding they make changes to a story they really love. This can also be a downside as editors are typically very experienced and understanding of how a particular audience would react to certain writing choices. Having a blog can also be very good for younger journalists as well. Specifically, journalists who wish to break into other news rooms. If you are a crime writer but wish to write about movies, a blog could be your first outlet to show off your opinions and how you write about certain topics. Overall, a blog can be a great place for audiences to interact with your writing and get to know more about a writer they could become connected with. It is a also a great way for journalists to branch out into covering other topics and for writers to sharpen their writing style.