Friday, June 16, 2006

Eppy Award-winning Blogs, Part 2 ...

Last month, Editor and Publisher and Mediaweek announced the winners of the 10th annual Eppy Awards in Las Vegas. Here's what Mark Briggs, Editor of Tacoma's News Tribune, wrote about Today in the Sky, selected as "Best Business Blog" ...

USA Today's Ben Mutzabaugh knows about forming online communities.

"Readers are our friends," Mutzabaugh said when asked what he has learned as a blogger for the past four years. "In print it's easy to feel you are at odds with readers because people will find one little thing wrong so as a journalist you get defensive. The readers on a blog chime in and help you. They want you to get the story right. Readers help make the blog stronger than any single author could make it alone."

The elder statesman of this group, Mutzabaugh began the blog in 2002 as part of a job change that brought him from the sports department of the interactive staff to the business reporting desk. He said he didn't have the pedigree for the assignment, with a background in college athletics PR, but he always had an interest in the airline industry and air travel and begged and pleaded for a shot. He said an encyclopedic memory for facts and trivia have helped.

"It was a pretty big shift," said Mutzabaugh, who also writes for the newspaper. "I couldn't be happier."

1 comment:

Cowtown Pattie said...

Blog and friendship
Blog and friendship
Go together like...

Purple Cow milkshakes and straws?