There is a reason why journalists must study journalism before any serious news outlet even considers hiring them. That is because journalism involves more than simply observing and reporting in your own words. However, there are bloggers abound who operate news blogs, or write news blog posts, that never studied journalism and it shows. It may seem harmless, but humans have a nasty habit of believing anything they read at face value. This includes news blogs. These same readers then regurgitate what they’ve read on their own blogs, and the snowball effect gets under way. These bloggers would benefit from learning the following things that every journalist already knows:

Fact Checking

This is of prime importance. To avoid perpetuating false information, you must make sure that you have the facts 100% accurate or at the very least mention that your information was of the “to the best of my knowledge” type. In the newspaper industry, multiple people check and re-check all the factual information in a reporter’s story before printing it. Of course, many bloggers don’t have the luxury of an office staff, but a good substitute would be to check at least 2 independent sources.

News is News, Opinion is Opinion

If you are writing a news piece, you should remain as objective as possible throughout. The intended purpose of news is to offer the reader the facts, so they can then decide for themselves how they feel about it. Stick to the facts, don’t embellish, or sensationalize anything; that is the hallmark of a good news writer and blogger.

Strive for Balance

Even if you just report the facts, be sure to get facts from both sides of the issue whenever possible. Without intending to do so, you could influence the reader’s opinion by omitting the facts from the other side of the equation. For instance, has there ever been a time where you were bombarded with news about a particular issue and formed a strong opinion just from what you’ve read, but then later on heard new information that made you go “Wait a minute! I didn’t know that, this changes the whole issue”? So, just by reporting one side (even though all of it was factual) of the issue, the writer persuaded you by just omitting facts from the opposing view. Good news writers and bloggers don’t do that.

These 3 core concepts are the foundation of every good news writer and blogger. Just because you didn’t study journalism, if you write any kind of news then you are essentially a journalist. Hold yourself to the same standards, and you will be noticed for it.

While many of us purchase Valentine’s day cards for our significant others and perhaps a nice bouquet of flowers Kaitlyn Trigger decided to give her boyfriend a much bigger and involved present, a brand new photo sharing platform.

Kaitlyn’s Lovestagram program is so thoughtful because her boyfriend is Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger and it’s his platform she chose to use when creating Lovestagram.

The program is essentially an interactive Valentine’s card maker that implements the Instagram API to create Valentine’s Day cards.

The program works by creating a slideshow of all Instagram photos you share with your special someone by using mutual username tags, photos you took in the same location within one hour of each other and photos where comments have been exchanged.  read more

Tumblr has actively been attempting to showcase the networks talents lately, ast week the company hired two veteran journalists to cover the sites best content and now they have hired several emerging fashion bloggers to kick off New York Fashion Week.

Tumblr on Wednesday announced on its staff blog that they have partnered with Milk Studios, a photography and studio conglomerate who will take a team of five “local emerging voices in fashion from Tumblr to cover the events” to cover the events.

Readers of the massive blog network can find information using the NYFW tag or they can follow these five bloggers: Alex, Bryant, Chloe, Lucie and Miguel

News of this type of “intimate” interaction was a smart move for Tumblr after BetaBeat in September broke news of the company’s attempt to monetize New York Fashion Week by selling premium ads to willing brands. BetaBeat wrote at the time: read more

Google Inc. on Monday removed content from various blogger specific domains in India after the countries leaders warned a “China type response” if the company didn’t better censor content deemed “religiously inappropriate.”

The request comes one week after Google announced plans to censor blogger platform content in certain countries through specific URL domain protocols. For example a post may be banned in India but still show up in a country where freedom of speech is available.

Speaking about the request Google representative Paroma Roy Chowdhury  noted:

“(Our) review team has looked at the content and disabled this content from the local domains of (Google) search, Youtube and Blogger.” read more

Managing even a handful of WordPress websites can be a pain, for example 10 websites means 10 different login accounts that you must access each time you want to write an article, update plugins or change theme settings. While you could give WordPress Multi-Site a chance that system can be confusing and time consuming for non-Wordpress experts. ManageWP however takes care of multi-site management by installing a simple plugin on each of your WordPress blogs which then allows them to be controlled by a single user login interface found at ManageWP.com

Once you have signed up for a free trial account you simply install the sites plugin on each of your websites. This plugin essentially gives you access to your blogs from within the ManageWP administration panel.

After the system has been installed you will be asked to add websites to your panel, those websites will then be accessible via the ManageWP login panel. Once installed the system then provides many useful features.

For example you can choose to add and upgrade themes for all of your websites from one screen, removing the need to log into various accounts.  The system also allows users to be bulk added for login purposes.

If you run a network in which posts are added to more than one website at a time ManageWP also provides a “Bulk Add” option for posts and pages. I personally found the “Add New Page” option helpful when creating privacy and copyright polices for various websites. read more

In the last couple of years, guest posting on other people’s blogs has become a solid marketing technique. At first, the idea of letting some stranger post their content on your blog seemed ludicrous. However, many bloggers realized the benefits of more fresh unique content, and the wheel has been rolling ever since. I have personally guest posted on many different blogs, and I have noticed that guest posting is sometimes clumped together with article marketing as if they are “basically the same thing.” They are NOT the same thing. There are many differences, and that is what I want to explore. Let’s start with the similarities of the two: read more

With hundreds of millions of Facebook users now engaging on the social network through the use of Android, iPhone and iPad apps it was only a matter of time before the company began serving ads to those platforms and that time now appears to be as early as March.

Sources close to the world’s largest social network say executives at Facebook have already discussed proposed advertising plans with advertising agencies and plan to offer paid “Featured stories” in mobile news feeds as a way to supplement ad space on smaller mobile device displays.

By mixing in sponsored ads with friends feeds users don’t lose screen space and only receive ads that match their interests and the interests of their friends.

Facebook has estimated that almost half of its 845 million users access the network via mobile devices, even one ad served per user per day would mean billions of new ad impressions for the network.  read more

The buzz words “trust” and “authority” are being thrown around these days in almost any article or blog post you read that has to do with SEO. In the last year, Google has made many changes to its ranking algorithm that put more emphasis on how other sites view yours. Perfect example would be ProBlogger. Obviously that blog is seen as an authority in the blogging niche. Google knows this because it has a lot of one-way links from highly relevant sites, and because other bloggers mention it in their content (like I just did). These are not the only ways that Google determines if a site is an authority site, but you get the idea. Because of all of this, everyone who opens a new blog wants to become an authority in their niche. Obviously, the difficulty of doing that will depend on what niche you choose. Regardless of the niche, however, if you want to guarantee that your blog never becomes an authority blog, make sure you do the following things:

After Your 10^th Blog Post, Start a Coaching Program

Listen, experience and knowledge are totally over–rated. In reality, all you need to do to become a “mentor” or a “coach” in your niche is to say that you are! Don’t get all worried about refunds and people eviscerating you for not knowing your butt from your elbow, just read posts and articles by other experts in your niche, and regurgitate them in your own words! So what if your members don’t ever really learn anything new, or that most of them probably know more than you, what’s important here is their recurring $49.95 membership fee. read more

Tumblr has been busy lately, yesterday they announced the hiring of two veteran journalists to help cover their growing network of more than 44 million blogs and today they rolled out a new way to show off your work with “highlighted posts.”

Here’s what Tumblr has to say about the new program:

Every now and then, a post comes along that’s meant for big things. It could be pulling the wraps off your new project, promoting your next show, raising awareness for a cause, or just sharing a truly incredible photo.

Today you’ll have a new option to Highlight those extra-important posts. For one dollar, your post will stand out in the Dashboard with a customizable sticker to make sure your followers take notice! read more

Social blog service Tumblr has hired two journalists to help cover the networks extensive community.

Well known writers Chris Mohney, SVP of content for BlackBook Media and Jessice Bennett, senior writer and editor for Newsweek and The Daily Beast have been hired to cover various areas of content and conversation for the network which includes nearly 44 million blogs.

The task of covering Tumblr won’t be easy, as Bennett told Time:

“Basically, if Tumblr were a city of 42 million, I’m trying to figure out how we cover the ideas, themes and people who live in it.”

The main idea will be to showcase bloggers use Tumblr to better showcase their work in creative, fun and unique ways. The writers will post their stories on the Tumblr staff blog while a new Tumblr site will likely be created to showcase their efforts.

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