Blogging Resources
By Mindy McAdams Updated 8 Sept 2010
If you’re completely new to blogging, start with this chapter from the Reporter’s Guide to Multimedia Proficiency: Start a blog (a basic how-to guide; February 2009).
WordPress
This popular, free, open-source blogging system can be used in two ways: On the WordPress.com hosted site (some limitations), or on your own site, which you control (requires you to have your own Web hosting).
WordPress.com — set up a free blog here.
- WordPress Basics — a free guide to getting started (from Journalists’ Toolkit)
WordPress.org — download and install here if you have your own Web hosting.
- WordPress Codex — the instruction manual for your own installation of WordPress
- WordPress Themes — pick something nice!
Tips for New Bloggers
- Why journalists must blog and how, by Adam Westbrook
- The 8 Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers, by Annabel Candy
- Why is ‘blog’ still a four-letter word? by Shawn Smith
Law and Ethics
- Why We Should Stop Asking Whether Bloggers Are Journalists (because the First Amendment protects everyone), from The Atlantic, Dec. 13, 2011
- Legal Guide for Bloggers, from the Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents, from Reporters Without Borders (PDF, 2.3 MB) — this is a wonderful text for use in journalism classes
- Bloggers’ Code of Ethics, from CyberJournalist
- Weblog Ethics, from Rebecca Blood’s 2002 book
History
- History of Weblogs (2000), from Rebecca Blood’s Web site
- Distinction Between Bloggers, Journalists Blurring More Than Ever, by Mark Glaser (2008)
- What Makes a Weblog a Weblog? by Dave Winer (2003) — I like how this starts with the nub of the matter (“The personalities of the writers come through”) and moves on to define many technical features of blogs, such as permalinks and trackbacks