CONGRATULATIONS TO THE ST. PETERSBURG TIMES BLOGGING KREWE

And thanks to Mike and his Tallahassee-based Florida News blog for the heads up on this.

The Times was noted recently as one of America's best blogging newspapers among major dalies (read: top 100 in terms of circulation) by Blue Plate Special.net, a blog by Professor Jay Rosen, his students at New York University's School of Journalism, and other recruits.

Here is what they had to say:

Willing to be somewhat weird. That’s what the Specials noticed about bloggers at the St. Pete Times. It’s an approach more blog-inspired than newspaper-bound. There’s Stir Crazy, directed by Janet Keller. (The plot: “It’s 3 pm… Do you know what’s for dinner?”) There’s Ill Literate, “Our world through the diseased mind of Rick Gershman.” Blog-like.

The home page offers a simple definition of what, exactly, a blog is. (“A web log — commonly called a blog — is an online journal written by an individual or group of individuals. It can read like a personal diary, an informal news provider, a collection of cool web links and anything in between. Comments from readers are encouraged and are shared with the blog’s audience….”)

The St. Pete Times is owned by the Poynter Institute, not some soulless media company. Their approach to blogging is “slightly off-beat, but clearly explained,” as Jessing-Butz puts it. Many of the Specials noticed Stuck in the 80s, complete with memory-inducing pop tunes. (Blogs for which there are logical soundtracks: good idea.) Next to the Post’s Achenblog it was the Blue Plate team’s favorite, probably because most were born during the 1980s.

The SPT blogs ranked fourth behind those of the Houston Chronicle (a runaway favourite), Washington Post, and USA Today. Also ranking were the blogs of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and San Antonio Express-News, with special mention going to those of the New Orleans Times-Picayune and The Oklahoman

The 15 undergrads, two grad students, and one professor (my guess is Rosen himself) based their decisions on eight criteria:

--- Ease-of-use and clear navigation
--- Currency (how often they are updated)
--- Quality of writing, thinking, and linking
--- Voice
--- Comments and reader participation
--- Range and originality
--- Explanation of what blogging is on the blogging page
--- A show of commitment (how serious was the newspaper's effort)

It was mentioned that the New Orleans Times-Picayune received honourable mention, and it should be noted as to why:

What happened at the Nola blog (now the Nola View) and the forums it linked to during and after Hurricane Katrina is...“a whole other level for blogging and how much potential it has as a medium.”

After Katrina, the Times-Picayune used blogging to impart vital information to readers but also to inject a sense of normalcy. With a huge population in exile, and enormous projects to come, there would seem to be an urgency to “interactive” journalism in Nola that is found nowhere else. At the Times-Picayune they already know a blog can be the newspaper. There have to be creative consequences to that.

Congratulations to all, but especially to our (almost) hometown newspaper.