post by Stephanie Nelson
Before we just jump into this post, a couple things you should know:
- I am obsessed with Bravo reality shows, especially the Real Housewives of Anywhere and their spin-offs. I can marathon them for days on end.
- It usually takes a bit to get under my skin, especially if you’re a tv character. However, it happens from time to time.
That being said…
During a recent marathon of multiple seasons of Vanderpump Rules, cast regular Stassi Schroeder said during one episode, “People who blog literally just go on a little website, and just upload whatever they write and don’t even reread whatever they…” As someone who blogs as a huge part of her day-to-day life, this set me off. My initial reaction was: “Good to know, Stassi. That’ll free up a lot of my time, now that I know I don’t need to reread my work before uploading it.”
But then it occurred to me that Stassi may not be the only one with this mindset. While Stassi may be right about a certain subset of bloggers that use the Internet as their online diaries, those of us who truly do this professionally should be regarded more as online journalists of sorts. We do our research, sometimes for days and weeks to get the story right. We adhere to a style throughout posts, whether it’s AP Style, Chicago Manual, The Web Style Guide or one that is specific to our own blogs. We have deadlines. And on top of “typical” journalist-type duties like these, we also must stay on top of SEO best practices and implement them into our posts so our blogs show up in online results!
In addition, many of us aren’t working on “a little website.” If you doubt me, check out , TMZ, Business Insider, endgadget, Mashable and TechCrunch. A lot of people regard these as news sites, but at the end of the day, they’re really blogs with multiple contributors.
So what say you, blogger friends? Am I right? Or is Stassi’s view the truer representation of what most bloggers are?
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