lrawles.com Blog

Well, I’m in the Greensboro airport, on my way to a 3-day conference in Reston, Va. It’s called “Interactive Community News,” and it’s hosted by the American Press Institute.

What I’m hoping to get out of it is a bunch of concrete suggestions on how to get the people in our region more involved with our website. Since that’s the title of the conference, isn’t this a no-brainer? Not necessarily.

This crusade for community journalism is an old and venerable one, pre-dating the creation of the internet. By now everyone’s on board with the theory (barring some nervous corporate attorneys). But I don’t think we’ve found the ultimate venue to provide it yet. It’s like we’ve answered the “What?” question, now we need to tackle the “How?”

I’m hoping that this conference will be focused on the how, not the what. There’s something very dreary about a room full of people agreeing with each other.

Since the conference isn’t about my company’s internal workings, I consider it a loophole in my no-writing-about-work rule. I’ll keep you posted on what happens…

I’ve been persuaded. The numerous articles advocating blogs for every journalist have persuaded me that it’s time to create my own.

But as the naturally suspicious daughter of two lawyers, I can come up with a long list of reasons why writing a blog is a terrible idea. Identity theft, being blacklisted by employers and shady deals with deposed Nigerian kings. That’s three right there.

So here are my ground rules:

• I’m not going to write about my job. Journalism in general, sure, but no details from my workplace.
• No details about my personal life that I wouldn’t want my grandmother to read. And since my grandmothers are in Irish Catholic heaven, they are watching me at all times (or so I have to assume.)
• All naked pictures of me are going to be password-protected. You know, if I ever take any.

Oh, and to all future employers: I work a mixture of nights and days, so don’t let the timestamp fool you; I’m not typing this at work. I promise.

Now once I get you all to sign these release forms in triplicate, we’ll be on our way!