Don’t Worry About Getting Your Post Up First
January 8, 2008
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A lot of people, when they come across a bit of news online, think, “OMG I have to get this posted RIGHT NOW!”, and they don’t take the time to find out if what they read is even at all true, let alone accurate.
And that’s one of the things that can really hurt the credibility of the blogosphere. Sure, there are some sites where having the information first can make a big difference - sites like Gizmodo or Engadget come to mind. But you’re not them. So don’t try to be.
In the long run, your readers while appreciate the fact that everything that you report on your site is accurate much more than they will that they stumbled across it on your site first.
Because when it comes to “breaking” stories first, that’s really a holdover from the days when the mainstream media (MSM) controlled what people saw, and when. Being first really only matters to some of the MSM news organizations now, simply because there isn’t a “local” market on the Internet. Sure, you might have been the first person you know of to post about the Bhutto assassination, but rest assured that bloggers in Pakistan had a hundred comments on their post of the story before you even heard about it. Except in very, very rare circumstances, there’s no such thing as a “world exclusive” anymore. And if one is offered to a website, I’m sorry, but it’s not going to be yours. Or mine.
I don’t have any formal journalistic training, but I know of a few bloggers who do, and you’d be hard pressed to find one of them who says that it’s better to be first than to be accurate. Being second won’t have long-term repercussions. Getting something completely wrong, though, can kill your blog’s credibility.
So in the future, if you have hot news that you just need to post, go ahead and write it up, but before you hit the publish button, try and confirm it in a couple of places. Google and GoogleNews are pretty quick at picking stuff up, and if it’s a true story and there’s very little online, go for it. Be first.
But be accurate also.
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January 8th, 2008 at 8:00 am
This is a nice post. I have seem many first hand iPhone blog posts flooding the Google blog search. Many of them are just a copycat!
I like what you said here.
The Internet Entrepreneur Diary’s last blog post..It’s a small world! Your bitchy web site visitors are your best friends.
January 9th, 2008 at 12:52 am
It seems like this same thing bit John Chow later down the road with Agloco no?
Elite By Design’s last blog post..Networking - How Much Is Too Much?
January 9th, 2008 at 6:29 am
Dealing with a lot of movie and TV news I’m faced with this sort of thing on a daily basis. Stories are always breaking and I have to make pretty quick decisions whether or not I want to spend the time to write it up, research it, or wait for another source or two to pop up before I go ahead and write about it. I like being one of the first to post something but I’ve found that writing a higher quality article with more information usually ends up getting more traffic than a quickly posted article that went up before all the news was confirmed.
Jason A Clark’s last blog post..Directors Guild Of America Nominations For 2007 Released
January 10th, 2008 at 7:55 am
Jason - yes, you’re definitely involved in one area where being first is better simply due to the fact that there’s just SO much competition in that arena. But you’re right, quality posts will bring in more traffic in the long run.
Thanks for your comment.