Jimmy Guterman gets his blog groove back
Happy to discover, via David Weinberger, that Jimmy Guterman has applied the paddles and breathed life back into his previously-mothballed blog.
Jimmy's one of my favourite writers in the tech/business/online media space. I've followed and enjoyed his work at the (sadly now defunct) Media Grok and Media UnSpun newsletters, the Industry Standard, and PaidContent.org. Good to see him back and blogging again.
Of course, even while his main blog was gathering cobwebs, Jimmy hadn't fully left us. He's been posting regularly to his blog on The Sandinista Project (described as "An open record of the development of a tribute to one of the strangest records ever made" - that being, the Clash's "Sandinista" album, which is indeed strange, in a brilliant way).
Thinking about Jimmy G, I was reminded of one of my favourite posts from his old blog, which appears to have disappeared into the ether, alas. Thanks to Google, I was still able to find it, though, and re-post here (for the benefit of posterity, etc. Hope Jimmy won't mind):
The Ten Commandments of Online Media
Jimmy's one of my favourite writers in the tech/business/online media space. I've followed and enjoyed his work at the (sadly now defunct) Media Grok and Media UnSpun newsletters, the Industry Standard, and PaidContent.org. Good to see him back and blogging again.
Of course, even while his main blog was gathering cobwebs, Jimmy hadn't fully left us. He's been posting regularly to his blog on The Sandinista Project (described as "An open record of the development of a tribute to one of the strangest records ever made" - that being, the Clash's "Sandinista" album, which is indeed strange, in a brilliant way).
Thinking about Jimmy G, I was reminded of one of my favourite posts from his old blog, which appears to have disappeared into the ether, alas. Thanks to Google, I was still able to find it, though, and re-post here (for the benefit of posterity, etc. Hope Jimmy won't mind):
The Ten Commandments of Online Media
1. Thou shalt not rely on press releases.
2. Thou shalt check facts.
3. Thou shalt seek out new stories not being covered elsewhere.
4. Thou shalt speak frequently to a wide variety of informed sources who aren’t the usual suspects.
5. Thou shalt search out and quote people who don’t have a financial interest in the story.
6. Thou shalt write brief, informative, provocative leads.
7. Thou shalt provide context, both qualitatively and quantitatively.
8. Thou shalt not commit cliches or lazy writing.
9. Thou shalt not forget who thine audience is.
10. Thou shalt make thine own decision about what the most important part of the story is, not simply agree with conventional wisdom.
