Monday, January 04, 2010

FAQs About Me | A Q-and-A interview on blogging

Part of an occasional series about yours truly. Following are excerpts from an e-mail interview just posted on Jilted Journalists:

Q. How has your return been?
A. Better than expected, five months after I walked away to develop a new website. (I soon shelved that project, after I realized how much start-up money it would require.) My health has improved considerably since then, too, so I've got more energy to return to blogging -- as long as I reach minimum traffic goals.

Q. How is your strategy different now vs. before July?
A. I'm working harder on keeping Gannett Blog's tone more civil. I'll still pursue company news aggressively, but I hope in a less provocative manner. Also, I'm moderating comments more carefully. Much of this is in response to feedback from readers. Finally, I'm experimenting with two new media-related blogs, but they're still very much in their infancy.

Related: For an early look at those new blogs, go here and here.

Got a question? Leave it in the comments section, below. You can also e-mail FAQs About Me via jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the green sidebar, upper right.

13 comments:

  1. Does this mean then, Jim, that you're back? I certainly hope so. Glad you're feeling much better!

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  2. More than likely, if I can pull in about 10,000 monthly unique visitors. I'm now at about 6,000.

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  3. Well, this Poughkeepsie Journal staffer is glad you are back.

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  4. Come on down, Poughkeepsie!

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  5. Jim, I am not so sure if "less provocative" is doing it for this blog. To me it proves that Corporate won their battle against you. Sad, because you rubbed their noses the right way and surely there were some secrets that Corporate Gannett wanted to hush up very fast - re. golf trip of Bob Dickey, Presidents Rings during mandatory layoffs and furloughs and so many other things that added up to be big.

    Please don't scale back, but monitoring for abusive language would be welcome.

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  6. 7:28 p.m.: I should have said less gratuitously provocative. Reporting and writing in a provocative way is good; doing so just for the sake of getting a rise out of someone is often just a distraction.

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  7. Jim - thrilled to have you back! Are you still in Ibiza or back in San Fran? What is your take on the latest stock figures for newspapers, more specifically, that Gannett's stock is up 87%?

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  8. Jim: You actually have a lot less than 6,000 unique visitors. Most people log on to you at work and home. So it's more like 3,000

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  9. So happy that you're back, Jim. This is great. I hope you get the numbers. God love Gannettoid for being a band-aid while you were gone, but it just wasn't the same. This ex-staffer loves you, man.

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  10. so glad you're back.

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  11. Not true about the comment regarding 3,000 unique visitors due to people logging on at home and at work. A lot of us have been dismissed from Gannett and I would never have logged on to the Gannett Blog site while I was at work anyway. I concur with Jim (as always). If he says its around 6,000, than 6,000 it be!

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  12. Welcome back Jim. Don't wear yourself out this time around.

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Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."

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