Public Radio Blogs, II

Monday I tried to define what I thought made a good public radio blog, and cited a couple of examples. Purely by coincidence, the same day in one of the public radio listservs I subscribe to, someone at a station asked for examples of public radio blogs -- specifically, blogs from classical music stations. And some stations responded, including WITF in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Now here's a station who understands how blogging can help develop relationships with their audience.

WITF actually has a family of blogs, each one specialized enough to appeal to a different group of readers. The Reporter's Notebook lets the news staff provide added detail to the stories they cover (comments enabled). There's a blog for their newsletter (comments disabled), and even a specialized one for politics -- Voter's Voice PA (with comments enabled).

And WITF has three staff blogs. Dr. Dick's Blog, by music director Dick Strawser, is about classical music from a personal view (no comments, but an email link for personal reply). Composing Thoughts is on-air host John Clair's blog about contemporary music and musicians (comments disabled). I've read this blog for some time, and I'm embarrassed I forgot about it when I wrote Monday's post.

And John Clair also writes the New Releases blog for WITF (comments disabled). At first blush, this may seem similar to WETA's "blog," but there's a significant difference. WITF's blog is talking about the new releases being played by the station.

Further, there's a pick-of-the-month feature (displayed prominently in the sidebar) with a link to Borders Books. So even though the communication is one-way, the content is about the station. And the link lets listeners respond and earn some money for the station as well. Now these are folks who "get it!"

Are there more examples of public radio blogs? I'll keep digging (and reading posts). If you know of one, let me know. My comment field's always enabled.

- Ralph