Blogging Explained - Thanks, Common Craft!

Common Craft specializes in producing short videos that explain complex concepts "in plain English." Their video on blogging is a gem.



If you know of someone who doesn't get blogging (but should), sit them down and make them watch the video!

As I watched, it reminded me of the changes in WETA's "blog."

When WETA returned to an all-classical format, they set up a blog to communicate with listeners -- very much in line with the concepts expressed by Common Craft.

To fill in some background, public radio station WETA in Washington, DC dropped classical programming to chase after bigger pledge dollars to be found in news/talk. Ratings sagged, and listenership (and pledge dollars) fell off. The sole surviving classical station in the Washington area, WGMS, was a commercial radio station whose owners wanted to flip to a more profitable format.

Seeing an opportunity to retreat from their own misstep and take over a now vacant field, WETA offered to go back to classical music, taking in WGMS' massive CD library and some of their more popular announcers.

In the early days WETA's blog talked about the change-over, the announcers, and generally took folks "behind the scenes" at the station. And it enabled comments. As things progressed, the comments became a forum for those discontented with the direction the station was taking, the programming, etc.

And then the blog changed. It's still billed as the "blog for classical music lovers," but it's not -- at least according to Common Craft's definition. It's become a music review column by Jens F. Laurson, similar to what one would find in a paper. Comments have been disabled. It's strickly a one-way conversation. Laurson reviews; you read.

Now I have no quarrel with Mr. Laurson. He's a good writer and a thoughtful reviewer, and I enjoy reading his posts. But in my opinion this isn't a blog, and for WETA to call it so seems a little disingenuous.

I consider the feedback I receive an integral part of the blogging process -- even if they're not favorable. WETA's missing the critical part of new media, and that's the conversation.

So if you're meeting with decision-makers to discuss blogging, do watch the Common Craft video. Don't use WETA's blog as a model.

- Ralph

Case of the Disappearing Discs

Long time readers know I couldn't let an article about WETA pass without comment. In Marc Fisher's blog at the WashingtonPost.com this past Sunday, he talked about the resurgence of classical music on the Washington airwaves, thanks to WETA's return to the format after the demise of WGMS (you can find my thoughts on the whole mess here, if you need to get up to speed).

I was heartened to see general manager's Dan DeVany's comment that he planned to "stay the course." But he's speaking for the management team that ditched three decades of classical programming to chase public radio news listeners in the first place.

Which leads me to my real point. The final paragraph of Fisher's blog entry reads:

[DeVany] says the station will move to a greater variety of pieces as it builds its CD library from 4,000 discs to more than 50,000 in the coming months.

WHAT!?!? A station in a major market that broadcast classical for 30 years only has 4,000 CDs? When I worked at Nimbus Records, I was responsible for sending releases to key stations, including WETA. WETA should have received at least 100 titles just from our little label alone. And when you add all the releases from Warner, Harmonia Mundi, Universal, Sony/BMG, EMI and all the other minor independent labels, I'm guessing the station's probably received over 500 CDs a year -- every year since the mid 1980's.

So of the 20,000 or more discs WETA should have received, where did they go? Did they throw them out when they went to all news?

And where's the WGMS library? That was supposed to go straight to WETA as part of the deal. Is that the 50,000 discs they're referring to? (It could be -- that would be quite a cataloging job).

Here's what prompted this reaction. I have about 2,000 classical CDs in my personal collection. I've been putting them to good use -- as my Wednesday morning audience on WTJU can [hopefully] attest. Still, the concept that the most important classical radio station in the Washington area has a library only double the size of mine, seems somehow odd -- and wrong.

- Ralph