Nine myths and one truth about editorial board blogging.

Can you determine fact from fiction? Which is the single truth buried among these nine myths?

1. Blogging is just a passing fad.

This one should be easy. False.

There are more than fourteen million blogs in existence today, more than half of them active, according to a report released in August by Technorati, a website that indexes blogs. Some eighty thousand new blogs are created every day. And if that's not mind-bending enough, consider this: some nine hundred thousand blog postings are added each day. The blogosphere doubles in size every 5.5 months.

Business Week online recently called blogs "simply the most explosive outbreak in the information world since the Internet itself."

And they're likely here to stay. As the Business Week article points out: "The overwhelming majority of the information the world spews out every day is digital--photos from camera phones, PowerPoint presentations, government filings, billions and billions of emails, even digital phone messages. With a couple of clicks, every one of these items can be broadcast into the blogosphere by anyone with an Internet hookup--or even a cell phone. If it's scandalous, a poisonous email from a CEO, for example, or torture pictures from a prison camp, others link to it in a flash."

2. Blogging isn't real journalism.

Again, false.

San Jose State University journalism professor Richard Craig, in an article earlier this year in the San Jose Mercury News, argues that the whole debate is specious: "Declaring that blogs equal journalism is like saying that television equals journalism--people mistake the medium for the message."

Craig adds: "A tiny minority [of bloggers] choose to gather and report news, and among these, there are outlets both legitimate and looney." Ultimately, readers can make up their own minds about the validity of any given piece of reporting. Good reporting "is generally self evident," he adds, and "it's not necessarily the exclusive property of the journalism industry."

3. Our readers don't care about blogging.

Again, piece of cake: False. Just ask Dan Rather, Mary Mapes, Jeff Gannon, or Eason Jordan.

4. I'm too busy to blog.

This one comes close to being true--it often feels that way--but the fact is it's false.

Blogging can take seconds or hours each day. It all depends on your own expectations.

In our shop, we ask editorial writers to shoot for three postings a day. A posting can be a retort to an earlier posting by another editorial writer or reader (three seconds); posting a reader response and then noting agreement or disagreement with the reader's point (three minutes); hyperlinking to an interesting article somewhere else on the Internet, summarizing the key point of the article, and opining on the piece's wisdom/stupidity (thirty minutes)--or a detailed treatise on Why the War in Iraq was a Mistake (or) Necessary (pick your poison--three hours).

Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit blog is famous for his often-brief postings. One of his trademark retorts is simply "HEH." It's a hyperlink to something--usually you don't know what until you click on it, but it's bound to be some left-winger's comeuppance.

Most in our shop spend fewer than thirty minutes blogging each day, and the benefits that come in terms of connecting with readers and strengthening our decision-making process far outweigh the time commitment.

5. Blogging will expose our vulnerabilities and cost us credibility.

False.

Actually, blogging demonstrates to readers how carefully we make our decisions and what sources we rely on for making those decisions. (If we're not careful or don't rely on good sources, there's a problem with the editorializing that has nothing to do with blogging.)

Are we flawless in our judgments? Of course not. But few readers expect us to be. Being transparent (something we rightly demand of other institutions) about how we sift information and reason can only increase our credibility among readers.

Our traffic numbers (page views) at DallasMorning Views have increased steadily since we launched in 2003, signaling growing interest in what we're doing. With next to no promotion online or in the paper, we're poised to break into six-figure page views for second quarter 2005.

6. Blogging is self-indulgent.

Much of it is, but that's hardly an excuse to write all blogging off as meaningless. False.

Check out sites such as the ones in the box below (in addition to the three editorial board blogs listed above, of course) and many others in the blogosphere for important, insightful, and enlightening analysis.

7. Blogging will alienate readers.

False.

In fact, reaction to our blog over the past two years has been positive--more uniformly so than just about anything else in journalism I've ever been involved in.

Sure, readers argue with the points of view expressed on the blog, seek to get us to rethink our reasoning, expose us to different facts, and press us to change our minds. And yes, they sometimes call us names or question our motives. But I've quit counting the number of times a particularly hot email from a reader who's expended considerable energy disagreeing with one of our blog postings concludes with: "PS: Thank you so much for launching the blog. It's wonderful to have this window into what you do."

8. Blogging exposes us to too much increased liability.

Judgment call, but false.

Yes, it's a good idea to hold a series of discussions with your board prior to launching a blog to review the purpose of the blog and its goals. You might have a board member draft a set of guidelines or blog protocols for discussion. (We're happy to share ours if that's helpful.) This should help clarify what's permissible on a blog and what you'll want to avoid. (Good rule of thumb: Don't blog anything you wouldn't want your mother to read on the front page of the newspaper.)

It's also a good idea to review your plans with your newspaper's lawyers (we hosted a brown bag lunch discussion) and to "practice" blogging by doing a soft launch in house for a few weeks prior to going public.

But the bottom line is, blogging is the wave of the future, and our industry needs to be riding that wave, not drowning under it.

9. Only young people blog, and since so few of them read newspapers, it makes no sense for newspapers to launch blogs.

False. False. False.

Nearly thirty percent of Internet users read blogs and the number grows daily, according to the Pew survey.

Most blog readers are "involved, upscale, intelligent, individuals who also read Atlantic Monthly, The Economist, The New Yorker, National Geographic, The Nation, and WSJ .com," according to a study earlier this year by a blog ad network called Blogads.com.

And fully three quarters of blog readers are over thirty years old, according to the Blogads study. Seventy-five percent of them are men, forty-three percent have household incomes of over ninety thousand dollars, and fourteen percent are employed in the education industry.

And talk about politically active--seventy-one percent of those polled said they'd signed a petition; sixty-six percent said they'd contacted a politician. Fifty percent ranked blogs as having the greatest usefulness for news and opinion, and seventy-five percent said they read blogs for "news I can't find elsewhere."

10. Blogging will increase the amount of email I receive.

Bingo. Sha-zam. Ding, ding, ding. This one is true.

A blog posting on DallasMorningViews blog can spark two to twenty email responses within the hour, and scores over the course of a day. While we have a newspaper-wide policy of responding to regular reader emails, we suspend that expectation for the automated emails that come in with "blog" in the subject line. We do this for two reasons. Most readers who email to national blogs don't expect personal responses. And in our shop, editorial writers select reader responses to post as a representative sample of receipts. This serves as a "response" for many readers.

So how'd you do? Did you find the truth needle buried in the myth haystack? Regardless, here's the most important takeaway from this exercise: While blogging will increase the number of emails you receive, it also will increase the number of readers who engage with your page.

Who wants to argue against that?

Specialty blogs

Iraq: riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

Military: mudvillegazette.com// blackfive.net/main/

Gay issues (and more): americablog.blogspot.com/

Middle East: www.juancole.com/

Asia: rconversation.blogs.com/

Media: journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/

Bloggers from other media:

National Review: corner.nationalreview.com/

Washington Post staff writer Joel Achenbach: blogs.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/

American Prospect: prospect.org/weblog/

Kevin Drum's popular blog that Washington Monthly co-opted: washingtonmonthly.com/

Eyes and ears of the blogosphere (one-stop shopping):

Liberal: atrios.blogspot.com/ dailykos.com/

Conservative: instapundit.com/

Lengthier commentary

talkingpointsmemo.com/ buzzmachine.com/ michdlemalkin.com/ lileks.com/bleats/index.html yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/ whatshesaid.the-goddess.org/

Quick-hit commentary

washingtonmonthly.com/ digbysblog.blogspot.com/ powerlineblog.com/ captainsquartersblog.com/mt/ michellemalkin.com/ andrewsullivan.com/ wonkette.com/

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Dallas Morning News launched the nation's first editorial board blog in July 2003. Others have followed suit, including The Seattle Times and The Wichita Eagle. You can check out these blogs at: dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/blogs/opinion/ http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/stop/eagleblog.typepad.com/

Keven Ann Willey is editor of the editorial pages of The Dallas Morning News. Email [e-mail]