The Status of Journalistic Routines within Reporter-Run Political Blogs

Abstract

The present research explores the relationships between newspaper circulation size (small vs. large), blog post focus (national vs. local/state), and blog post topic (political vs. government) and whether reporters who blog produce posts that break with journalistic routines or include references to the author. Analysis of 960 blog posts from nine newspapers suggests that smaller newspapers were more likely to produce posts that break with journalistic routines and include self-references than larger newspapers. Posts that focused on national news were more likely to break with journalistic routines but were not more likely to include self-references. Posts about political news were more likely to both break with journalistic routines and to include self-references.