Commentary: On my 50th blog

About four months and fifty posts ago, I started writing for AroundDesMoines.com. What have I learned?

Blogs are a casual form of communication. When writing for a print publication, I usually refer to myself as “this writer.” When writing for AroundDesMoines.com, the reference is always in the first person. This blurs the line between news in the journalistic style and news as a matter of conversation. For greater clarity, I started indicating in the titles, or headlines, when I was specifically writing a review or a commentary. Hopefully this will help you, the reader, to know when I am expressing my personal opinion. I also use the comments section that accompanies each post to share personal observations that I cannot include in a news item. You can find updates and corrections in the comments section, too.

Covering local news was not my intention when I started writing for AroundDesMoines.com. I was looking for a blog that I did not have to manage to help showcase the variety of my writing and to pull readers to Leading Voices: Iowa and customers to other parts of my business. At that time, the blog was only about events around the city. I started using light news to highlight locations for tourists and other people looking for entertainment in Des Moines.

The coverage offered by the established media of local elections this summer left me wanting more information. This unmet need drove me into the community to find answers and AroundDesMoines.com offered me a place to share what I learned. Reader response was overwhelmingly positive and I began to think about how useful the Internet could be in bringing back old-fashioned journalism. I have started covering school board meetings and would love to see this blog cover DART (public transit authority) meetings. The workings of City Hall also need more light of press.

Regular readers of AroundDesMoines.com know that I use this site to push for better public transit and for safer pedestrian options. Print publications use community issues to promote themselves and to advocate for municipal
improvements. I believe this is a practice that locally-based Internet blogs should adopt.

I try to limit my posts to 500 words. I set this limit because it is very easy to become long-winded when there is no copy editor chopping off half the prose. Any fewer words makes it difficult to convey the complete range of who, what, where, when, and why. On the other hand, there is no editor allocating space based on advertising volume and layout. Thus, when there is an event needing more space, such as candidate forums and art fairs, I can write 700-800 words in one post.

There is much potential for AroundDesMoines.com and many ways the blog can help Des Moines be a place worth living and visiting. I thank the host for letting me be a part of it. However, it would all be for naught without your support and interest. Thank you.

Guest Writer: M.R. Field is editor of Leading Voices: Iowa.