When Dwight Silverman at the Houston Chronicle put out his call for bloggers in January, I knew right away I wanted to get involved - for a couple of reasons. I had been thinking about starting a blog about some technical topic that I know and enjoy, and the Chronicle offered a great chance to reach and converse with a large, diverse audience. More importantly, Dwight and the other Chonicle bloggers get it. They understand that blogging is about more than just writing and posting lots of words; it’s about listening to and conversing with readers. It’s about writing what you know and love. It’s about having fun.

Well, somebody else out there has recognized that the Chronicle gets it and gets it better than any other traditional American newspaper. Here’s what Dwight just posted to his TechBlog:

Excuse us while we toot our own horn.

New York University Associate Professor Jay Rosen is probably the pre-eminent academic voice when it comes to the subject of newspapers and new media. His Pressthink blog is a must-visit for the industry and anyone interested in the way the Internet is changing how news is gathered, delivered and consumed.

He and his students conducted a study to determine which major U.S. newspapers were best at blogging. Their conclusion — The Houston Chronicle is No. 1, “by a mile”.

He goes on to quote Professor Rosen’s study:

The Chronicle was a runaway choice for top blogging newspaper. “The wizards of blogging in my opinion,” Andre Henry says. Points-wise, it wasn’t close. (128 to 69 for the second site.) The Chronicle is not the most adventurous in what it blogs about (exception: Bar Tab) but the site does everything well, starting with its Blogs main page, which features — before you get to any staff blogging — a section called Chron.commons, “Blogs from our Readers.” (They weren’t the only ones to do this.)

Read more about it

• Professor Rosen’s study results ranking the nation’s top 100 traditional newspapers by their blogging prowess
• What the Chron Thinks it’s Doing, an interview with Dwight’s boss and editor of Chron.com, Scott Clark

In my book, both as a chron.commoner and as a reader of chron.com weblogs, Dwight gets the lion’s share of the credit for the Chronicle’s status as the blogging leader among newspapers. His may not have been the Chronicle’s first blog, but it has become the Chronicle’s best. As the paper’s Interactive Journalism Editor he’s not just a figurehead, but a guy who gets it, and a prime reason the Chronicle gets it. He wants to use blogging to change the way newspapers work; he even goes so far as to let us ordinary joes play our tunes on the Chronicle’s bandwagon. So congratulations, Dwight, the recognition is well earned.

Finally, I have to say that I’m having a great time being a Chron.commoner. I’m having a blast writing about videography, and I’m learning a lot about it too. I’ve been writing the blog for almost exactly a month now, I’ve managed to post something almost every day, and I still have a list of potential topics as long as your arm. It’s a great thing to be a part of, and I think it’s way cool that the chron.commons got called out in the study.

(By the way, if you live in the Houston area, and you want to blog for the Chronicle, Dwight is looking for more bloggers and has published a wish list.)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 1st, 2006 at 7:21 pm and is filed under Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.