News Values for Bloggers: Prominence
“Prominence” is a news value that many bloggers claim to hate.
But even they perpetrate it, because when some small-time blogger with two posts does something controversial, it’s going to receive much more coverage when, say, Darren Rowse does the same thing.
And, of course, it draws in more traffic, especially from search engines - why? Because people are actually searching for information on that person.
Prominence refers to how prominent and popular an individual or group is in any given community.
It’s truly the crux of much of the media, and when it comes to celebrity and gossip mags, pretty much the exclusive news value. Doesn’t matter how stupid or trivial something is… you can be sure the gossip mags will pick it up if it’s about someone famous!
Apply this one when appropriate for your blog, and with caution, but when you do use it, it can certainly help.
Prominence and Conflict are great news values to use in combination. On my blog Musician’s Notebook a post about the tensions between Dimebag Darrell and Phil Anselmo of Pantera might’ve been a great post around the time of Dimebag’s death, so long as I kept it relevant to the fact that my readers want information for musicians, not music fans (how to keep tension among musicians to a minimum might have been a good basis for the post).
Check the front page of your daily paper next time you’re walking past a news agency. I bet you that the majority of the stories on the front page have something to do with a prominent individual or group. The past few weeks here in Australia, it has been about politicians almost every day (we just had a federal election).
Now if only I could meet another Australian who cares about politics…
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