Blog News Watch

Conflict is the first news values journalists use to determine newsworthiness, and the first news value that bloggers can apply to make more compelling content.

The second news value bloggers can apply to their writing is timeliness.

The mistake bloggers make is putting timeliness at the top of the list. Sure, blogging is more time-centric than many mediums for your message, but certainly not as much as newspapers.

And if blogging is more timeless than newspapers, and journalists put timeliness as number two… well, you should to. Get the order right: it’s important!

Timeliness: The When Factor

It’s a pretty simple concept: timeliness as a news value means that the closer in time your blog post is to the event that you are writing about, the more valuable that piece is.

It’s also important if you care about search engines because if you’re first in and best dressed, you stand more of a chance of getting indexed on the first page for certain search terms.

Choose Your Timely Stories Wisely

Sometimes a bit of considered planning is better than being the first to publish a post on something. Use your discretion here. If you can get an article out before everyone else and it’s a considered, useful, valuable piece, you’ve hit the jackpot… while the news is still timely, anyway!

If something requires perusal of long, complicated documents - legal ones, perhaps - then peruse them (and understand them) before you jump to conclusions and write about it. You can be sure of two things:

• Smart bloggers you are competing with will wait until they have perused, so don’t worry about them beating you too much
• Stupid bloggers will fire off a half-assed article because they want to be first and be flamed to hell and back for all the inaccuracies and incomplete thoughts they publish

Want to be flamed because you’re stupid?

…

I didn’t think so.

Timeliness is an important factor. The news values exist because writers have identified what attracts the readers interest; however, that same factor has also imbued many news rooms with an unhealthy mentality that is all about timeliness. It means many papers are driven by disasters and crises.

Value For Readers is your first consideration. News values, including timeliness, are your second considerations; always, always, always put value first.

Here’s the question to ask every time you find yourself rushing: does getting this post out before everyone else really provide much value to my readers?

Don’t get me wrong, I may have spent most of this article warning of the dangers of this news value, but it is still important. And while it’s important, the most important thing that can ever be said about it is a warning.

So use Timeliness - when it is appropriate.