Blog News Co-op

If you are visiting from the link on my post at bRight & Early, Welcome. Of course if you just wandered in on your own you are welcome as well

If you are new here, and you probably are, here is what I wrote about this site:

I’m looking for original reporting by bloggers to use in a shared setting. That’s why our tag line is “by bloggers, for bloggers.” I’m looking for bloggers who want to contribute stories that other bloggers can use and link to. The only criteria is that it has to be original reporting rather than commenting on the writings of someone else. It doesn’t have to be a big national story. Coverage of a local council race or regional news story, interviews with local politicians or celebrities, and even your personal coverage of local events are all the type of stories I’m looking for.

That sums it up pretty well. For more background you can read here, here, and here.

It’s time to get moving with this project. Tell me how you can contribute. Your ideas and suggestions are always welcome.

While your at it why not follow @BlogNewsCoop on Twitter.

I was honored to participate in the 2,996 project remembering Neil Dollard in 2006. D.C. Roe, who organized the first blogburst, is coordinating the project once again.

There is a new website for the project: http://project2996.wordpress.com/

Please go by and sign up to honor one of the victims of that awful day. I encourage my fellow bloggers to please help spread the word as well.

The install of the latest version of WordPress – 2.8 – went smoothly. Let us know if anything isn’t working.

You can follow the Blog News Co-op Blog on Twitter: @blognewscoop

Blog News Co-op is looking for stories from tomorrow’s Tax Day TEA Parties. If you have a first hand report of a local TEA party please consider sharing it here. There are two ways to submit your story:

1. Register here at Blog News Co-op using the link in the left sidebar. After registering send an email to contributor@blognewscoop.com. Include the screen name that you registered and we will upgrade your status to Author.
2. If you don’t want to sign up to be a Blog News Co-op contributor you can still send your story and pictures to submissions@blognewscoop.com

Have a great time tomorrow, and share your story here.

I’ll be talking about the idea I’ve mentioned several times before — Blog News Co-op — tonight on bRight@Night.

First, about bRight@Night. It is the show I do three times a week on Blog Talk Radio. Visit the show page linked above, and make sure to sign up for a reminder of when new shows are going to air. You can also go to the main page and access the chat room about 15 minutes before air time. Normally the show airs at 11pm Eastern Time. That is subject to change in the future.

Tonight’s live podcast will start at 11:30pm Eastern. I couldn’t schedule a 30 minute show at 11, thus the later start.

The topic tonight will be the Blog News Co-op. You can read about BNC, but the basic idea is this: Bloggers contributing original material and first hand reporting on stories that they cover. I would really like to get the input of other bloggers, and I hope you will join me tonight.

Thanks to Jenn Sierra at Fort Hard Knox for linking to this post and the pod cast.

Today, and this coming weekend, I will begin the real push for promoting and growing Blog News Co-op. To this point I have mentioned the site to a few friends and blog acquaintances. As I finish some behind the scenes work it is time to start promoting in earnest.

Let me pull some “background” and “needs” from two earlier posts:

Bloggers should be a natural resource. Why?

• There are thousands of us. We are in every part of the country and many parts of the world.
• We have a wide spectrum of backgrounds, interests, and areas of expertise.
• While nearly all bloggers work at something other than blogging for their 9-5, not all 9-5’s take place from 9-5, if you know what I mean.
• One thing that most bloggers have in common is that they like to write. That doesn’t make us all good writers, but it’s a start.
• If all goes according to plan (once there is more of a plan than what exists now) we will be able to cover a wide range of topics, stories, geographic areas, and more.

and

Many things are needed, but a few stand out.

1. More than anything we need writers to submit original articles for use by other bloggers. If you have a story that you are interested in sharing be sure to sign up for an account and submit your article.
2. Editors. We would like to identify some authors who are willing to help polish and finalize submitted works.
3. Researchers, fact-checkers, photographers, illustrators, anything and everything that will help us find, follow, and report the stories of interest to other bloggers and readers.
4. Starting out I would like to find someone who is willing to create a more appropriate image for the top of the page.
5. I would also be helpful to hear the ideas that you might have. Please leave your comments and let me know what we need to do, and how we can do it!

Oh yeah, spread the word.

Look for my email to you soon.

Here’s a small banner. I’ll get a better one out this weekend.

BNC

Michelle Malkin has a lengthy list of right-of-center bloggers providing original reporting over the past year.

For various reasons, the incredible amount of investigative online reporting published on conservative blogs in just the last year alone has gone largely uncredited. Let’s fix that here and now:

It is a long and impressive list. Seriously, take a look.

And to those on the list, you are welcome, even encouraged, to submit your stories to Blog News Co-op. Let’s not rest on 2008’s work, but rather break out even more in 2009 and beyond.

(cross posted at bRight & Early)

If you found this site by way of my twit on Twitter, please let me know in the comments. This is sort of an experiment.

Did you know there is a database for bloggers to enter the date they started? It’s called the Blogiversary Database, maintained by bRight & Early Blog.

Now bloggers can add their information to the database. On their anniversary date (blogiversary) a link to their blog will be displayed on any site that has added the code. I’ve also set it up to display yesterday’s and tomorrow’s blogiversaries.

The submission process has been updated. Find out more.