Telegraph Launches Breaking News Blog

Posted on July 9, 2007

Telegraph.co.uk now has a breaking news blog called Making News. The Telegraph's Marcus Warren blogs that a breaking news type of blog would be the best way to cover a disaster like a car bomb exploding in a British city.

I'm not denying that the thought that one of those bombs could have gone off, bringing Baghdad-style carnage to the streets of British cities, was playing in the back of my mind as well. As I suggested earlier, were that to happen, a blog, updating every 20 minutes or so, rather than a conventionally crafted news story, could well be the best way to do justice to such a disaster.
Thank God we haven't had to blog on that sort of news event. But we have launched "Making News" in an understated, sotto voce sort of way. It is, in that deathly phrase, something of "a work in progress". And, already, we've drawn some conclusions from the first few posts and made some changes.
For one thing, users shouldn't have to click to "read more". They should be able to read as much of the post as possible from the blog's home page. So brevity and minimum use of pictures, unless they actually enhance the story or there is relevant video to be embedded in the page, will be the order of the day.

Journalism.co.uk writes the the blog was inspired by other breaking news blogs like the L.A. Times Breaking News Blog, USA Today's On Deadline and Times Online's News Blog. Eventually every major newspaper will have a dedicated breaking news blog.