The evolution of traditional print journalist to the blogosphere

When I had coffee with Roy Bragg, the blogger in chief at the San Antonio Express News, he told me that the successful journalists in his industry would become "icons" on the web.   That conversation was about four months ago, and I've spoken to a couple of other print types.   Roy's colleague at the Express News, Adolfo Pesqueria, told me after one interview 45 days ago that his bosses expected him to do three to four videos a month in addition to the 11 to 14 byline stories he wrote every month. 

As a PR guy who deals with a lot of media types, I have been watching this trend among the industry.  When I started the last phase of the Austin Innotech PR, I noted that Omar Gallaga at the American Statesman was a similar power blogger like Roy.  He was one of my targets for Innotech, and his coverage of the Microsoft Surface debut was probably better than getting one of the local TV stations.  The problem with traditional TV is that most news pieces are about 90 to 150 seconds.   When Omar came to see the Surface the day before the trade show, his piece ran over five minutes.    Viewers of his video blog got a more in depth look at Microsoft's new product.

From speaking to Sean Lowery, the owner of Prospera Events, attendance for this year's event was 400 to 500 more than last year's event.   In a technology savvy town with the debut of Google's office and the Wireless Summit, at the same time as Innotech, having Omar's coverage the day of Innotech helped with generating buzz for the event.