Hyperlocal and Hyperfocused Blogging

Here's another bloggy story from today:

Blogging at the UN: The New York Times looks at Matthew Lee, "the only blogger at the United Nations with media credentials."

His blog is Inner City Press, (it actually feels more to me like a regular news/newsletter-ish Web site, though it does feature an RSS-feed), and he comprehensively (some might say, "obsessively") chronicles goings-on at the UN.

What Lee is doing with his blog is very different from your average personal blogger, because he's focused on a single topic (the UN), and he's blogging specifically for an audience, and to perform a service for said audience.

While his blog may pull in a wider interest simply because it deals with the United Nations, at its heart, it's a hyperfocused, hyperlocal blog. Which makes it kind of a strange beast.

Most commonly, these kinds of blogs focus on very niche, very local things (especially politics). They'll include everything from the proceedings of the city council, or land-use and zoning issues, or environmental quality and general neighborhood issues (crime, development, traffic, etc.).

They're the kinds of issues that affect a relatively small number of people, but they affect them very directly and very intensely.

This kind of blogging takes a lot of dedication, and a lot of time. And it rarely pays. According to the article, Mr. Lee "...regularly works 13-hour days and lives on the money from several fellowships he won a few years ago." So it's definitely not for everyone.

One way to help spread the load is to gather groups of like-minded people together so that everyone does a share of the work -- this works especially well for time-limited events (back during the Scooter Libby trial, the Media Bloggers Association had a rotating roster of credentialed bloggers to liveblog the trial).

Anyway, hyperfocused blogging, like all good blogging, requires passion. As long as there's passion, the technologies and the supporting structures to help enable that passion should come along (hopefully).

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: united nations, UN, hyperfocused blogging, inner city press, matthew lee