At the Nieman Narrative Conference, Nieman fellow Josh Benton offered up what Poynter blogger Roy Peter Clark, a self-described veteran of writing conferences, characterizes as "the most dynamic presentation" on blogging that he has ever seen.

Benton proposed that eye-witness reporting in real-time via blogs is a interesting and complementary component to long-form narrative journalism. The theory was derived from a work by author James Fenton, an advocate for what he terms "journalism in its natural state," in which natural journalism is an antidote for the vanilla, rehashed wire copy that frequently crops up.

Benton then went on to create a chart that he calls The Benton Curve of Journalistic Interestingness (see photo). In this view, blogging becomes "a form of critical reportage rather than a form of standard commentary or self-expression," writes Clark.

Benton described two different periods in which a story is at its "most interesting:" right after the event, and then later on, once an investigative writer has moved beyond the basic what, when, where, how, and why, and found a unique angle for a long form narrative piece.  Conversely, the story is at its least interesting when it's in the "conventional reporting" stage, in between blogging and narrative.

No one would argue that blogs are becoming an increasingly important news source. And they do have more liberty to search out what's interesting. But is conventional reporting as trite as Benton's chart would have it seem?

Let us know if you think Benton is on to something.

Source: PoynterOnline