If we were to talk 7 or 8 years ago, it would’ve been quite easy to convince you that everyone needs a blog, since blogs were very much in vogue at the time. But that didn’t last long: Facebook ruined everything. A blog doesn’t have to be a way of conveying a mood to others: for that, social networking sites really are more convenient. But in some cases, having a blog is at least advisable. For journalists, having a blog provides a number of visible and invisible benefits.

1. A blog is an archive.

If you surrender your thoughts and important posts only to social networking sites, which intelligent agents will hardly find from the archives, you definitely won’t find the stuff you want. On the other hand, a blog allows you not only to find your thoughts in the archives, but also while writing them, to categorize them with labels and tags, which makes the work easier later. A journalist acquires an enormous amount of material over the course of several years of work, which is always needed later.

2. A blog fights online amnesia.

On the internet, there’s a thing called “internet (or online) amnesia”. Materials, sources have the habit of getting lost. And it’s mainly the materials that you need that get lost.  A blog allows you to archive sources and keep them on hand if their originals disappear — even years later.

3. A blog makes it easier to change jobs.

A blog, on one hand, allows the journalist to change their job and the media outlet — without losing their individuality. It also allows a journalist to find a new job, since blog posts and style become a reason for getting hired.

4. A blog creates a journalism CV.

Continuing the previous point: a blog allows the journalist to create a professional image, regardless of changes in their place of employment. It’s no secret that the majority of editors in Armenia don’t want to bring their journalists forward, to present them as the face of the media outlet. As a result of which, the majority of journalists are simply not known to the public. It’s time to change this.

5. A blog allows you to be more free.

Often, a journalist’s story won’t be published: the topic is changed or there’s something in the story the editor doesn’t like. There are a thousand objective and subjective reasons. After working for a few years,the average journalist has accumulated a dozen unpublished but good-quality pieces. A blog is the best place to publish these. Here, a journalist can express themselves on those issues which, for various reasons, they can’t in their media outlet. That is, if no problems arise with the editor.

6. A blog makes a journalist’s thoughts more available.

Search engines view social media posts as interesting at a given moment in time — if they view them at all, since, for example, posts published on Facebook rarely come up in search results. And even if they do, they’re not as visible. Blog posts are much better indexed in search engines. And the likelihood is greater that a journalist’s blog post will appear in someone’s field of vision than if it was posted in Facebook or Twitter.

6.5 And in general, a blog is fun.

Samvel Martirosyan

The views expressed in the column are those of the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of Media.am.