A picture of a blogger. Drinking beer while thinking about his next story about your plan to phase out your natural gas busses.
Uh, oh. Your transit agency doesn’t have a blog, but all of a sudden “youragency.blogspot.com” appears online. Even worse. It doesn’t have nice things to say about your agency’s performance recently. Don’t freak out. It’ll be okay. Take a deep breath. We’re going to get through this together.
In the world of old media there were two transit reporters for the local papers (which have probably been cut back to one). If a story was going to go in the paper, even a bad one, you’d know about it ahead of time. But that’s the old media. New media is all about specialization and, if there isn’t one out there now, there will probably be a blog specializing in you soon.
This is a good thing. Someone who is willing to put the time in to writing about your service and system is someone who cares. They’re a stakeholder. And while they don’t have the pull or immediate importance of an elected official or newspaper columnist they shouldn’t be dismissed. Below is our quick guide to accepting the new reality of the new media.
Step 1. Don’t Freak Out
Every transit agency has lawyers. Unless the unofficial blog is committing serious libel or pretending to be an official blog resist the urge to send out C&D orders. Blogs enjoy similar protections as regular journalists and, in the past, bloggers that were sent C&D orders have tended to post them on the web in a way that is embarrassing to the person that sent them out. No need to go nuclear right away.
Step 2. Get To Know Your Blogger
As mentioned, people willing to take the time to write about your service are probably your most frequent riders. If you’re going to react to the situation you should understand who you’re dealing with as this will inform you how to react:
THE FANBOY/FANGIRL – This is a person who is completely in love with transit. They get excited each time a new rider’s guide comes out. They know the routes by name and number. They’ve got a special lanyard for your transit pass.
How to react: The quickest way to turn a fan into a foe is to send them a C&D or ask them to take down their page. They’re just trying to help. Drop them a line and let them know you appreciate what they do. If they have an error on their site or are publishing copyrighted material correct them in the nicest manner and offer them alternative images (or just give them the right to publish a logo or map).
THE NEW URBANIST WANNABE – This is the person who got the degree in Urban Planning or Geography and feels like they could do your job better. They constantly post about what your agency is doing wrong, why you should switch to a monorail and how you waste money.
How to react: Kill them with kindness. You should be nice to this person, as much as you can, and give them an opportunity to come to the table. If they’re wrong, it’s because they don’t understand all the factors. Though occasionally annoying, it’s worth trying to get this person on one of your citizen committees and taking their calls. Maybe they’ll have a good idea and, at the very least, they’ll be able to articulate your point of view.
THE JOURNALIST – This person, or group of people, take a serious journalistic approach to covering your system. This is their beat. They publish all the news about your system, maybe call you up to ask questions and are sometimes positive sometimes negative.
How to react: The journalist wants to be treated like a real journalist and should be treated like a real journalist. By putting their email on your blast list, giving them on-the-record comments and keeping them in the loop you’re gaining another outlet for your information. Treating them professionally is your best way to get them to act professionally.
THE CRANK – This person is a nut and has nothing but crazy things to say about your service. In the past, this was the person sending an angry letter every week about the color of the buses. When they come into the office everyone draws straws to see who has to talk to them.
How to react: If it’s a random posting on a poorly designed blogger account or forum and doesn’t get too much traffic you might be able to ignore it. If it does get traffic, the best you can do is hope to provide a correction or other side when you talk to them. As always, be careful what you say to cranks. They remember everything.
THE HATER – This person’s sole purpose in life is to say anything and everything bad about your service they can. They voted against you and are always happy to remind you about this. Anytime something bad happens they mention it but if a bus driver saved their life they wouldn’t tell anyone. They’re probably a member of a radical right wing party.
How to react: If you’re lucky, the person is similar to the New Urbanist Wannabe in that they aren’t well informed and would probably get excited if they had a bit of attention. If they reach out to you, try and be cordial and invite them to give input. If you’re unlucky, they’re just nuts and there isn’t much you can do unless they publish something purposefully malicious and wrong. This is where having other blogs about your service helps as you can feed your point of view to your Fanboy, Journalist and Wannabe.
Step 3. Be Their Best Contact
If someone is dedicated to writing about your service they’re going to whether or not you approve. If the person is reasonable you should be their best contact. You should provide them with the information they require just like any other journalist. If another journalist would have to submit a FOIA request for something, make them. If you’d just give another journalist that information, just give it to the blogger. Transit agencies always need another ally.
Step 4. Learn To Accept The Bad With The Good
Just as reporters, columnists and editorial boards are going to print things both positive and negative about you, so will bloggers. As always, offer alternative points of view in a professional and respectful matter. The blogosphere runs on snark (sarcasm and negativity) and the easiest way to get yourself into trouble is to start a fight over a post that may be read by 12 people but then suddenly ends up in the paper because one of those 12 people is a newspaper columnist.
Step 5. Recognize It As A Positive
You just found a way to get to the community of passengers that cares about your service. This is a good thing. Most transit stories don’t make the front page (let alone the front page of the Metro section) unless someone gets fired, killed or sued. A blog can be your one outlet that cares about shifting the #49 Express to 14 minute headways.
Example of good unofficial local transit blogs:
MetroRider LA - Transit in the SoCal area covered up and down. To quote The Big Lebowski “Very Thorough”
SEPTAWatch – Takes a somewhat negative but usually respectful (and always engaged) look at the Philly transit scene. Also very funny.
CTA Tattler – Generally positive, always informative.
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