Feature: News Flash Monica Guzman

When the Seattle Post-Intelligencer changed from a print to an online publication, few journalists were left standing. One of them was the Big Blog’s main contributor Monica Guzman—who’s been busy showing old media what new media looks like.




Name: Monica Guzman
Occupation: New media journalist at seattlepi.com
Age: 27
Education: B.A., Bowdoin College; two-year Hearst Newspaper Fellow
Twitter handle: @moniguzman
How she explains her job: “If I’m feeling really brave, I say I’m a news gatherer for seattlepi.com. Then I explain that reporting is also about moderating material that’s already out there and aggregating information.”
Favorite Web sites: “Facebook and Twitter, because the way people read things online is based on what their friends are reading.”
Who is your typical reader? “Someone who likes to figure out the city that they live in.”
Favorite Twitterers: @seattlemaven, @seattleweekly, @thenewschick, and seattlepi.com colleagues
@joelconnelly, @joshtrujillo, @mcnerthney

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Monica Guzman’s career reads a bit like a journalist 2.0 case study—one in which being tech savvy, nimble and a little bit lucky are as important as having a nose for news. The original and primary contributor to the Seattle P-I’s Big Blog and the driving force behind the seattlepi.com’s social media platform, Guzman has written thousands of blog posts, can boast 7,000 Twitter followers and a slew of devotees (readers, tech geeks and marketing types hoping to learn her secrets) who attend her weekly “meet-ups.” Though she’s helped pioneer a form of newsgathering where linking to stories and fostering a dialogue with readers goes hand-in-hand with original reporting, the 27-year-old Guzman has yet to write an investigative piece of her own—essential experience for traditional journalists. She is, however, one of the few survivors of the publication’s transformation from a daily newspaper to an online-only media outlet. (Full disclosure: Seattle mag is one of the seattlepi.com’s media partners.) And while other reporters scramble for a foothold in the new media world, Guzman has already found it and is looking ahead to what’s next. We sat down with her recently to get her side of the story.

You helped launch the Big Blog in 2007. What was the original goal behind creating an all-encompassing news blog?
It was so undefined in the beginning. The head of online at the P-I, Michelle Nicolosi, wanted to experiment with a blog that covered all sorts of topics and had its own voice and could serve as a portal to the site. We looked at The Stranger’s news and arts blog, the Slog, as an example of how a multi-author, multi-topic blog could work. My job was to help make something that works.

You were the only online reporter when you joined the P-I. How did you carve a niche for yourself?
It was hard, because the Big Blog was a new concept in a newsroom that felt like its staff was already covering everything. And newsroom reporters can be extremely possessive with their beats. I had to figure out ways to create elbow room without offending anyone.

What challenges did you bump into while establishing the Big Blog?
Early on, I struggled to get my editors to let me directly link readers to stories on our competitors’ Web sites. When I first put my Twitter widget on my blog, lawyers were called, and at least one person wondered if someone should edit my tweets. At one point I was asked to stop my meet-ups. I ended up printing copies of readers’ comments left on my blog posts and searching for any way to show how they helped me make good contacts, find good stories and meet really cool people who liked our site. I almost begged. But it worked.  

Have things changed at the office since going online-only last March?
I miss being surrounded by so many amazing writers and Pulitzer Prize winners all working at an institution that had cranked out papers for decades and decades. When the P-I became seattlepi.com there was a little survivor’s guilt. Some of us actually asked ourselves: Did we just start from scratch? One of the coolest things I’ve heard from anyone is that The Seattle Times reports on Seattle and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is Seattle. We’re still striving to be that. We might have a different audience from what we had with the paper—though we still get more than 38 million page-views a month—but I think seattlepi.com can still be Seattle.

Let’s talk social media. What’s the appeal of online social networking sites such as Twitter?
If you’re walking with somebody and you see a funny hat, you can say, “Dude, that’s a funny hat!” If you’re alone and you have no one to share it with, you might notice it but then you kind of put it away. Twitter allows me to use my iPhone to take a picture of the man with the funny hat and then post it to my followers. This process rewards conversation and the sharing of ideas.

What do you have to say to the Twitter haters out there?
My advice to people is to try it. I’ve never met anyone who’s tried Twitter and actually had friends on Twitter who hates it.

What do you think will be the next big breakthrough in online journalism?
I’m really excited about giving readers raw material. One local company that is helping to do this is Socrata, which claims to do for data what YouTube did for video. They allow you to embed and manipulate chunks of data. IdeaScale is another local company working with the University of Washington and the City of Seattle to create a conversation moderation system that will help people communicate online in a constructive way. It’s all about making things intuitive and accessible.

What about on the social media front?
Real-time Web (Twitter, Facebook) is here to stay. Mobile devices and geo-location are picking up in popularity, too. Foursquare [a mobile application with which users “check in” at a bar or restaurant in real-time] could have a bright future. Right now [Foursquare] is being used by geeks. but everything starts out that way.

I attended one of your reader meet-ups and noticed a few public relations/marketing folks in the crowd. Was that a typical turnout?
In the beginning, people who really liked the Internet and new tech came. Now I’m seeing a shift toward people who are interested in marketing. The cold, hard truth is that our industry is freaking out about social media. Everyone is looking for new ways to reach out.

What do you do to unplug?
I feel the healthiest when I work out during lunch, eat well and make my food at home. When I’m unhealthy: I bite my nails, I haven’t worked out in a week and a half and I’m tweeting at home. These days, I’ve learned to give social media a place. Nowadays, I’m never on the computer at home unless I’m working on a presentation.

How do your nails look now?
They look awful. Last night I cut them—the first step toward healing.

We can’t end with a question about your nails. Any last words?
We’re all so ecstatic about social media. I don’t want people to think that it’s the only thing that matters. It’s still about finding important stories. That will never change.

Originally published in March 2010

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