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Omaha.com ran a recent article about Lincoln (Nebraska)’s blogging police chief, Tom Casady. Read about his subject matter, but pay particular attention to what he and another city official had to say about blogging:

Casady and [Round Lake, Ill. Mayor Bill] Gentes agreed that being personable and genuine is key to a successful blog. Gentes also said he tries to inject his sense of humor into his posts.

Gentes said he doesn’t buy some officials’ claims that they don’t blog because they aren’t comfortable with the technology.

“It’s simple to use,” he said. “You just have to be willing to write and write almost every day.”

However useful blogging may be to law enforcement — to educate and inform the public on a regular basis, about things they may not find out in the media — the writing can be the main sticking point. Most people both in and out of law enforcement seem to fall into two camps: those who enjoy and/or are talented at writing, and those who would rather do just about anything else. William Zinsser‘s book On Writing Well notes:

Take an adult chemist or physicist or engineer and ask him or her to write a report, and you’ll see something close to panic. “No! Don’t make us write!” they say…. They were told at an early age by an English teacher that they don’t have “a gift for words.”

Are you a good communicator?

Chiefs and other command staff can sometimes fall back on the department’s public information officer when they want to add the writing-intensive social media to their community outreach efforts. In many departments, however, public information falls to the chief. So should a chief blog, even if s/he doesn’t want to?

It depends. The “personable and genuine” element of any social-media effort–blogging or tweeting or commenting–is its cornerstone. However, chiefs who enjoy communicating with people should focus on that aspect of blogging. As Zinsser says, “Writing is thinking on paper. Anyone who thinks clearly can write clearly, about anything at all.”

Thinking on paper

True, writing in itself requires a certain discipline. Blog entries require a certain finesse to appeal to an Internet audience: they must be fairly short, well-organized (leading from Point A to Point B, and with headers to guide the way), and clear (no wandering off on tangents). Best of all is to write a rough draft, then go back and revise/cut as necessary.

But most police chiefs are busy people and lack the time to learn how to move from translating their natural thoughts and style, to refining a written piece. Those who see value in blogging, then, may want to consider partnering with someone else: the PIO, an officer, or even a secretary or clerk skilled at dictation. They may share the responsibility with the PIO, or even develop a “group blog” concept with other city or department officials.

Learning how to blog

This can provide the time necessary to learn how to write in the way blogging requires. Besides reading books like Zinsser’s, an excellent way to learn how to blog effectively is to find those you enjoy (we list several in our blogroll)–and figure out what it is about those blogs that makes you enjoy them so much.

Blogging technology has become almost as easy as word processing thanks to hosting services like WordPress and Blogger. Blogging itself, meanwhile, need not be professionally done. In fact, blog readers prefer the less formally written approach; “slick” writing is not to be trusted. By all means make sure your spelling and grammar function properly–poorly written work looks unprofessional–but the best blogs come from the heart and the head.

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Tags: Blog, Law Enforcement, On the Web, On Writing Well: An informal guide to writing nonfiction, police chiefs, Social media, Weblogs, William Zinsser, WordPress, Writing

This entry was posted on February 24, 2009 at 7:58 pm and is filed under Blogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.