Calming, thoughtful voices – with a European accent – are not so easy to find among popular journalism blogs.

But the Online Journalism Blog, run out of Birmingham, England, is a professional resource infused with ideas both scholarly and practical. It covers a potpourri of subjects relating to the Internet and the capabilities it offers the ever-evolving profession of journalism, particularly in terms of interactive storytelling, blogging, citizen journalism, podcasts, computer assisted reporting, photoblogging, vlogging and uses for automations like RSS.

The OJB is written/compiled by Paul Bradshaw, whose paying gig is to teach online and magazine journalism at Birmingham City University’s School of Media. Prior to this, he worked as an editor and manager of various websites.

Bradshaw posts most of the content himself, but also has “virtual interns” on staff who contribute.

“I hope this can continue,” Bradshaw says. “It’s not ‘my blog’, but ‘the blog’, whoever writes it or posts comments. I’m always open to contributions.”

Bradshaw says running the OJB has greatly aided his professional development – a fine endorsement for any prospective industry bloggers.

“It’s taken me to places I’d never otherwise have been, met people I’d never have known existed. It’s added to my knowledge enormously. And I’ve become part of an active community of people who want to improve journalism.”

Many oft-cited journalism/new media blogs seem to be written from North America, primarily by Americans: Jeff Jarvis’ Buzzmachine, the PBS blog Media Shift, NPR’s On the Media, or Jim Romanesko’s daily offerings on Poynter.org, or even the Techcrunch blog. \

This is not to say there are not important European voices in the mix - Techcrunch has a UK version, and of course there is Media Guardian (to which Jarvis contributes). And of course, this being Europe, there are indeed language barriers to consider.

Still, Bradshaw’s voice seems to be one of the few strong (English-speaking) European ones among a crowd of Americans. His is a positive one, too: Most of the OJB is dedicated to the active pursuit of exploring new ideas instead of lamenting the woes and malaise of mainstream media.

Doing so helped him gain prominence in the industry blogosphere this year, too: The UK Press Gazette named him one of the UK’s most influential journalism bloggers.

Bradshaw says the kudos motivated him to raise his game.

For example, he proffered his “News Diamond” in September, 2007, as part of a series of proposals “for a model for the 21st century newsroom”.

The News Diamond graphically depicts seven steps writers and editors working in the digital era can take to quickly and effectively deliver stories.

Then, on Oct. 6, Bradshaw followed up by pointing out that journalists must shift some attention away from being content producers and focus on their role as community builders.

November’s addition to the series saw the addition of the “5Ws + H” model. After every story, the post says, reporters should give responses – via various new media techniques, like social bookmarking – to typical questions readers might have.

Most recently, in January, Bradshaw posted a fourth addition: A look at the modernisation – and socialisation - of distribution systems.

In 2008, Bradshaw says, he hopes to move into active experimentation with live projects.

Interspersed between these visionary posts are wikis (adding to the feeling of group ownership) and observations are about new media outlets like, say, Twitter, advice on “How to be a journalism student”, various websites or publications, or conferences Bradshaw attends and discusses (for example, the European Blogger’s (Un)Conference, which the EJC sponsored and at which Bradshaw moderated a section).

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What characterises most of his posts is readability and a balance between academia and reality – surely both students and professionals have something to gain in reading the OJB.

In addition to being well-written, the blog is also easy to navigate: the right-hand navigation includes a tagcloud, pulldown menu, monthly archive, blogroll and the means to hop to recent comments.

Bradshaw also launched a spinoff site on 14 January, Journalism Enterprise, on which he invites the masses to help him review journalism sites which attempt to make a profit from new media.

“Consider it a TechCrunch of journalism startups,” he wrote in a message to the 448 members of the Facebook group for the OJB.

Published: January 15, 2008