It has been a while since I last posted an entry in this platform.

I take now that the period of absence could be considered a cleansing time in order to refine work.

After the absence and some plans cooked up, I’m returning to blogging with a new twist. There should be no earthshaking changes, only a sharper focus.

I’m trying to advance a step ahead in my intention to expand the usefulness of my journalism.

I am inclined to convert Bukidnon Our Home into a beat blog, (what a journalist’s blog should be.) In this case, I continue both my journalistic endeavors and my blogging experience. What is a beat blog? Find out more here.

How will this happen?

I will continue posting materials on Bukidnon here but I want to limit it to the general topics under “Economy”"Governance” and “Politics”.

These three themes are still broad. They are however inter-related that I want to try to make this a “beat” to report about, and blog about here.

I plan to fuse traditional reporting skills, new media, and social networking to generate not just attention and feedback but productive and useful interaction. In short I aspire to build an online community.

With this mix, blogging becomes a tool for the improvement of my reportage.

Meanwhile, I will continue to publish my two other active blog sites: www.istambay.wordpress.com (Peace and Development in Mindanao) and www.campusjournalist.wordpress.com (Campus Journalism in Mindanao).   I planned to evolve them into more focused sites as I progress in this new blogging experiment.

Others think blogging will make a reporter less of a journalist. But with the right skills, intention, and understanding, beat blogging could help improve the skills and span of work of reporters. How? Try reading this.

The possibility that reporters lose credibility if they blog is still there. But there is a way to do it. We don’t have to lose face as we gain interaction. We can make blogging useful in journalism.

This experiment on beat blogging is about that.