Sean Pendergast and Dwight Silverman recently spoke to the “Sport Public Relations” class at Rice University on the topics of blogging.
Pendergast, a morning radio personality for “1560 The Game” writes a daily blog for HoustonPress.com that focuses on sports and pop culture. A graduate of Notre Dame, Pendergast didn’t study journalism in college but has always been interested. In fact, Pendergast worked in sales for 15 years before taking the position at 1560 The Game. He began his radio career nearly five years ago as an afternoon radio host which he compared to as being “kicked into the swimming pool.” Once his feet were nice and wet, Pendergast later moved into the morning slot where he appears daily from 6-11 a.m. Pendergast acknowledged that he continues to evolve “in the Darwinian nature that is the media.”
As Pendergast brought the students a large radio perspective, Silverman provided the students with an insight into blogging and its importance in today’s media. Silverman is the Blog Editor and Social Media Editor for the Houston Chronicle. In that role, Silverman oversees nearly 400 blogs on www.chron.com. He also writes the “TechBlog” daily and has a weekly column that appears in the print edition of the newspaper. He explained that the blogging world is comprised of both old school and new age journalism and that there in an audience for nearly all blog topics.
The media relies on all aspects of news and they all feed off of each other. Whether it is radio, print, television, blogging, or Twitter, the media is one big network. In Silverman’s world, he communicates with readers through his print, blogging, and social media. Pendergast said that his radio show is most important and his blog and social media are products of the show. Both Silverman and Pendergast are also very active on Twitter and have large followings (@seancablinasian & @dsilverman).
Klein Kubiak, a junior from Houston, Texas, is majoring in Sport Management and minoring in Business. Follow him on Twitter at @Klein84Kubiak