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Journalists stand to benefit from the advent of RSS feeds possibly more than any other profession – provided, of course, that enough of the best sources start offering RSS feeds.

I’ve just created a form letter for journalists and other media professionals to use in order to urge their favorite Web sites and e-mail publications to start publishing RSS feeds.

I firmly believe that if enough journalists start urging sources to offer RSS feeds, then more and more source organizations and publications will do so. Ultimately, the shift to RSS publishing will make following beats and researching specific stories easier and more efficient.

So feel free to copy and paste my form letter and send it out to all your best online sources. And let me know what kind of response you get!

Here’s the form letter…

Dear [NAME]

I’m writing to let you know that, as a working journalist, I often find the information your organization publishes online useful in my work. I’d like to urge you to start offering an RSS feed as soon as possible so that I can continue to utilize your online resources.

…If you aren’t familiar with RSS (Really Simply Syndication), you might want to read this short explanation: http://blog.contentious.com/archives/000038.html. (Below, I’ve listed some tools for getting started with RSS.)

In a nutshell, RSS is an easy, efficient, and spam-proof way for you to notify the news media about new information from your organization such as news and commentary, reports, press releases, statistics, experts available to comment on current hot topics, event calendars, media kits, tip sheets, etc.

Without an RSS feed, it’s likely that in coming months and years I will utilize your organization less and less in my reporting work. It’s a simple matter of efficiency. In my work I must regularly follow hundreds of organizations and information sources. It’s impossible for me to visit that many Web sites on a regular basis. However, when I check RSS feeds in my feed reader, I can peruse headlines and summaries of the latest offerings from many online resources in just minutes.

In other words, if you publish an RSS feed, it’s virtually certain that I’ll remain aware of what your organization has to offer the media. Without an RSS feed, it will become less likely that I’ll know what you have to offer.

RSS IS MORE RELIABLE THAN E-MAIL ALERTS. While e-mail publishing is a nice reminder of what you offer, unfortunately the spam plague is rendering e-mail alerts and newsletters largely ineffective.

I now receive so much spam that I am forced to employ a very aggressive spam filter. Even with that protection, large volumes of spam still get through to my in-box. It’s increasingly difficult to sort through all that junk to find legitimate e-mails. Therefore, it’s very likely that I won’t receive, or will miss, many of the e-mail alerts I have requested from legitimate sources, due to the spam problem.

OTHER BENEFITS: In addition to serving journalists better, offering an RSS feed could vastly broaden your online audience. Every day, more and more Internet users are discovering RSS feeds through popular feed aggregators such as http://feedster.com and http://syndic8.com. This might be a great way to better serve your members, partners, or other constituencies.

RSS is poised to explode as a communications channel. I sincerely hope that your organization catches that wave. However, if you do not start offering RSS soon, it’s likely that I and many other journalists will eventually lose track of the resources you offer.

Thanks,

NAME
TITLE
MEDIA OUTLET