After watching the Second Life video conference, "Covering a Virtual World," and hearing the pros and cons of possibly reporting "in world," I seemed to have come across more negative aspects than good.
One problem with “in world” reporting is getting enough virtual friends to make an audience base. This would be especially hard because story topics themselves would be hard to find, along with finding stories that would seem relevant to Second Life users. The lack of credible sources poses perhaps the biggest problem. It would be hard to gain a base of readers in Second Life with the lack of material and then the means of proving just how credible your source was to begin with.
A possible advantage that is discussed for Second Life journalists is the ability to get your news across large distances faster than its other competitors. This may not be that great of an advantage with all the other technological advances of today. Video sites, instant messaging services, and cellular phones among other tools allow a real world journalist the means of getting the job done right and in a timely manner.
Lastly, Second Life journalists were not being payed much. The video conference mentioned a very minimal pay rate in the neighborhood of 6 to 8 U.S. dollars per news article published.
Its hard to take Second Life journalism too seriously at this point. Until these glaring problems are better resolved, Second Life news will have to take a back seat.