Digital involvement

By: Gabriela Gonzalez

We live in a day where journalists post story ideas in Google Documents and through social media, and they ask the readers for feedback. Some news rooms have an “open door policy” where people can stop by and make suggestions, and others have even set up cafes where journalists hang out and wait for the community to come by and chat.

Emily Olson, the managing editor at Register Citizen, said people stopping by doesn’t necessarily mean the conversations and suggestions are helpful.

She added, “Our time is probably what suffers more than anything, but that’s a sacrifice we have to accept.”

The sacrifice, however, is worth it because of what journalists are able to get out of this interaction with the reader.

Having journalists interact with readers through diverse media helps them get a feel as to what the community thinks is important.

Mathew Ingram said the journalist’s interaction with readers makes news an “ongoing process” rather than a finished product.

Ingram wrote about John Paton, the new head of the Media News Group newspaper chain, and a leading advocate of a “digital first” approach to publishing, who said newspapers need to change their business style if they are going to survive.

“Many newspapers continue to focus their energy on the print version, then post things to the web, which results in stories without links, and static versions of the news that don’t evolve as the story changes and new information emerges,” Ingram paraphrased.

Sports Illustrated is a publication that has successfully gone digital. According to Lauren Indvik, the Sports Illustrated digital revenue went up 22% from 2009 to 2010.

The writers have their hands full making different versions of stories. The shorter ones go on the web, and the longer ones go in the print version and tablet versions, Indvik said.

“Nothing that we do converts easily one from the next,” Senior Editor Stephen Cannella said.

Other magazines like The Atlantic have transitioned well into the digital age.

Indvik said: “In some ways, The Atlantic was primed for web journalism. The magazine had been established in the mid-nineteenth century by a group that included Ralph Waldo Emerson and Harriet Beecher Stowe, prominent American intellectuals then in the prime of their careers. In its founding statement, The Atlantic (then called The Atlantic Monthly) pledged to be ‘the organ of no party or clique, but will honestly endeavor to be the exponent of what its conductors believe to be the American idea,’ concerned with ‘Freedom, National Progress, and Honor, whether public or private.’”

It is interesting though because The Atlantic still pledges that more important than being fast and technological is the quality of the work produced by the writers at the publication.

Some advice about generating interaction and traffic from  Liz Borod Wright includes putting your website or news organization on StumbleUpon or Pinterest. She also suggests using your blog name as your username on other social media and to be “generous,” and generate conversation and traffic on other sites. They may return the favor.

It is important to engage and use social media. People are likely to find ideas or news on these websites so you might as well use them to engage and seek ways to improve or have more perspectives.

Journalists, as they report, are using social media more. Some are using Twitter and Facebook as their platforms, Lindsay Oberst said.

Justin Ellis said Facebook data shows that when journalists pose questions on Facebook when they use Facebook to blog and report, it raises reader engagement.

International Journalists’ Network3 said social media is important because, when seeking engagement, on social media sites you can find people of diverse backgrounds and locations.

Twitter has proven useful, especially with the use of the hashtag which allows people to follow certain topics.

Steve Buttry argues that if you are a disconnected journalist you cannot give the people what they need and are seeking, therefore, you must be engaged with the community. He said journalists take the Society of Professional Journalists creed of “act independently” a little too seriously, and they become detached and “aloof” to what surrounds them.

He also said it is important to have many perspectives, and also, if you include the reader in your journey to obtaining information and the process of reporting, the reader sees that you are credible.

Though it can be time consuming, a complete waste of time and sometimes pose ethical issues, connecting with readers has proven to be valuable.

It is a concept that goes along with the saying, “How can one rule the people if one does not know the people?” How can you write and hope to educate a people if you don’t know what really matters to them?

As time goes by and more news organizations adopt more platforms, reporters will not only be reporting and publishing stories from far and strange lands, but they will also be analyzing and discussing them through these same platforms.

Through social media, you can reach the world and get its opinion, literally. Once you take the time to know your community, it can show you what you should care about, and you can show it what it should care about, too.