The People You Meet: A Snapchat Journalism Experiment
There are more than a few times in every college student’s life when he or she realizes how much there is to learn about the world. One of those moments spawned this project.
Last year, a journalism professor sternly assessed some of my ideas for a feature story assignment. A few wires must have crossed in the brain at some point, because I uttered one of the worst sentences in journalistic history.
“It’s just so hard to find somebody who’s interesting enough.”
That professor glanced at me for just a second with a discernable frown. He looked as if he were trying really hard not to express his immediate thoughts, which must have been somewhere in the neighborhood of “what did this idiot just say?” Then came the perfect response.
“Everybody’s interesting. Everybody.”
Those words are the inspiration for The People You Meet, my semester-long study abroad project in Melbourne, Australia that will start in early February. Every week, I will produce two brief feature stories on a person that lives, works or serves in Melbourne. Think of this project like a travel blog; the only difference is that instead of hearing my perspective, you’re going to hear the viewpoint of others.
Now for the fun part. All of these features will be done entirely on Snapchat. You’ll be able to follow along as the story is told in real time. Each profile will be saved and uploaded to YouTube after the 24-hour Snapchat time window has elapsed. Finally, the completed story will be posted to this Medium page along with a text accompaniment.
The project is being done this way because, quite frankly, I’m curious. I want to know whether or not Snapchat can be used to put together engaging, compelling feature stories. Everything about this experience is an unknown. Will the video and audio quality be good enough? Can you put together a solid story without using any editing tools? Basically, will anything about this work?
My best answer is, um, maybe? I certainly hope so? It’s hard to say for sure because nobody has extensively tested anything like this. Using Snapchat for journalism is a relatively new concept. Everybody is trying to find out what to do and what not to do, myself included. It is inevitable that mistakes will be made.
That being said, I intend to use this new medium to do the best journalism possible. It is my hope to find stories that are going to be interesting to you and tell them in a way that you’ll enjoy. Hopefully, you’ll be able to learn about someone or something new with every story.
All of those things are high marks to aim at. It is certainly not a guarantee that I’m going to hit them every time. I will certainly try, though. Whatever audience does end up viewing this project deserves nothing less than my absolute best effort. That’s how I’ve always approached every journalism job, and I look forward to doing the same for this one.
If you want to follow along with the project, you are certainly encouraged to do so by following me on Snapchat at “andygold24.” You can also take a photo of the snap code below to follow me. All of the stories will be shared on this Medium page as well as my Twitter account, which is also under the handle “AndyGold24.” Your Facebook feed might also be invaded by my “read/watch my story” posts every now and again.
(As an aside, I’m not quite sure what to do with this Medium page between now and when The People You Meet launches. Suggestions for both that and the overall project are more than welcome in the comments.)
Much of the credit for this project is due to friends, family, professors and everyone else that supported me throughout life. You are all never far from my thoughts. Looking forward to February already.
