Week 3- Part 1: How to be yourself.
In a world filled with journalists, how do we keep our voice?
Establishing a strong persona on social media is hard. You start asking yourself questions like: Will people like my personality? Is this something that could offend someone? On websites like twitter, there’s only 140 characters to get your personality out there… and as a journalist it’s hard to get the facts out and still add some of your own flare.
So I have decided to analyze some journalists voice. The first journalist being Katie Couric.
First off. I enjoy her bio, I feel like I get a better insight of her as a person then as a reporter. She sounds like someone I could relate too, and perhaps grab a cup of coffee with. I believe this really helps a reporters following. People that like you, watch you. However, I would include an image of myself just so my audience that isn’t familiar with me would be able to recognize me(not that anyone doesn’t know who Katie Couric is).
But are her tweets as interesting as her biography? Well, the first one didn’t draw my attention.
It’s normal, and puts the information out there. But as far as personality goes? I’m not getting anything.
Then again, how are you supposed to put information like that out there and make it interesting, remain unbiased, and all that other fun stuff us reporters have to be? I’d say, that’s the only way you can do it. But what I do like about Katie’s twitter, is that she has a mix of political stories, fun stories, and then her own personality.
As you can see, Katie has got a sandwhich of different tweets here. Her first tweet is a funny response to a fan, showing a lot of personality.
The next tweet refers to the presidential race. Straight, simple, and too the point.
Last, is a tweet from a conference she is at. Hash tagging #squadgoals Katie appears to having a lot of fun, and is with some well known names!
What this tells me about Katie is that she know’s when to be fun, and serious. And that is important as a person and as a reporter.
Next up: Kacie McDonnell
Kacie is a reporter for Kansas City’s 41 Action News. I began following her through instagram, when I found her through a popular hashtag. Kacie’s bio is more professional then Katie’s, but her twitter speaks much more personality. Kacie has a large following on social media with over 70k+ followers (although that still does not compete with katies 1.4M). For working for a small town station, Kacie has made quite the name for herself.
What I like about Kacie, is that she relates more to generation-y’s then Katie does by tweeting more personally. Here is an example
It’s so true isn’t it?! Who would want THIN oreos?! If you’re dieting, you wouldn’t touch those things anyways!!
Okay- back to what I was saying. She tweets relatable things. As a journalist this is something I would strive more towards. I would want my followers to connect to me as a person, more so then me as a journalist. Kacie knows how to do that, while still keeping it professional and letting those know she is in the field by retweeting her station and the stories she goes out on.
What have I learned? Well, theres many different journalist’s in this field. Katie and Kacie, although their names are similar, are two very different people and very different journalists. Katie focuses on hard news while Kacie does mainly feature pieces. Each is fine to do! This almost makes them incomparable, because their interests are so opposite. However, feature pieces do attract me more as a generation-y then Katie’s pieces do. But I would visit both of their pages for opposite things. My voice would be a mix of the two, but appealing to the younger generations is something I have interest in.
Thanks for reading!
Xo, Haley