When Engagement in Journalism Sucks Even if it Doesn’t Have To
From a total rookie hoping to do this kind of work
I’ll admit the headline was harsh but let me explain.
I’m a social journalism student at the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism. I started in January and am graduating next month. By the time I started the program, engagement has arguably become the biggest buzzword in the journalism industry. Buzzwords suck. No one knows what they mean. While I thought about writing a piece on what engagement in journalism means to me, I thought engagement could be better defined by what it isn’t. Although I’m excited to see methods like crowdsourcing being utilized more widely, it has also coaxed me to consider some ways we can improve engagement strategies by tweaking the way we interact with audiences.
Know What You’re Asking
I mean like, really know what you’re asking. Throughout my program, I learned that call-outs and crowdsourcing are ways to get information for deeper, investigative projects en masse. I’ve seen call-outs that ask people to talk about trauma or for people to provide sensitive documents. I saw one project like that on Twitter that solicited the same response from followers: “what are you going to do with this information?”
That’s huge insight!
I want to emphasize that “doing good journalism” isn’t enough to get people to trust you. There needs to be more of an exchange. It can be as simple as providing an explanation of what your project is, why you’re asking for the information you need, what you plan to do with the information and why it’s beneficial to pursue the work. This can be done in a few sentences or a few paragraphs. Either way, providing context makes your work feel more collaborative. If you think about your audience as collaborators, they need to know the details, especially because important topics can also be sensitive.
On the flip side, you could be doing an engagement project that isn’t quite a deep dive. A recent example I’ve seen was from a reporter who asked how to incorporate engagement strategies while covering a parade. Of all the suggestions offered, I had to agree that asking a question about the occasion via social media or an announcement at the event and then getting attendees to text in a response using a short code was the best way to reach people. Everyone texts. It’s minimal effort. People will appreciate you for taking that into consideration, which brings me to my next point.
You Don’t Need to be Sexy
Part of what I mean by sexy is that you don’t need to be high-tech. Don’t get me wrong, emerging technology like virtual reality and 360 video is cool but like I mentioned before, it’s all about choosing the appropriate mediums to reach your audience. A huge problem I have with this kind of tech is that it’s not accessible to everyone so you’re only getting a portion of your audience involved.
Depending on what you want to do, barriers to internet access or tech literacy can also be challenging. My classmate Alyxaundria Sanford is reporting on formerly incarcerated women and has take to these things into consideration while creating an updated database of re-entry services in New York City.
In the event that journalists decide to put their fancy pants on, I think it’s best to first take these things into consideration, especially while most the general public isn’t walking around with ginormous goggles on.
Know What You’re Doing
I mean like, really know what you’re doing. I’ve seen call-outs at the end of videos and podcasts that are similar to “tell us your favorite 90’s California punk band” and I get really excited about it. I remember stopping and asking the above question: what are they going to do with this information?
Are they going to write an article with everyone’s responses? Are they going to make a graphic? A playlist? I don’t know. At best, you’ll get some conversation about a particular topic in the comment section or shares with answers. To that end, what are some of the insights you’ll glean from that anyway? How will you utilize that information to improve your editorial process? If you’re struggling to answer these questions, maybe you’re doing a call-out because engagement is a sexy thing to do. But we went over that already.
I personally felt less inclined to participate because I got the impression that they weren’t going to do anything with my response. If you’re going to do a call-out, make sure you can commit to producing something. People are still taking time out of their day to give you their thoughts, even if they’re just typing in “Lagwagon.” It goes back to this exchange that I mentioned earlier. If your aim is to get more impressions, great. You can do that by getting people to comment and manipulating an algorithm. But building trust is an entirely different beast.
Some Final Thoughts
I recently told someone at a party that I’m interested in doing audience or community engagement post-grad. He said something like, “you don’t want to be a reporter?” I found that really fascinating because I readily associate engagement with reporting. He thought that audience engagement meant I would do something along the lines of scheduling tweets or Facebook posts. But engagement is totally different from the Run-of-the-Mill social media job.
There’s no blanket way of thinking about how you’ll engage people because your methods will change depending on the investigation or the project. I think when more outlets embrace audience participation while reporting, the concept of engagement won’t be as foreign to non-media folk.
Finally, you don’t need the title of “engagement reporter” or “engagement editor” to incorporate these methods into your work. It all comes down to whether or not you care about communities. If not, “community” becomes another buzzword. I hate buzzwords.
