Documented’s Methodology for Community-Guided Content

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Documented was born in 2018. Since then, we have made four rounds of user research, held more than 50 individual meetings with users, and sent call outs via email and WhatsApp for people to shed some light on that subject we are reporting on.

In 2020, we doubled down on this community-guided approach. You can read how we changed our pandemic coverage thanks to our audience and how we used a people-centered approach to build trust and become part of a community.

Some examples of what we have asked our users are:

• What are you interested in knowing ahead of November’s election?
• How has the rent crisis impacted your life?
• Are you being threatened by landlords? How?
• Have you had trouble when applying for funds that the City announced for undocumented individuals affected by the pandemic?

Based on our experience, we now follow a methodology each time we design our community-engagement activities.

We want to share this with the public, so more media companies can engage with their audiences and put their needs first when creating content. We think that content-based on real audience needs improves trust in journalism.

It is important to note that our journalism is guided by our community, but not created by them. Instead, audiences work as information sources from which we start our reporting.

The Guide

Goal: The following document is intended to be used whenever Documented engages with community members to create content.

Why engage with our audience?

They most likely know more than us. We report on immigration with a focus on the legal system, the struggles that immigrant communities go through in New York, and the nonprofits that serve them. Think of the many people that can provide information that we don’t have access to.

How to engage with your audience?

This question can only be answered case by case. Some examples can be:

• In-person events.
• Messaging platforms
• Facebook groups
• Reddit
• A message in your e-mail newsletter

A plan for reaching out to audiences

Before

1. Think of what you want from the community.

Is it just insights so you can have ideas to report? Is it insider information that you want to use to report something that you already have in mind?

2. Think of what you will do with the content.

Will you produce an article? Will you create a multimedia project? Have a clear idea of what you want to achieve. Things can change, of course, but this will help you develop ways to reach your target audience and ask the right questions.

3. Plan a way to reach out.

Depending on your expected outcome of the engagement effort, design an outreach strategy best suited to reach your target audience.

Example 1: if you need lawyers or court officials to verify some information, dive into your list of subscribers and make a shortlist. Create a tag on Mailchimp and then send a custom call out.

Example 2: if you need to reach out to undocumented Latinx immigrants, then think of an image card in Spanish that can be sent via WhatsApp.

3. Don’t waste people’s time.

You know what you want from this effort. Then ask it straight. Don’t create long forms asking for information you won’t likely use. The longer a questionnaire is, the less likely you will get a complete response.

So, before sending the call out, think twice. Do you need their name, phone number, zip code, and profession?

4. Test it. Twice.

If you plan to send a message that contains a form, a survey, or a link to any third-party app, test it before sending. This step is to make sure you don’t send a faulty link or a message with a typo. The person in charge of the project should send a test call out to someone else who needs to read it and approve it.

During

1. Check — all the time.

There is always room for error. You might have sent the wrong link or sent it to the incorrect list. You name it. So you better be watching the results of your call out in the minutes and hours after you sent it out. If there is something wrong, change it. If there was a big problem, address it.

After

1. Publish. Don’t leave your community.

You already had in mind what you wanted to get out of this engagement effort. Things can change, of course. Maybe you were thinking about just writing an article. You end up creating cards for social media, an audio product, or the original idea for an article takes a whole different approach.

Whatever you do, always publish something. Don’t leave your call-outs in your hard drive.

Some of the articles that we have published with the information provided by our audiences are:

• City Funding for Undocumented Immigrants is Shrouded in Secrecy
• New York Latinos Were Hit Hardest by the Pandemic. Why?
• Eviction Moratorium Extended, but Looming Housing Crisis Remains
• Landlords Are Threatening Renters, Despite the Eviction Moratoriums

2. Publish in their language

If you worked with an immigrant community, make sure you also publish in their language. Here are some examples:

• Inquilinos son amenazados con desalojos y aumento en la renta
• ¿Por qué los latinos de Nueva York fueron los más afectados por el coronavirus?
• El secretismo de la entrega del dinero para indocumentados en NYC

We asked via WhatsApp our community of undocumented Latinos what they were interested to know before the election. Then we got back to them, in their language, in the same medium that we asked.

2. Get back

People spent their time talking to you or completing your survey. Now it’s time to show that you value their effort. After you publish, please get back to them personally and send them the content you created. Also, include a thank you message.

Important: If you promised that you would give out a reward for talking to you, make sure you do it and make it public.

We asked, via email, what our readers were interested to know before the elections.

3. Make it public that you got help from your community.

Not all media outlets have a community that can help them create content. So make sure you tell people that members of the community-powered the content you are publishing.

The way you do it will depend on the medium you publish in, but always remember to include a reminder. It will also help incentivize other users to be part of the next initiatives.

For this reason, since November, we have included this sign in every story that we have published with the help of our community:

Introduced on November 1st, this banner is now included in all our articles that had the help of our community

Conclusion

Creating journalism that addresses people’s needs increases trust. Also, users have critical information that can’t be found elsewhere. However, trust is very fragile. You need to cultivate it carefully, and these steps are designed to maintain trust in your journalism and increase it.

Note: At the moment of writing this document, we have used this methodology with callouts to our audiences of email (mainly lawyers and immigration professionals) and WhatsApp (mainly undocumented Latinx immigrants).