Development Journalism
As I am trying to establish myself as a development journalist, this semester has been an incredible opportunity for me to explore the various means of reporting on such a large topic. The scope of international development includes climate issues, fight against poverty, government policies and much more. Naturally, it provides grounds for a high number of stories. Sadly, it is also one of the most under reported topic within the mainstream media, and The Guardian newspaper remains the only newspaper to have dedicated a whole section to it.
However, new media technologies have changed the landscape of the media industry, in a way that “if you want information about a current event today, you can easily search across blogs, newspaper and other sources” (Rettberg, 2008, p. 85). It has been argued that “citizen journalism and its allied forms of open news coverage (including news related blogs) have developed a sophisticated array of processes, tools, and technologies“ (bruns, 2008, p. 70) to allow for an ever increasing number of topics to be covered. So I did just that, trying to make use, sometime experimenting, the large array of digital media tools available to cover international development.
Consequently, I have decided to divide this reflective report in small sections, each one covering a digital tool I have used in the course of the semester. The list includes blogging, press release, Twitter, Facebook, Medium, Storify, audio and video.
Blogging
There are several reasons why I have decided to use the blogging platform as the principal way to report development news and stories. But first I would like to add that, as it has been argued, “blogs haven’t disappeared — they have simply morphed into a mature part of the publishing ecosystem” (Kabadayi, 2014). This is a point which proved crucial in relation to Sustaimably, as the audience is very specific and the content only attracts people with that specific interest in the topic.
Blogging has allowed me to publish my own articles, researches and thoughts on the array of subjects the topic of development can provide. Consequently, it represents an interesting way to establish a presence online and raise my profile as an online development journalist. Within the blogosphere, “there are no barriers to entry to a world offering a nearly limitless audience” (Hewitt, 2005, p. 105).
Here is a link to my most read article to date. Alone, it generated 334 views in October. It reports a United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) event in Dakar, Senegal on Gender Equality.
http://sustaimably.com/2015/10/26/senegal-dakar-religious-leaders-participate-in-un/
The WordPress platform is fairly comprehensive and allows me to make use of the “three core practices of tagging, linking and browsing” (bruns, 2008, p. 172), today’s internet essentials. Tagging which often “begins with the originator of the content” (bruns, 2008, p. 172) enables “other users to find it more easily” (bruns, 2008, p. 172) and therefore helps me building up a readership. While my blog attracted 422 visitors in October 2015, generating 696 views, the stats went up in November to reach 504 visitors for 906 views. December’s numbers are not out yet but it might well surpass the previous months.
The whole exercise has also helped me to develop the skill of engaging an audience and managing an online community. No just that, through the blog I have now gathered a community of contributors, so my blog is not just a place people come to read or comment on articles, they can also publish their own writings. The experience becomes more comprehensive for anyone interested in development and strengthen the idea that blogs represent a “networks for sharing ideas, trends and information” (Rettberg, 2008, p. 60).
Here, I have created a page to invite contributors, which has gathered so far 9 writers and development experts from all around the world.
http://sustaimably.com/contribute/
Also, as a characteristic of blogging, “low- or moderate- traffic, blog fills a niche” (Hewitt, 2005, p. 112). I have learned that with the right topic and content, a blog can be a powerful tool as the conversations can last long, particularly through the use of archives (Rettberg, 2008, p. 65).
Press Release
The ‘Sustaimably’ project has allowed me to interact with companies & institutions’ press release on a more professional way. Very often, it represents a unique source of information, particularly when development work is done in places such as Somalia, where IT infrastructures don’t always allow communication. In order to cover the latest development of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia, I have made an extensive use of the press release website (UNSOM, 2015).
I have produced two articles to date on the topic of development in Somalia, using press releases:
http://sustaimably.com/2015/11/30/somalia-latest-press-releases-from-the-unsom/
http://sustaimably.com/2015/10/29/strengthening-the-rule-of-law-in-somalia/
While the press release has allowed me to obtain quotes and other information, it has also helped me to connect with UNSOM via Twitter, and then connect with a variety of international journalists covering the same topic, therefore strengthening my network of contacts.
As a journalistic tool, Twitter is by far the biggest discovery I have made this semester. Prior to the project I didn’t really know what to make of it. Now, I understand why it is said that “Twitter is becoming established as a short-form news platform” (Crawford, 2011, p. 118). While it isn’t exclusively a news platform, it has proved valuable to source stories, make contacts, but also to reach and engage with the audience. As it has been pointed, “considering Twitter as little more than a noisy channel for meaningless streams of chatters downplays the significance of the emotional dimension of the technology” (Crawford, 2011, p. 124). Twitter as a medium “is a barometer for revealing everything, from the occurrence of natural disasters to the public perception of political candidates” (Murthy, 2013, p. 51) and has been defined as “an ambient news space where news is in the air” (Murthy, 2013, p. 52).
On the 2nd of December I wrote the following article on my blog regarding CO2 emissions and the responsibility of rich countries:
http://sustaimably.com/2015/12/02/half-of-co2-emissions-come-from-10-of-the-richest- people-in-the-world/
It is through Twitter that I was able to attract a large audience for this article. Here is the link to the actual tweet:
https://twitter.com/juliensueres/status/672149237828833281
It took a mixture of using the right tags and mentions to promote this article on Twitter, but it became the tweet that earned me the highest number of Impressions to date on Twitter. It has appeared on 7792 user timelines in total so far.
Secondly, there is another use of twitter which I have found efficient. Instead of paraphrasing or over-quoting, I often embed tweets in my blog posts. It allows for small, short and powerful pieces to transmit a particular information. It has also the benefit of connecting with the users who produced the tweet. On the 11th of November, a big part of the Amazon forest, Sierra del Divisor, was declared a protected national park. It sparkled a lot celebration on social networks. I embedded the best of what I found on Twitter and Instagram to report that story. It provided me with superb pictures and video.
http://sustaimably.com/2015/11/11/environment-victory-the-amazons-sierra-del-divisor/
Social networks have considerably changed the way we interact with news. As the web facilitates the categorizing of topics, the “intense social reordering of news operates through communities of interests” (Crawford, 2011, p. 125), which explains the growing popularity of groups on Facebook and LinkedIn. As it has been pointed, “Social media further amplifies the changes in the media landscape and as it does, it provides new avenues for dissemination and engagement” (Hinton & Hjorth, 2013, p. 2). As “Facebook is the most popular social networking site” (Fuchs, 2014, p. 153) and it “can refer more traffic than anyone else” (MEYER, 2015), I decided to dedicate a page on the platform for my development project. Here is the link to the Sustaimably Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/sustaimably/
The Facebook page has had several benefits. First, it allows me to present my created content directly to the users, without the need to click away. Increasingly, social media users prefer to access content directly on their favorite platform. For the majority, this platform is Facebook, so it makes sense to produce specific content for the users.
Furthermore, Facebook also allowed me to make use of groups, which is a powerful way to reach readers interested in a particular topic. So far I have found hundreds of Facebook groups to join and share my blog posts. Not only it has multiplied the number of visits, but it has dramatically increased my network of contacts.
Medium
Another much newer but very popular writing platform which has allowed me to develop my online profile is Medium. It allows to reach a different community of writers and readers. The system of tagging is really good on Medium, which provide an innovative platform for bloggers to write, without the hustle of looking after a blog and all the technical bits. The classification of themes and topics means that “you also become much easier to discover” (GREENBERG, 2015).
I used the platform in relation to Sustaimably to cover a growing issue in development, the lack of support for NGOs, compared with their efficiency.
https://medium.com/@juliensueres/why-local-ngos-are-not-getting-more-support- 26717548b611#.u6oheip6n
Storify
As the nature of the topic, development researches have taken me across a large variety of platforms and networks. It is often very useful to be able to produce a digest from many sources since the various actors of development are present on all fronts. During the month of November, a Senegalese NGO, involved in the promotion of education, offered me to contribute voluntarily. As they asked me to write an article which would promote the work they do, and since they are present on a wide range of social networks, I decided to opt for Storify, which allowed me to gather all in one place their social media information.
The following link takes you to the digest, or article.
https://storify.com/juliensueres/senegal-education-innovation-and-the-role-of-ngos
The major advantage of Storify is that you can compile together different sorts of content, including audio, video or pictures. Well executed, it can provide a comprehensive and entertaining way to produce a story.
Audio & Video
One of the latest trend in social networks, is the use of audio and video content to tell stories. Scholars too have acknowledged the fact that “podcasting is a valuable tool for professionals unable to attend conferences as a mean of obtaining the pertinent information (Safko & Brake, 2009, p. 515). Also, I didn’t get a chance yet to conduct a full interview myself, audio recordings are widely available on iTunes, Soundcloud or AudioBoom. In terms of video, the power of YouTube is to be able to deliver content which can be easily “shared and promoted across social networks” (Safko & Brake, 2009, p. 519). Also it has been noted that, “as a media company, YouTube is a platform for, and an aggregator of, content, but it is not a content producer itself” (Burgess & Green, 2009, p. 4). Here again, I didn’t get to record my own video. However, I have found embedment an efficient way to complement articles in relation to a story. The sphere of development produces a high number of video on a daily basis, giving me always more resources to use. Video are particularly efficient on social networks as it provides an easy and fast way for users to become aware of a story or event.
Here are a few examples of the way I have used video and audio embedments:
http://sustaimably.com/sdgs-explained/
http://sustaimably.com/2015/11/01/somalia-peace-building-and-the-return-of-refugees/
http://sustaimably.com/2015/10/09/refugee-emergency-amir-khan-teams-up-with-penny- appeal/
In conclusion, this semester has been an extremely enriching experience in terms of skills development, but also as an entrance within international development journalism. I have tried to experiment on a maximum number of platforms as possible. Also I know I will have to develop much further the use of all these digital tools on which I have only started to experiment, I intend to place a particular focus on extending the scope. As we can find big organisations like Sky News on Snapchat, or The Guardian on WhatsApp, it is a proof the digital world is moving fast, and keeping up is an important skill.
Bibliography
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Crawford, K. (2011). News to me: Twitter and the personal networking of news. In G. Meikle, & G. Redden, News Online, Transformations & Continuities (pp. 115–132). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
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