Liking my kale and my Cheetos, too
At the premiere of the Disney/Pixar film “Brave,” I stood next to a BBC Scotland political reporter who, like me, was sent to cover the red carpet. We started chatting. He revealed that it was his first time at this type of Hollywood event and would need help recognizing members of the celeb-parade coming our way. So I would point out the various American pop stars and soap opera actors, dropping mini-knowledge bombs into his ear with my own color commentary (“She wasn’t doing so hot, but then she got on this reality show and is relevant again”). Afterward, he sent me a message via Twitter, calling me a “one-woman encyclopedia.”
I share this anecdote because my work has, undoubtedly, influenced how I engage with news media, where knowing a little bit about everything and everyone is an occupational obligation. For 48 hours, I tracked my media consumption, an exercise that revealed some truths about my content habits: I’m a technophile, prone to engaging multiple devices at the same time. My morning begins with a scroll through Twitter for news nuggets on topics ranging from foreign relations to celebrity gossip. I usually read at least two articles from my social media feeds before brushing my teeth and have been known to play the NPR newscast (via the app on my phone) before leaving bed. This steady ingestion continues throughout the day until right before I fall asleep. I like my kale as much as I like my Cheetos, relying on NPR and the New York Times as much as I do E! and TMZ. Calling me an information addict would not be inaccurate.
Media consumption is, by no means, a passive activity for me. I do, however, distinguish between what I want to consume immediately versus what I want for later. To keep myself from getting lost in the unending “stream” Alexis C. Madrigal mentions in The Atlantic, I “horde” media links throughout my day, adding URLs culled from various feeds to my Apple Reading List for consumption at a later time. In completing my diary, I realized that part of my info jones comes from a desire to share compelling content with my social media followers, as a curator of sorts. I’m intent on adding value to whatever I beam out by incorporating my own insights and opinions. I do not, on principle, share anything I have not personally read or watched at least once.
I also curate items from a wide variety of topics, from entertainment and celebrity-related news to foreign affairs. For me, it’s never been an issue of whether these topics “mix well” or “blend”: information is information, and my interests are my interests. And while I have no way of truly knowing what is reaching whom, it actually doesn’t matter to me: I, perhaps naively, take it for granted that my audience sees me as a knowledge broker, and in the same way I cherry-pick news items based on my interests, I assume they do the same. This is part of my branding; I have always seen being a generalist as inherent to being a journalist who has covered a wide variety of topics.
In a recent discussion, Dana Chinn of the Media Impact Project underscored the importance of abandoning traditional metrics of audience behavior. The discussion had me wondering about my own place in the media ecosystem. To reach a consumer such as myself, a media outlet would have to offer content covering a wide swath of topics presented through various mediums, in long and short forms, video and print/digital. It would have to satisfy my own haphazard consumption habits. Quality counts. I consume media across a variety of platforms, but, ultimately, I go with what’s most convenient for me at a given time, whether it’s television, my laptop, or — more often than not — my mobile phone. From a business perspective, a media outlet has to be everywhere to reach me. But I have yet to find a one-stop shop — a channel, a network, a singular platform — for all of my media needs, and I’m okay with that. My own self-curation sensibilities have served me well, allowing me to strategically navigate this endless stream.
