What I learned about Community Engagement

New York Times journalist Deborah Acosta told a very effective story using Facebook Live. She later pieced together Fragments of a Life: A Curbside Mystery; but before that, she had went out into the community and just so happened to come across some trash that actually turned out to be photographs of a women in her prime.

That woman had passed away sadly, but the journalist was trying to figure out why and how those pictures ended up in the trash and on the ground in the city. The journalist used her creativity and story telling skills in order to make a very engaging story out of what was on the streets. The use of Facebook Live allowed people from all over the world to engage and interact with one another, along with the journalist. Because of this story, I learned that as a journalist, you can make a story out of almost anything because everything and everyone has a story to be told.

Community engagement is vital because if you don’t get out there to see what the world has in store then it will be hard to tell a story about almost anything. Community engagement allows for interviews and human interactions. Also, you learn a lot about all types of people, you will be able to tell a vast variety of different types of stories and gain experience with story telling along the way. Also, people could use you to get their own stories told and these stories can have an impact on readers/viewers of each story.