I see a bright spot for journalism. Yes, I do, and today is not April 1.
There’s so much doom and gloom in our field today, but I know from experience that there is at least one path to help us out of the darkness. It’s community.
I don’t mean to diminish the pain. I’ve been in the meetings. I’ve told the daily newspaper reporter who needs a stapler to go look in unused office desks. I worked as a local editor, then chief editor, at a daily. I’ve been at magazines and a weekly, too. I’ve run an internship program for new journalists for about 15 years. Sometimes these bright-eyed 19- and 20-year-olds ask me about the state of journalism. I tell the truth, that things are rough, but I still believe.
Here’s what I’ve learned. This is so important, maybe read it twice: Our revenue models are strengthened when our news products are lathered in community love.
I have seen success with this approach time and again. I worked closely with the now-shuttered Readership Institute of Northwestern University decades ago, and I’ve been honing my application of their research into what motivates an audience ever since.
First, know this: A community does not have to be local, or it can be local in part. People who care about climate change can be a community, as can people in Wyoming who care about climate change. Second, if your community believes in you, they’ll advertise in your print product. They’ll subscribe to your digital newsletter. They’ll purchase your ancillary products. They’ll buy tickets to your dinner.
I’m not promising riches, but I am most certainly promising that you will do significantly better.
When a journalism endeavor forms a caring, helpful relationship with a community, it works because the people feel the love and they want to send some back. Be a community cheerleader, but not just because it’s good for revenue. Genuine works.
Travel back in time with me to the onset of COVID-19 in the United States. March of 2020 was when my world shut down, maybe yours too. One day, we were living our lives; the next day, we were just about trapped at home.
A traditional approach to reporting on the news might suggest a headline like, “Residents asked to stay home,” or “City shuts down.” That’s too distant for your fragile, critical relationship with your community. This is your opportunity to seal the emotional deal and you must seize it.
A network of UK newspapers went with this better idea: “WHEN YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN, WE ARE THERE WITH YOU.”
For my community publication at the time, I went with a huge image of a heart and, “Apart but still together,” with a subhead referring to the community going “virtual.” As a community cheerleader, I wanted to behave like someone who cares, which shouldn’t be too hard because, actually, I do. I sought to offer a mix of concern and hope. We are with you. We are all together. Here are options to pursue, to stay connected or help others.
I know, this is a different way of doing journalism, requiring a shift in newsroom culture. Community journalism is a different animal. Here are six more tips on proper feeding and care:
- It’s all about them. A good community journalism product gives its audience what they can’t get elsewhere. This must be your focus. If you publish a community newspaper in print and typically lead with national and international news, please stop. Now.
- Avoid the obligatory. You are here for your people, so zero in on telling them what they want or need to know, not what sources think they should know. If you start a sentence in your newsroom about what to cover with “we should,” reconsider it. Are you sure? Avoid covering obligatory news. Your role is to serve your community, which is not always quite the same as covering it.
- Ordinary people are magic. Show us a couple of amazing people who are volunteering together to make your community better. Show us a local kid from your community who did great. Did a local kid from a neighboring community do something even greater? Lovely, but the words “who” and “cares” come to mind.
- Names and faces are unbeatable. People still print or cut out articles with names and faces of their family members, to tape them to the fridge. People text images of a print product to a friend who is featured. It’s powerful. It forms a bond with the news product, and it serves the community.
- Give them “go and do.” Make your product a user guide to the community, with things people can go and do, not just events they missed. Even if they don’t attend something you write about in advance, it’s empowering and connecting for them to know that they could. This brings us back to my COVID-19 cover — I gave them options to stay connected. The community is going virtual, I told them. Go and do, even in a pandemic.
- Make them smile. Create some aww. Dogs, cats, kids, and all three marrying one another in pretend ceremonies in backyards and on street corners — this is the way.
Those are some of the mechanics, but here is the core of it: You are not an outsider, watching us all curiously like aliens examining our broadcasts from outer space. You are part of the community. Don’t just report on the problems that your readers already know they have, feel the problems with them. Be of them, not just for them, and heaven forbid, don’t be just observing them. You are them.
One might retort, isn’t all this emotional connection stuff what social media is for?
Is it, though? Consider rising above social media, if your revenue models will allow it. Standing up for your community may not be the same as allowing social media companies to use your content for likes and shares, making money grounded in human emotion sourced out of your community. We community journalists are at our best when we are there to care, not to use.
I was my daily newsroom’s first blogger and a designated corporate “internet champion.” When I became an editor, I proselytized with the holy newsroom words: “Internet first!” Now, hear me out and give me some rope. Internet can be second and print can be beautiful.
Reaching people through social media has only gotten harder, and don’t tell me that print is dead. Humans crave the tactile. People are collecting the record albums that I threw away. Go watch young people mob the manga section at your local mega-bookstore. I challenge you to stand there, surrounded by teens and 20-somethings madly flipping through colorless, translated Japanese comic books that they must read backward. Stand there and say it aloud: “Print is dead!”
Community news does not always have to move at the speed of the internet. You may be the only journalist on the beat. If you don’t report it, your audience may never even know about it, never mind fears of digital, super-speed competition. This can make the internet less important for you, even as social media can be stressful, and people sometimes want a break from that nest of hate, alleged perfection and like-bait. Meanwhile, print ads can do well in the modern era, if sourced from your supportive community. For print, surround ads with editorial content that is crafted to capture newspaper flippers, with multiple entry points. This means photos, captions, subheads, pull quotes, info boxes, and so forth. Avoid big, off-putting blocks of text.
Whether through print or digital, keep bringing yourself back to your mission. You are a community journalist, not just a journalist.
Surely, by now, you are wondering, does all this lovin’ mean we can’t be a watchdog? Oh no, my friends, I’m not saying that at all. Go be that dog and go watch, it’s fine. Are the firefighters ill-equipped? Is the school board making decisions without allowing for public input? Is the mayor stealing from the till? Great, tell us all about it. Covering these kinds of stories is very much standing up for your community. But if you think about your audience’s experience and nurture a genuine relationship with your community, you’ll find it easier to keep that dog well-fed and ready for the hunt.
