Why journalists have to promote their work
Cory Bergman April 5th, 2007
A new urgency is emerging for journalists to do more than just report a story — but also to promote their work. “Getting yourself out there as many places as you can and making sure people understand what you’re doing is important,” said WashingtonPost.com Executive Editor Jim Brady in an video interview with Beet.TV. Brady explains how Washington Post reporters frequently appear on MSNBC and Washington Post radio as well as conduct chats on WashingtonPost.com. “It does all cut into your schedule, and figuring out how to juggle all that is complicated… but we’re fighting for the attention of every reader,” he said. We had a similar discussion on Lost Remote a month ago, in which Adam left a comment that sums up what most journalists believe:
“I think every field journalists job is to tell the best, accurate and compelling story they’re assigned. The managing editors, ND’s etc. are responsible to find the relevant assignments and worry about getting the audience to watch. When a reporter starts to worry about how many clicks he’s going to generate, their eye is off the ball.”
That’s old thinking. Driven by the web and steadily decreasing TV news ratings, it’s critical for TV reporters to juggle their schedule to write web versions of their stories, write blog posts, plug them on the air and make sure TV producers are effectively promoting their TV and web reporting. It’s every journalist’s responsibility now, along with management. As Brady said, it’s not easy, but it’s critical for our long-term survival.
Adam responds in comments: “Let me play devil’s advocate; is it possible that the distractions of promotion and feeding more mouths in the same window of time it used to take to turn a single story is degrading the quality of journalism? If that is remotely possible where is the line and do we risk losing viewers by trying to find more? I completely agree that there needs to be a different way to look at how we pollinate the landscape with our stories but over extending as an individual journalist (particularly on deadline) creates some major risks…”
3 Comments Add your own
1. Adam | April 5th, 2007 at 11:41 am
Let me play devil’s advocate; is it possible that the distractions of promotion and feeding more mouths in the same window of time it used to take to turn a single story is degrading the quality of journalism? If that is remotely possible where is the line and do we risk losing viewers by trying to find more?
I completely agree that there needs to be a different way to look at how we pollinate the landscape with our stories but over extending as an individual journalist (particularly on deadline) creates some major risks.
I’ll finish with the Michael Rosenblum scenario. He has espoused changing the model and expanding the amount of reporters (by enabling photographers to report) in local newsrooms. In turn the reporters would have more time to turn stories and different versions thereof for TV, web, promo, mobile… whatever. Thats a pretty interesting idea. But when we maintain the same model that’s existed for the last 25 years and try to cram exponentially more tasks into the structure… well, I think tTHAT’S old thinking.
I have to stop blogging now and edit a package.
2. Cory | April 5th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
Yes, I agree it will reduce the quality of journalism. By a little. But if we don’t do this, revenue will drop, we’ll bleed resources, and the quality of journalism will drop much, much further.
You raise a terrific point that the structure behind all this — how we’re organized in newsrooms today — needs to change as we add more required tasks.
3. Jason | April 5th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
No one’s a better salesperson for my stories than I am. I will post on message boards, comment in people’s blogs, generate my own blog posts — whatever it takes to get the message out there.
I’d argue that it increases the quality of my journalism. Right now I have a post on the mainpage of our website looking for people to be in my 10pm news story. I’ve posted on MNSpeak (dot-com) about it. If you promote during the process, often you end up with better work because your viewers help craft your story.
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