No. 11 - Power of engagement

“A good story is about something the audience decides is interesting or important. A great story often does both by using storytelling to make important news interesting.”

- American Press Institute

During the very first week of class, we were asked if a journalist is doing their job if their audience is not engaged. I full heartedly believe that a journalist is not doing their job if this is not happening.

I had already believed this before we were told this. Maybe in part because it is one of 10 elements of journalism posed by Bill Kovach and Bill Rosenstiel in their book, Elements of Journalism.

Element number seven is that journalism must try to be interesting. Part of the summary is: “Quality is measured both by how much a work engages its audience and enlightens it. This means journalists must continually ask what information has the most value to citizens and in what form people are most likely to assimilate it.”

The importance of analyzing what form people are likely to take to your work I believe shows the importance of convergence. Now with most media organizations operating online there is much more flexibility with what they can do. Traditional legacy media like newspapers can now produce video too.

This analyzation of which form would be the most compelling plays out in the packages we produce. When I am making the decision of what side of the story should be told where, I always tell the CCC’s story in the audio or video portion. Doing this I believe allows the viewer to connect more with the CCC because they are able to see/hear them.

Pivoting a little, here is a recent instagram TV story posted by NPR talking about the horror movie industry. To make it more engaging they made the story into a horror movie. I have not watched the whole thing, but I was very amused by the concept.

Here is an example from KOMU where showing the family and the cars was probably more impactful than just reading about it. With the video you are able to see the number of cars instead of trying to imagine it.

This story would have also been more impactful if the family had been willing to go on camera, then we would be able to hear from them what this send-off means to them.