The social media strategies of newsrooms affect their stories

By: Monique Mulima

 Like most people I know around my age, I get most of my news from social media. As more people cut the cord and get rid of cable they’re turning to social media sites like Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok or Facebook rather than sitting down to watch the nightly news.

Although younger people may associate public media like NPR or PBS with their parents or grandparents’ generation tuning in on their car radio or watching afternoon television, publicly funded news organizations are also adapting to the world of social media news.

Geoff Bennett, chief Washington correspondent for PBS NewsHour spoke about how public media has had to think about how and where people will see their stories.

“The way that people consume news now is completely divorced from the way we program it,” said Bennett.

When news stories appear on social media it’s usually just a couple minute clip. Twitter, Instagram and TikTok have limits on how long videos can be and on social media users are more likely to engage with short videos.

This means that when people see news online, they won’t be seeing it in the context of a full broadcast or previous coverage. Bennett explained that because of this it’s important to think of every story as a distinct segment on its own that should be “accurate, engaging and tell the full story.”

With more staff and larger budgets corporate for-profit media like CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox etc., are able to invest more money into breaking stories and expanding their digital outreach compared to public media. But Bennett, who has worked at both NBC and PBS, believes that public media has strengths that can help them excel on social media too.

Bennett explained that the time public media has to put together stories allows them to provide more context and tell a more complete story, even if they’re not the ones who broke the news .

“The approach, quality and content of public media is unmatched,” said Bennett.

One example of a recent public media news story I saw on Twitter that did this well was a social media video by Chicago’s local PBS station, WTTW, about why Chicago’s recycling program problems persist. This video was just over 2 minutes long and told the story through animations and graphics touching on issues with the system, the history of it and how it compares to other cities. Although recycling may not always be the most interesting topic, the video’s graphics and pacing made me want to keep watching.

The video told a full story and provided context in a visually engaging way, but it’s also a story that would have taken time. To animate this would have taken from a few days to a week, and then there would have also been time needed for research and writing. This isn’t a story that could be turned around on a short one-day deadline, which would usually be required for breaking news. But since public media is often given more time to work on stories, they were able to put together this piece and still peg it to America Recycles Day.

These types of opportunities that public media has to offer much needed context to stories and stick with them longer is what Bennett thinks public media should be doing more of.

“Public media needs to find new ways to innovate and own the lanes that they should own,” said Bennett.

In contrast, corporate media focuses more of their social media strategy on breaking news. One example of this is how NBC Chicago was able to quickly turn around videos from election night like Darren Bailey conceding, and post them to social media. Breaking news online like this on tight deadlines is something corporate media is able to do well because they have more staff.

The two approaches of longer storytelling with more context and breaking news are both needed on social media. Users want to know what’s happening in the moment and also want to know the context of why it’s important.

As where people get their news continues to change, newsrooms need to think about how their stories stand on their own, so that the public can have sources where they can get reliable and fact-checked information both on television and online.

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