Feature Writing and Reporting. Jennifer Brannock Cox
news. Fabricated news stories circulating online via social media create confusion among news consumers. During the election, falsified stories were aimed mostly at Clinton, including reports that she was suffering from a serious illness and that she had approved weapons sales to Islamic jihadists. It was later revealed that Russian hackers attempting to sway election results in Trump’s favor were responsible for planting many of the false stories. The tactic appears to have worked, as studies have shown that fake news likely did play a role in Trump’s election.15 Media trust has also suffered in the wake of Trump’s election, with the president accusing mainstream news outlets, such as CNN and The New York Times, of producing “fake news” and calling the press “the enemy of the American people.”16
Infotainment and commentaries. Many Americans are not able to distinguish between news produced by journalists and “news” delivered by entertainers and advocates. Entertainers like John Oliver, Samantha Bee and Trevor Noah host late-night shows delivering information reported by journalists with their own humorous slants. Similarly, political commentators, including Fox News’s Sean Hannity and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, deliver commentaries on-air, and viewers are unable to separate the facts from their opinions. The same is true with newspapers and online-only publications, as many readers do not understand how editorial and column writers giving their views differ from news reporters conveying unbiased information.
Journalists forgetting to be humans. In the pursuit of objectivity, journalists have been known to forget how to relate to human beings. Leading up to the 2016 election, journalists relied on polling and statistics confirming what they already believed to be true: Trump could not possibly win. But reporters and their audiences were stunned when Trump defied forecasts to clinch the presidency. Noting these miscalculations, audiences continued to lose trust in the media, arguing that reporters could have done more to connect with voters and capture their anger toward the government, which would have helped them make more accurate predictions.
From the Field
The Future of Journalism
Interview with Burt Herman, Director of Innovation Projects, The Lenfest Institute for Journalism
Courtesy of Burt Herman
Being a journalist in the Digital Age has its challenges. Our competition has expanded beyond other media to include everyone with a phone and a social media account. Newsrooms are shrinking as organizations lose ad revenues and subscribers. Trust in the media has decreased as a result of public attacks on our credibility.
Still, Burt Herman is optimistic. As the director of innovation projects at the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, it is his job to seek unique and impactful solutions to help preserve journalism onward through the Digital Age.
“How do we transition from print to online? How do we build digital audiences? What do products for digital audiences look like? What should new start-ups look like? We work with both larger and smaller newsrooms across the country to find out.”
The Lenfest Institute was founded in 2016 by television mogul Gerry Lenfest after he became the sole owner of The (Philadelphia) Inquirer. Lenfest, who died in 2018, donated $20 million to create the Institute, which funds projects geared toward “innovative news initiatives, new technology and new models for sustainable journalism.”17
Although the Lenfest Institute’s mission is big, Herman believes the answers could actually be quite small. Many of the Institute’s projects focus on ways to target community news to the people who need it.
“To me, it just seems like there’s interesting innovation you could do in communities that Facebook or Google can’t do. They’re thinking about large, broad audiences, but if you’re thinking about a niche or a local audience, that’s how you can attract local or paying audiences.
“There are many ways you can get information from around the world on the internet. We need to think about how can we add value.”
Herman wants newsrooms to be at the forefront of technological innovations, creating their own social media platforms and news-friendly devices, starting with tools to personalize information for individual community members.
“What would a local news organization look like if it actually knew your location, if we could tell you there was a health inspection at a restaurant down the street or that real estate prices in your neighborhood are going up? We need to personalize information and make it more actionable for our audiences.”
In changing the industry, Herman says he also wants to change what it means to be a journalist.
“I think there are many new roles to think about that don’t look traditional, and there’s a lot of opportunity there. If you’re an amazing writer and amazing at getting sources, we need people like that. But there are a lot of other roles—excellence in video, audio and thinking about news as a product manager who can lead and develop new things to reach audiences. These are really transferable skills both in journalism and beyond.”
Herman is excited about what the future holds for journalists and their audiences.
“I feel like we have barely begun to embrace the true possibilities of the medium as news organizations. You look at Facebook, Google, Snapchat and see the potential of what you could do, and journalism needs to think of itself as a digital product too. We shouldn’t just use third-party platforms; we need to control our own fate.”
Bringing Back the Trust
Bringing back citizens’ trust in reporters is not going to be easy, but we can start by using new feature storytelling methods to seek truth and connect with audiences in meaningful ways. Poynter—a journalism education and media watchdog organization—found that while trust in the media may be low, people do have more confidence in their local news organizations, which are more accessible to the community and better address citizens’ needs. A survey conducted by the organization found that 76% of Americans have “a great deal” or a “fair amount” of confidence in local television news and 73% have confidence in their local newspapers.18 Margaret Sullivan, a media columnist for The Washington Post, spent time talking with average citizens in a small town in Upstate New York and found that people did trust the media but were frustrated because they did not feel represented or failed to see their concerns being addressed in news stories.
In the Digital Age, the audience holds the fate of journalism in its hands. What stories will they click on and share in their social media feeds? How can journalists communicate effectively with people online who can publicly monitor their commitment to truth and thorough reporting? How can journalists see new storytelling tools as opportunities for connecting with audiences rather than as hindrances to their work? In this text, we will explore these questions by learning feature techniques that encourage innovative reporting and writing. Throughout the book, you will learn to:
Tell engaging feature stories that resonate with audiences and prompt readers to share your work.
Immerse yourself in the reporting experience to learn more about the story and the sources you are relying on, as well as the issues they face.
Find ways to become a member of your community by shifting your focus from identifying problems to seeking solutions to difficult problems.
Connect with community members to find out what is important to them and include them in the reporting process.
Use photos, videos, audio, social media and an array of new tools to tell stories in different ways that appeal to your audience.
Times are changing, and the ways we practice journalism are changing too. It is time to open ourselves up to new ways of telling feature stories in the Digital Age.
Takeaways