You may be asking yourself now: Why bother training to be a journalist? Why not just leave news to the masses to produce and spread? The answer to that actually is simple—we need you!
The accessibility of information has led to some great things. Younger Americans are exposed to news constantly online. The widespread availability of news on social media has resulted in greater news consumption among Americans ages 18 to 29.1 Those social media sites, like Facebook and Twitter, have also acted as platforms for exchanging ideas, organizing social movements and fostering connections that might otherwise have been impossible.
The news is not all good, though. Easy access to information has also led to the spreading of misinformation—both accidentally and intentionally, as we will learn in this chapter. Online news consumers have been able to avoid news and information that challenges their existing beliefs. This is largely due to the searchability of the internet and social media platforms’ advanced calculations, or algorithms, designed to show viewers primarily what they want to see.2 And while we are exposed to more news online, many consumers are not actually clicking beyond the initial headline or tweet to get the full meaning of the story. A recent study by researchers at Columbia University and the French National Institute found that 59% of links shared on Twitter were never clicked on, meaning that the person distributing the article never read it before sharing it.3
Journalists are needed—now more than ever—to add context to news events, to practice dogged reporting techniques and to act ethically to provide responsible journalism designed to help consumers understand issues and make informed decisions. Journalists work tirelessly to find stories that matter to the communities they serve and to tell those stories in ways that engage readers and demonstrate their own trustworthiness and proficiency. Producing journalism that makes an impact is important and rewarding. It is your job to sort through the clutter and get people the news they need to navigate in this brilliant and overwhelming Digital Age.
Changing Journalism in the Digital Age
Although the “Digital Age” technically began in the 1970s with the advent of the personal computer, most references to the era point to the early to mid-2000s as the beginning of the modern digital revolution. The creation of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989 and subsequent expansion of the internet accelerated Americans’ interest in computers. By 2000, more than half of all U.S. households owned a personal computer, up from just 8.2% in 1984.4 The Digital Age really took off in the late 2000s as mobile phones expanded to offer internet access, making it possible for users to get information anytime, anywhere. By 2018, the Pew Research Center reported that 77% of Americans owned smartphones, up from just 35% in 2011.5 The Digital Age is in full swing.
The Digital Age has had a vast impact on the field of journalism, changing:
How reporters work
The delivery of news
Expectations of news and reporters
The way information is shared
Words With Pros
Changes to Feature Storytelling in the Digital Age
Interview with Michael Kilian, Executive Editor, Democrat and Chronicle, Rochester, New York
Courtesy of Michael Kilian
Michael Kilian has seen some changes during his 40 years working in newspapers and magazines, but none quite as impactful as the mobile device.
“It was a much more disruptive force than desktop computers were. We know what readers consume online, and we know that we’re not only competing with other media. Now we’re competing with our daughter’s texts, YouTube videos, Twitter, Instagram—everything your phone can do.”
After working as a reporter and copy editor, Kilian transitioned into newsroom management roles in 1990. Through stints as executive editor for the Daily Times in Salisbury, Maryland; news director for the Cincinnati Enquirer; executive editor of the Burlington Free Press in Vermont; and now executive editor of the Democrat and Chronicle in Upstate New York, Kilian has guided reporters toward new storytelling strategies for engaging audiences.
“You have to think about what has value for the audience. What interests do they have? What needs to they have? We need to find ways to fill those readers’ needs. Why and how are key questions we have to answer in the stories we choose to pursue.”
Kilian says news organizations cannot compete internationally or even nationally the way they used to. Readers often get breaking news stories of worldwide importance from social media rather than their local newspaper. That’s why, he says, listening to the needs of the people in the community and crafting stories around them is the best way to make an impact.
“We usually learn about the what in a tweet, but the why and how keep us visiting stories for days and weeks and months after that. What do people really want to talk about? That’s the type of thing that breaks through the digital din on our phones.”
Under his direction, Kilian’s newsrooms have experimented with deep dives into immersive storytelling. In Cincinnati, sports reporters followed a minor league baseball player on his journey toward the major leagues, chronicling his story for six months through podcasts. Kilian’s Cincinnati team also spent a year in the city’s poorest schools, producing gripping news features from inside their walls.
In Maryland, Kilian encouraged his reporters to immerse themselves in their stories, sending them into the community to eat muskrat, a local “favorite”; to learn to surf in both sunny and snowy conditions; and to tag birds on the Chesapeake Bay with research experts.
“We can no longer be the detached voice of God where we’re observing the community rather than living in it. Stories like these had orders of magnitude higher than anything we did that year, and they made an impact because they gripped you.”
In the Digital Age, Kilian says, building loyalty to one publication is more challenging. Using innovative storytelling techniques to tell good stories on a daily basis can prompt subscribers to download and view a news organization’s app regularly, but creating that relationship is a longer process.
“We’re really living and dying one story at a time. To somebody on a phone, there isn’t a package of news that they make an appointment with every day. Whoever has the best story of the day will get read. Good storytelling is a wonderful way to be memorable.”
For aspiring journalists, Kilian encourages them to simply be human and answer the big, meaningful questions without getting bogged down in details.
“Readers don’t follow the process of government. They don’t need 37 stories on the process of a trash facility approval. You need to think: Can I do one larger story on what the plan for this trash facility tells us about our way of life? Whatever that story is, that’s the winner.”
How Reporters Work
Up through the first decade of the 2000s, it was common for newsrooms to be divided into silos, or small groups that concentrated their efforts on specific beats or different types of reporting. Newsrooms were typically divided into hard-news reporters (covering breaking news beats like crime, government and courts), sports reporters, opinion writers (including editorial writers and columnists) and feature writers. Features once suggested a concentration on soft news items considered less essential for audiences to read. It included beats such as travel, lifestyle, entertainment, food and a variety of others, depending on the size of the publication.
Today,