I’ve been a reporter in the Australian market place for ten years including time as a news editor and presenter, in courts and briefly in politics reporting. There are dozens of ways my colleagues will review and search for possible stories, and time and time again there are clear paths to broadcast or print.

What makes a story?

Some argue there’s very little science that helps decide what makes something news worthy. There are rules; I’m not saying they don’t get broken, but there are rules. I’m not breaching any reporters’ secret code by writing a post about how organisations might get content in front of a journalist. We work with communication professionals and often the relationship between the organisation and the newsroom is crucial, so there is merit in all parties sharing accurate information when news breaks. So here are some tips.

1. Good journalism should always have some kind of benefit to an audience.

I see hundreds of media releases that spend vast paragraphs explaining products and services. There’s nothing wrong with that and often it’s information with plenty of value to the community but often the content ignores the audience. Remember: a good journalist thinks about the audience so your release should be about people too. If your release is about a new website– how will people use it? If your release is about a new factory– tell me more about the jobs that will come from it?

2. Know the channel, station or newspaper.

Be sure to know a little about the show, channel or newspaper you hope will focus on your content. If the TV station reports lots of politics, don’t be disappointed if it can’t get resources to cover a story on science for example. Be careful relying on an old news contact list because if you call to pitch a story to someone who left the organisation (most newsrooms have high turn-over) it could suggest you don’t watch or aren’t interested in the news service.

3. Be social.

More and more Australian journalists are on Twitter and Facebook. Spend time getting to know them and their rounds. If you have a particular message that might be of more interest to a police reporter than a medical reporter, track them down on social media. Follow them but don’t be too stressed if they don’t follow you back and don’t waste your time if all they do is spam old news tweets.
Reply to the journalist with interesting contributions to conversations about current stories or reports they’ve filed. Add them to a list on Facebook or Twitter and consider making contact on LinkedIn. Mind you– good journalists should be doing this with you and your organisation too.

4. Ask the journalist why something has been considered news worth or why it won’t be?

A good journalist should give you an idea of why something isn’t deemed news worthy for their news service. It could be because of other breaking news, it might not have targeted the audience or it wasn’t news.
Don’t be disheartened; the content might very well have a target audience that can be found with another news service or via social platforms.

Lastly, digital and social media is dramatically changing how journos and other communication professionals work together. Good journalists are finding news from within communities using Facebook and Twitter. Good journalists are learning more about what the community wants because of feedback from social media platforms. Communicators for organisations are finding communities that want their news and information and, crucially, they now have a platform to relay the information when the newsroom says no. This is a truly exciting development for all communicators.

There are some industry debates for communicators that get us fired up, and the way organisations incorporate social media platforms into the business is no exception. The very concept of social media has many definitions, advocates and detractors, but when it comes to where social media management should sit in the business, start ducking smart phones thrown in frustration.

This short blog stems from a conversation with a communication professional who told me that social sits with pure marketing. It’s really product support, I was told.

I’m an experienced broadcaster who has dedicated considerable time into researching social media’s effect on the news business and I can assure you that, in my view, it’s not about product support. Social media integration should be about audience relations, community building and product creation– not product support.

It’s very easy to say that social media should be across the whole business. I’d agree with that… but while some senior executives think Facebook and Twitter should be run only by marketing, it doesn’t bode well for Australian enterprises.

Social Media is not the strategy. We know that certain platforms can be used as tools to help the broader strategy achieve goals but nor is it safe to consider social media similar to television, radio or print for dissemination of message. Social media is very different to those mass media tools; social involves real time monitoring, community building, and — to the degree it’s possible — moderating of conversation. We know that– but who implements it?

Social Media could be handled by Human Resources because staffing policies must now consider the use of social media by employees; Public Relations should have a role because community campaigns can destroy an organisation’s reputation; marketing should be a driver too because some products and services are better positioned using social media when compared with traditional mass media.

The answer ‘all of the above’ is an easy one, but getting consistent policy and use of social platforms within a strategy– that’s the tough part.

I’m not different to most reporters using social media; I like to see my follower numbers growing not going backwards. There’s a perception in the wider community that followers means effective engagement, and that builds some social media credibility. It’s circular in that respect but rarely the best end goal. The bigger question for Australian reporters is this: how is social media helping you produce a better story above giving you another platform to transmit the message? What relationship are you having with the social media community?

I’m always on the hunt for great examples of reporters using curation to give the audience some voice during the production of the story. Drop me a note if you see more of them. Social Media doesn’t change journalism or replace journalism, it merely provides multiple ways to share the story. That same story needs consequence, timeliness, and proximity to the community– nothing changes there. The change is the ability to monitor and curate with the help of community.

Four ways reporters and newsrooms can better engage.

1. Time and time again we hear that Facebook is a much more popular platform for social interaction and potential engagement at least based on users compared with Twitter. So few journalists in Australia have a great handle on how to run a page or open to subscriptions. Here is a great podcast on how to open your account to subscribers and generate real conversation about your work on Facebook. If having subscribers is not your thing, then consider a Facebook Page. Yep, it’s hard work compared with sending out a link on a tweet, but then again social media is about engaging. For many journos on general news rounds much of the audience is on Facebook NOT Twitter.

2. Make life that little bit easier by using a third party application such as Hootsuite or Tweetdeck to incorporate lists. And YES, you can update your Facebook accounts using these applications. If you’re trying to use Twitter without lists I can’t help but think you’re missing out. Here’s an example of why lists are  powerful: say you get followed on Twitter by the local farmer who you interviewed for that dairy story but you don’t want to follow him back? Fair enough! Put him in a list called ‘interesting talent’ or ‘real people’. Lists are a dramatic way of filtering, monitoring and researching your feeds on Twitter and Facebook. If you don’t get lists… message me.

3. Listen as much as you post. When a big story breaks, spend some time monitoring what the conversation is on Twitter. This could help you drive your story. Try getting a handle on the story by turning to the community. If you’ve got a couple of thousand followers on Facebook, ask them to message you if they know anything about a particular angle to a story. Check out Topsy. It’s a great way of searching Tweets. If you do a search in Topsy for a subject that’s important to your round, you can get it saved as an RSS feed or an email alert.

4. If you see it and hear it, share it even if you’re not a photo journalist or radio reporter. The trusty Iphone 4s has an amazing camera and the sound quality is also pretty good. Share photos and sound via Facebook and get your audience to comment on it. That might also be a way of generating new angles for the story because as you share information, your community will too. You will get more people willing to offer their own photos and sound when a big story breaks. It’s about share and share alike.

It’s too early to know whether #STOPKONY or #KONY2012 has been a masterful social media campaign to drive real change or merely an example of Slacktivism. It has certainly raised awareness of the intended target.

The campaign and documentary, which you can see here, calls for the arrest of Joseph Kony who leads the Lords Resistance Army in or near north Uganda. To do this, the campaign proposes an event called ‘cover the night’ on the 20th of April. Posters and billboards will be unveiled around the world calling for Kony to be arrested and tried for war crimes.

There are several not for profit organisations which have the stated aim of saving children from war zones which have not managed to gain the level of attention and exposure now enjoyed by the group at the heart of Kony2012, Invisible Children.

Take this Youtube clip by UNICEF as an example. It runs just four minutes (versus the 29 minutes of Stop Kony) and reveals that UNICEF has saved about 20,000 children from war zones in two years! It’s current view count? 658 at the time of posting.

The video produced by Invisible Children has been viewed more than 60,000,000 times.

658 verus sixty million. So why has Stop Kony worked?

Make sure there are actors.

Lots of Public Relations experts talk about narrative and confuse it with ‘message’. A message can be as simple as a wink or nod, but real narrative is finding actors and motivations that tell a story that a particular audience will find believable. The Stop Kony video tells a story. We learn first about the narrator’s son. He personalises the story by letting you know his son, introducing a Kony victim, and a prosecutor with the International Criminal Court who adds serious weight to the call for Kony to be arrested, you are placed as the hero; then there’s the villain, Joseph Kony.

Produce a message about people, not problems.

One of the first rules in television journalism is don’t talk about the tax, talk about the taxpayer. How often do you see television news stories when the Reserve Bank lifts interest rates that go straight to home owners to hear about how they’ll struggle to pay the increased repayments?
What the Kony 2012 documentary does is personalise the problem of a failed state and two decades of regional war and focuses it on Joseph Kony. I remember watching the documentary and thinking, how could I have not known about this man? There are many NGOs that operate in central Africa who have been trying to tell the story of the problem. Invisible Children succeeded because it told the story of the person.

Create a sense of urgency.

The documentary Kony 2012 says the campaign must expire in December 2012. Why? The video says:

“It’s also about you. And this year, 2012, is the year that we can finally fulfill it [the promise to stop Joseph Kony] and if we succeed we change the course of human history but time is running out. To level with you, this film expires on December 31 2012. And it’s only purpose is to stop the rebel group, the LRA”

Campaigners have been Joseph Kony’s tactics of abducting children for war for 25 years but there’s no denying the age-old technique of building interest by adding a sense of urgency. Urgency in a message appeals to the innate fear of ‘missing out’.

Have a clear call to action.

A message with a call to action works well in social media because of the social interaction that drives digital platforms. We can ‘watch’ a video on television, but on social media we can comment, share, view, reconstruct and critique messages. The Kony2012 has three clear calls. They include buying a box of merchandise, donating to  Invisible Children and sharing the content on social media. They are easy steps. It’s one thing to be moved by your message, it’s another to drive someone to do something about it.

Build familiarity or celebrity.

At one point in the video, we see a page which shows twenty celebrities and twelve policy makers. The documentary says it will target them to secure their support for the campaign to Stop Joseph Kony. Interestingly there are more celebrities than policymakers. Some of the big names don’t need to be targeted, they’ve already committed support such as Oprah Winfrey who tweeted:

Everybody who’s tweeting me about #LRA I’ve helped. Gave Major dollars had Invisible Children on my show 2x. showing #STOPKONY Mar 18 #OWN

The documentary shows several famous, emotive Youtube clips at the 50 second point and talks about what brings people together. The appeal to familiarity here is an effective tool that has nothing to do, ultimately, with the Stop Kony campaign.

My deconstruction of the documentary is not criticism of the intent. It is, in many ways, giving the group credit for using smart tactics to raise an important issue.

Before trying to replicate the Stop Kony campaign, consider this:

• The charity was co-founded by an experienced and obviously talented film maker.
• The group has about 10 years’ experience in the region.
• This particular campaign was a ‘no fail’ in many respects because of the decision by Congress to send an advisory force to Uganda. What happens if Joseph Kony is not caught this year?

For more resources, check out these links:

UNICEF on Child Soldiers.

NPR. Can Kony be caught?

Huffington Post on world reaction to video.

I’ve decided to open up my Facebook account to subscribers. If you use Facebook for advice about this process, it all sounds very simple. I’ve used Facebook since it was introduced in Australian and for most of that time I have had a very private account but I want to use the platform to share all the amazing links and my own research on news and social media.  I did dozens of searches to find out how to define what is ‘public’ on Facebook and it wasn’t easy to do. So I wrote this post. Most Facebook references point back to this advice page:

http://www.facebook.com/about/subscribe.

At the bottom of that page you’ll see advice about what your subscribers see.

How to share

So far, so good. When you follow that link you’ll get the well-watched clip that explains the new inline audience selector. When you post something on Facebook you choose to post to public, friends or private lists. Simple? So open up to subscribers?

I don’t think having subscribers is a bad thing! But here is a big warning: It’s not just what you consider public with each post you make, but every public action on Facebook is now forwarded to anyone who subscribes to you.

• Comments on other public posts whether by friends or pages will be shared with your subscribers. If your friend has posted something racy, you now need to consider whether it’s worth a comment because it will be shared with subscribers.
• You can Like a new page and have it hidden from subscribes only if you do the following: Go to your timeline> go the small ‘about’ link just below your profile photo> go to ABOUT next to your profile name> go to the Likes option (all your liked pages will show up) > go to the edit button at the top right > Next to each group of favourites or likes you’ll see an audience selector. Here you choose to make Likes only visible to friends. Then save.
• Be mindful that even though you can hide the pages you like, any comments on that page (which by default are public) will be included in the ticker of your subscribers.

Facebook isn’t doing anything sneaky here. Those comments you made on the public Facebook page were technically there for all to see but only if someone happened to come across them. Your friends were notified in their ticker when you commented on the page, but that was about it.

The above advice is based on a series of experiments with people who were happy to be subscribers and not friends, and report back to me about what they saw and were able to follow. If any of this page is wrong, or you have more advice, please, please add a comment or drop me a note. Let’s help understand the whole process together.

Subscribe at
http://www.facebook.com/johnkerrison