Reading Review: NYT + Mobile Social Journalism
NYT Article
One of the readings that we were assigned was an article by the New York Times outlining popular trends in the news in 2020.
Instead of a straightforward list of things to look out for, this article unpacked the reading habits of the average reader in this year and outlined important things to note when producing the news.
For example, it explained that time of day is important when publishing news stories. The most detail-oriented and hard-hitting news should be published in the mornings when people are energized and ready to consume news but towards the end of the day more light-hearted human interest pieces are the way to go.
This was interesting to me because I had really never considered the time of day and correlating that to the type of content being published.
Mobile and Social Media Journalism Book
The first chapter of the book covers the role of modern audiences and how to reach and engage with them on social media. Using examples from journalists and viral posts that have influenced media stories in the past several years.
The end of the chapter poses some discussion questions, one of them asking about the positives and negatives of living in a world where anyone can publish anything. I think that some of the negatives of this can be how easy it is to spread misinformation. Especially with many people having access to the internet and their own recording device, it can become difficult to monitor the validity of posts.
A positive thought is that now people have their own platform to inform and tell their own stories. Although I just mentioned that there are people who spread misinformation, there are lots of stories that wouldn't be able to be told without social media.
I think this leads to another question about active audience. With access to the internet and to the people producing news, audience members have a direct link to reporters and news outlets that didn't really exist anymore. With these platforms, people are now able to express their grievances or praises directly to the source.
In this current era of mobile and social media being the most popular way people consume their news, I think that journalists need to know how to adapt accordingly. When publishing stories on different platforms there should be a knowledge of those platforms and the information being publish should match the format.
Social media is a blessing and a curse at times. I think journalists should always take cautionary steps when interacting with the audience. Especially with written post, there is so much room for interpretation, you don't want people to misconstrue or misunderstand what you're saying.
