Chris Snider is the assistant managing editor for digital at The Des Moines Register and an adjunct professor of journalism at Drake University. He previously worked as editor of Juice magazine in Des Moines, news design director at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and as a designer at the Baltimore Sun. You can read his blog about how journalists can use new media at ChrisSniderDesign.com. I want to thank Chris for his excellent guest post. Now you can say all you want about my insights on the industry as an outsider, but Chris is in the industry and if you are too you need to listen to AND ACT ON his suggestions. Also be sure to follow his blog and twitter for future insight
I stumbled upon a great line the other day that made me think about how we do journalism online: “It’s not about doing print journalism online, but doing online journalism.” I couldn’t find the source, but I think it was Doug Fisher.
Journalism, to me, is about connecting people with information. It’s about giving people the information they want, when they want it, in the format they want.
It wasn’t too long ago that we had one shot a day at sharing that information – the daily newspaper. But suddenly we have the tools to connect with readers 24 hours a day. Suddenly the print newspaper can compete with the immediacy of television and radio. Suddenly it means something to be the first person to break a story again.
We have a wealth of ways to touch readers, a wealth of ways to connect with them. Obviously we can’t use them all, but we certainly can and should figure out which ones can help us in our core mission.
With that in mind, here’s my list of 8 things all journalists need to do to thrive in this super-connected world.
Start a blog. I don’t care if you blog is about your beat or your love of beets. Nothing will give you a better appreciation for what it takes to grow traffic and build community that trying to build a blog from scratch. I assure you, it’s not as easy as you may think.
Become a PR firm of one. Promote your own work. Now that you have learned a bit about building community, it’s time to apply that to what you do. If you break a big story on the Iowa football team, go to other sites about the Hawkeyes and post about the story (with a link to the story, of course). Join Facebook groups related to your beat and interact with others who have an interest in that topic. Keep you own personal e-mail list of people who will want to be the first to know when news happens on your beat.
Make sure your paper has an online distribution plan. We learned long ago that we can get more readers by taking the newspaper to them. We need to do the same with digital content. Find out where your potential readers are, and put your content there. That means Facebook applications, widgets, iPhone sites, actual participation in social networks, etc. And don’t just push your information in front of people. Stop, talk and listen a bit. You might hear something important.
Try out the new tools. You don’t have to try out every new tool that comes along promising to be the next big thing online. But you should try out at least some of them. See what’s working for others and give those a try. Here’s a good list to get you started: Twitter, Facebook, CoverItLive, Mogulus, Digg, Ning. Give them a try, and think about how they might help your beat.
Try out the new tools, Part 2. There’s no shortage of online tools that can actually help you do your job better and faster. RSS feeds. Google alerts. Jott. Pageflakes. Simplynoise. Search “online tools for journalists” on Google and you’ll find more.
Study the numbers. Don’t follow them over a cliff. But look closely at your traffic. There are some stats in there about what your readers need and want – and about what they don’t need or want. Which of your stories had the most visitors? Which got the most comments? Do you see any trends? Do something different (post at a different time, perhaps), and see if the numbers change. Then do it all again.
Have a healthy mix of journalism with a “big J” and with a “little j.” Do the journalism that readers WANT and that they NEED. Rob Curley calls this getting your steak but eating your broccoli, too. Readers may want to look at nightlife photos, but they need to know what the government is doing with their tax dollars.
Think about money. There used to be a hard and fast rule that the journalists didn’t mix with the advertising people. Might compromise our integrity. I think you can be a person of high integrity and still think about how the advertising department can best monetize your work. Break down those walls.
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