Breaking News: A New Kind of Journalism
I attended a Zoom meeting with a young reporter from a large paper out East. She talked about a new wave of journalism that is going nationwide. It is called “engagement journalism.”
Think of a community where readers or viewers are an active part of the news process. Imagine that you as a reader are just as important as a source. We are seeing this a bit with television news shows that side with a particular audience group rather than the masses. Objectivity in reporting is replaced with audience alignment.
Some have a higher bar for engagement journalism. They define it as combining the power of community engagement with traditional news reporting to do journalism that serves the community and reflects the community’s interests and needs. I think we used to call that newsletter writing. Or we may have called it niche writing. Or some call it brand journalism.
When I worked at a TV station, I would share county-by-county ratings and share information with the newsroom. My point was, we should look for stories in the counties with the highest amount of rating books and focus some of our efforts there. For example, if we were going to do an Easter Bunny hospital visit story, could we make sure it was in one of our largest counties? That was sacrilegious in those days.
Studying the audience and serving the community may help build back audiences who have drifted to other “news” sources. The reason these audiences left was they wanted their news to be more relevant to their lives. Would you watch a newscast that devoted more resources to your community issues rather than the crime of the day or the accident on the interstate? Is breaking news really something that impacts your life? If not, you might break to another news outlet that is probably more digital and time-shifted to the way you live your life.
If engagement journalism means reporters are more attuned and engaged with the communities they serve, it can’t be bad for the future of journalism. At this point, it is time to try something new — even if the concept has been around under a different name for years.
Mark Mathis III is chief creative & strategy officer, partner and cofounder of AMPERAGE Marketing & Fundraising.
Mark Mathis
Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle. After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant. He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.” Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.” One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College. Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board. Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.
