A different perspective

By Caitlin Swieca

Having worked at the Columbia Missourian for a year and a half, I’ve been indirectly exposed to the philosophy and work of Joy Mayer, our community outreach team leader. 

Although I had taken a version of Joy’s course (with a different professor), I had never heard her full spiel on social media until Tuesday, when she came to speak to SJI.

In the past, I had been skeptical of some of the Missourian’s social media efforts. I agree that serving readers should be the basis of any news organization’s mission, but I thought some things, like the “From Readers” submissions, crossed the line and didn’t always qualify as news. But hearing Joy get to talk about the different aspects of social media, based on the research she did as an RJI fellow at Missouri, was enlightening as to why the Missourian has taken to running readers’ submissions. 

Especially in a mid-sized, two-newspaper town like Columbia, reaching out to readers can help make the difference in where they turn for news. Based on the Missourian’s Facebook page, I’m not sure how effective it is or how many responses they get to the average item, but I think that making the effort consistently will help readers eventually appreciate the effort to connect. 

It’s hard to wrap my mind completely around this philosophy, because it’s not something you can do halfway. To make it work, you need to buy in and be sure everyone in the newsroom does the same. You have to apply that philosophy to every piece of work.

What does it mean for me? When I return to the Missourian and work for the copy desk (and possibly for Joy’s outreach team), I’ll see it in action and can try to take a more active role. But for the summer, it’s something I can apply to each story. When I write something, I can think about where I might be able to share it online to generate the most feedback. Even if I might not be able to enact any long-term plans, I think it would be good practice to begin with readers in mind each time I write a story.