I see I will be having a new colleague soon.
Voice of San Diego is hiring an Engagement Editor, which sounds a lot like my title, Director of Community Engagement. Whenever the position is filled, I will start networking with this new colleague. Maybe a couple more and we can form an association (FREE, Federation of Real Engagement Editors?) and start holding conventions. Any others out there I should be networking with already? Do social media editors count? (A Nieman Lab post says the San Diego job is more than social media, but I guess most social media editors would say that about their jobs, too.)
The job drew some critical comments from Nieman Lab readers. From someone identified only as “JW“:
When will newspapers realize that *everyone* is an engagement editor? Anyone who has a job solely to oversee social media is doomed to be the next person laid off. Instead of hiring a full-time social media editor, hire a contractor who can teach each and every newsroom employee to interact, then let them do that job. Stop treating social media like it’s something special and start treating it like it’s just another level of the time-honored newspaper tradition of keeping people informed.
“ac” agreed:
The best advocate for any piece of work is its owner and readers/users would much rather engage with the source than one or two degrees away.
I was pleased to see that several people joined me in defending the position. Erik Gable, an editor in Michigan, blogged about 10 things an engagement editor could do.
I normally wouldn’t respond in my own blog to a couple anonymous comments on another blog that were addressed well in that blog. But the criticism sounded a lot like what I have said many times about computer-assisted reporting. I argue that newsrooms and journalists made a huge mistake treating data analysis as a specialty, rather than an essential skill for all journalists to master.
If I argue that data analysis should be everyone’s job, shouldn’t I also argue that community engagement is everyone’s job? Actually, I do. We will expect everyone on our staff to engage with the community: crowdsourcing stories, using social media and responding to comments and questions on stories, blogs and videos.
But community engagement is also my job and my staff’s job (as I blogged earlier, we’ll have six people helping me with the specific challenges of community and mobile engagement). Just as I feel that all journalists should master basic data analysis skills, I value the high-level skills of journalists who develop sophisticated databases such as PolitiFact and CinciNavigator, and I know that a strong database program is going to require some specialists with more advanced skills and more time to do top-flight work.
Some of our work will be to coach the staff in engagement, in which we know we will have a range of skills. When I was editor of The Gazette in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and appointed Jamie Kelly as our social media guide, Jamie helped elevate the social media skills and use throughout the newsroom.
Our community engagement staff here will also have specific skills and tasks that don’t fit in other newsroom jobs, such as reporting and editing. For instance, we will recruit and work with a network of bloggers in our metro area. On some community events that our staff won’t be covering, we will aggregate and curate content provided by the community or provide some platforms for the community to provide the coverage. Where our staff is covering an event, we will supplement that coverage by finding and soliciting community contributions.
For instance, a reporter covering a beat needs to use social media and other community engagement tools to monitor news and conversation on the beat. But when news breaks and the reporter or photographer is at the scene, social media becomes secondary. The reporter might tweet a request to connect with eyewitnesses, and might check a hashtag during a free moment. But gathering facts and images at the scene of breaking news is a demanding pursuit that demands full attention. So is monitoring and gathering social media accounts and images of the breaking news event. While our news staffers are at the scene gathering news first-hand, our community engagement staff will be gathering news through social media. And we’ll be working together. If a tweet or Flickr photo shows that someone was an eyewitness, we’ll connect through social media and ask if the witness can talk to a reporter.
Before newspapers began slashing their copy desks, reporters were still expected to turn in clean copy (and at some organizations, to suggest headlines). Some did (and, of course, still do) that better than others. But clarity, style, accuracy and strong headlines were important, so we hired teams of copy editors to ensure quality of the copy and headlines.
Community engagement is important to a digital news operation such as ours or Voice of San Diego. Strong community engagement will be everyone’s job. But it will also be the job of my team.
Thanks for the mention, Steve.
I think the comparison to data analysis is a good one. Absolutely, data analysis should be everyone’s job, and everyone should be proficient at it. But wouldn’t it be nice to have a colleague who was truly expert?
My gut feeling is that one person devoted full time to community engagement will be more effective — especially when it comes to starting up new initiatives — than a dozen people who are each squeezing in a few hours a week alongside their other duties. Not to say that other people shouldn’t work on it as well, but a central person driving the train could be enormously useful.
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I think that these positions have a potential to become key roles in future digital newsrooms. Your explanation of a reporter on the scene vs. a curator back at base is a perfect example. The challenge will be balancing and organizing the content to present it cohesively.
Excited about your guys’ work over there.
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Thanks, Vadim and Erik. We are excited, too. Erik, a job candidate has already quoted your blog post to me.
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I think the two-pronged approach with someone at the scene collecting info and someone at the base working the social media angle could be really effective. I work at a statehouse news start up in Florida and I launched our use of social media, but was having trouble some days balancing it with reporting demands. A colleague with a less demanding schedule offered to take it over full time and it has enhanced our readership and engagement so much.
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“I think the comparison to data analysis is a good one. Absolutely, data analysis should be everyone’s job, and everyone should be proficient at it. But wouldn’t it be nice to have a colleague who was truly expert?”
I think Erik’s comment sums up my take pretty well. I do think any journalist should be working with social media as a part of the process but, to offer another example, it would be great to have someone who is following all the developments in social media and is able to not only evaluate the tools as they emerge but look to long term strategies for keeping folks productive and not strung out trying to just hit everything possible.
Such a person might also be keeping a close eye/ear on reporters’ experiences of using the tools and would then be able to address emerging issues rather than leaving folks to complain and stew without being heard.
It would be nice if everybody could do everything but, being a human who pays a lot of attention to other humans, I don’t see that as a fruitful path for real people.
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I think it’s a lot like having photographers.
I’m reasonably capable with a camera. I shoot my own photos sometimes. If something happens, I can head out with our Nikon D-100 and have a pretty good chance of coming back with something that we can put on A1 without being embarrassed by it.
But I’m glad we have people on staff devoted to photography. For one thing, somebody who’s on the scene solely for photography is going to get better shots than somebody who’s simultaneously worrying about writing down that quote. But I’m also glad we have photographers because they are much better at it than I am. They can handle situations that I don’t know how to handle, and they can give good advice. For me, it’s a side thing; I will likely never have the same level of expertise as professional photographers who have spent years practicing their craft. A small news organization may rely on putting point-and-shoot cameras in reporters’ hands because it has no other choice, but an organization with dedicated photographers will reach a higher level of quality.
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Thank you for this piece! I am excited to see the rise of engagement editor positions in newsrooms and definitely in support of this (hopefully) new trend.
Certainly, it is everyone’s job to communicate efficiently with fellow reporters and readers. But it cannot be everyone’s job to master this skill and be up-tp-date with latest tools and platforms to achieve this task successfully.
Thought that Erik’s comparison of engagement editors to professional photographers illustrates the point well!
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Hey Steve, this sounds like a good division of labor. I’m totally with Clyde in terms of having people devoted to social media / engagement to stay on top of emerging tools and their possible applications in the newsroom. The pace of change in social media can be pretty dizzying – those focused on social media can be useful filters / educators.
Interesting / different uses of social media can attract and engage readers so they’re a good investment. Most and actually probably all of the news sites that get attention for their social media use (HuffPo, NYT, Statesman.com etc.) have people devoted to innovating in that way on a full-time basis.
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[…] Erik Gable and Steve Buttry wrote recent blog posts about the position and what it means. Mark Luckie over at 10,000 Words […]
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Steve, as usual, I appreciate your point of view on this issue and real-world application of it. I’ll be following the evolution at TBD. At most smaller news operations, it’s a necessity that everyone in the newsroom own a piece of the approach but there does need to be leadership and mentoring by someone whose role includes the duties of an “Engagement Editor.”
Staffers need to use the tools available to them in their jobs (including social media) but that function needs to be coupled with a vetted, curated approach (beyond aggregation) with community contributors by a dedicated Community Editor. In some communities, that network will need to be built from scratch and it takes an ever-scarce commitment of resources.
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[…] first foray into public relations and brought back memories of an earlier launch. I explained why we need a director of community engagement, even though engagement should be everyone’s job. I have blogged as well for TBD, writing […]
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[…] Erik Gable and Steve Buttry wrote recent blog posts about the position and what it means. Mark Luckie over at 10,000 Words […]
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