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| Alive After 5 is the Third Thursday each month April – October from 5-9pm on Canton Street in downtown Roswell, GA. |
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| This is Seth Gamba, orchestra teacher at Elkins Pointe Middle school, playing the drums with the orchestra. The group plays on electric string instruments and even plays some rock tunes during the Alive After 5 event. My daughter plays in the group on the viola. Proud dad as you can see. |
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| This is my wife with the Paranoia Haunted House crew that was at Alive After 5 to promote their business. |
Role of the Journalist
According to Webster Dictionary "journalism is the activity or job of collecting, writing, and editing news stories." Wikipedia goes on to say that journalism "serves the purpose of playing the role of a public service machinery in the dissemination and analysis of news and information."
The role of media in the broader sense is helping communities connect to one another. I see journalists as helping people plug into their community network and the connection is being made through the media.
When you look at all the content that a local media outlet should cover of their community the pie has many slices. One of the slices that journalism serves in a democracy is to inform the community to better play a role in their government.
Wikipedia says, "In a democratic society, however, access to free information plays a central role in creating a system of checks and balance, and in distributing power equally between governments, businesses, individuals, and other social entities. Access to verifiable information gathered by independent media sources, which adhere to journalistic standards, can also be of service to ordinary citizens, by empowering them with the tools they need in order to participate in the political process."
I fear too many journalists are only serving a slice of the pie to their audience. They want more than just the things in their community that are going wrong. If you were to graph out the story coverage of many media outlets I think you would find that there is a lopsided coverage on the squeaky wheel.
Could you take a media coverage of their community and would it reflect the same percentages of categories of stories taking place daily, or would it be slanted.
What about work communities?
Most communication offices within corporations are serving like the media for their community. I find my role within a nonprofit was very similar to my role at the newspaper. My role working for a large corporation is also very similar.
The breaking news story in the nonprofit and business world are the stories that management needs told. While we do not have investigative journalists looking into management and reporting this to the community, we do have companies realizing that transparency is the best way to build affinity with customers. You are finding more PR professionals communicating where their company has made a mistake and how they are taking actions to correct it.
Audience
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Medium
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Storyteller
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Subject
The common theme for communications professionals is serving as the conduit between the Subject and the Audience. The most powerful way to make this connection is the story. We use some medium to deliver that story to the audience.
All you need to do is look at those four words above: 1) Audience; 2) Medium; 3) Storyteller and 4) Subject. If anyone of these is diminished in importance then the connections are not made. The result of this over time is a community that lacks cohesiveness.
I believe way too many professional communicators are wrapped up in either the medium or the subject. They buy the latest gear and try cool shots and forget the story. Sometimes they get so attached emotionally to the subject that they loose their objectivity to know the story.
I believe the audience more often than the medium or subject the most overlooked part of the puzzle.
I believe Steve Jobs is one of the best business people who understood the audience. When he rolled out new products they were not what people wanted or even needed. No one talked about a computer with a graphical interface before he helped to introduce the Mac. No one new what a tablet device was before he introduced the iPad.
What Steve Jobs did know was how to help improve the lives of his audience. He saw how they lived and how he could improve their lives. Great storytellers need to know their audience just as well. This way when we tell them stories of subjects in their community they will line up just like people do when Apple releases a new product. They know that it will be a great story, because yesterday they gave me a great experience.
Secret about your audience
When you immerse yourself into the community that you are covering this is when you find your subjects for the story.
Even businesses like Starbucks and Chick-fi-A train their employees to learn about their customers and to connect with them. Watch this video done by Chick-fil-A.
I encourage storytellers to discover their communities. Find where they congregate and then find those who want and need to communicate to those groups. Then become an expert on the subjects that they cover for those audiences.
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| Deb Pang Davis, Assistant Professor, Syracuse University |
Marketing is connecting you to your audience.
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