Global News Social Media Editor: Complex stories should be packaged in way that connects with audience
By Jasmine Bala for the Ryerson Journalism Research Centre website
While newsrooms benefit from online analytics that help journalists understand what audiences want and how to package stories, this data can’t be the only determinants of the news that gets served up, says the national managing editor for social media at Global News.
Shauna Rempel, who is also an instructor at Ryerson’s School of Journalism, said she uses services such as NewsWhip Spike to see which Global News stories are trending on social media and CrowdTangle to determine engagement with these posts across all platforms.
“I’m using half a dozen every day and it’s helping determine not just what we’re posting, what we’re writing, talking about and covering, but also how we’re doing it,” she told a crowd of mostly Ryerson journalism students attending a panel discussion about what young people want from their news media.
Rempel noted, however, that if her newsroom only focused on stories that resonated on social media “it would be a very lopsided thing.”
“We would have a lot of animal videos and things like that, and we need to balance that out with political news and other news that people need to be aware of. But we need to also look at how we’re presenting it on social media and elsewhere in a way that will still get to the audience and will connect with the audience.”
To do this, Rempel said she takes topics that are complicated and makes them more accessible by adding graphics and animations to help her audience develop a clearer understanding of the story: “It’s not dumbed down, but it’s cutting through to how it matters to you as the audience member.”
While Rempel said her newsroom recognizes the need to include actual news in what it offers its audience, new research conducted by Anne McNeilly, an associate professor at Ryerson, and Aneurin Bosley, assistant professor at Carleton University, suggests many up-and-coming journalists have different priorities. They are interested in reporting on cultural, travel, lifestyle and entertainment stories.
