Newscaster Continues To Use Twitter To Connect With Community

from the keep-mocking dept

A few weeks back, I wrote about how a evening newscaster in Detroit named Stephen Clark was successfully embracing Twitter to break down the typical walls between newscaster and audience, and discovering some interesting things at the same time -- such as the fact that the community doesn't just want to talk to him, but to each other. One point I noted was that Clark still could go even further with his embrace of Twitter. He talked about how his use of Twitter had changed his perception from talking at people to talking to people -- and I wondered when it would reach the point of talking with people. It looks like it's getting there.

Clark himself alerted me to his latest experiment to better connect with viewers by asking them to pitch stories for the evening news -- and even to try to put together their own video and share it not just with him, but with the wider community that's come together:

Starting immediately I want you to find the stories that I will cover on Channel 7. I want you to find the good people doing good things in your community. I want you to tell me about the interesting characters and fascinating sights that make your communities special. I want you to stop complaining that all you see on TV is bad news and give me some good news.

That's it...pretty simple. Oh, there is one little catch. I don't want you just to tell me about it. I want you so show me. I want you to show the entire #backchannel. It doesn't have to be perfect and polished. Just take your flip camera or iPhone and shoot some video. Show us the pictures of why it is a compelling story. If you have a fascinating character that needs to be introduced to the #backchannel... and the Channel 7 audience... put him/her/it on camera and show us. If you can edit some sound, video, even your own narration into a short story, do it! Post the video on YouTube or Vimeo or wherever and hashtag a synopsis to the #backchannel.

When I first wrote about Clark, some of the usual skeptics scoffed that the nature of the conversation somehow wasn't substantial. But, of course, that missed the point. It's like the people who mocked blogging in the early days because they "don't care about your cat," or the folks who mocked Twitter because they "don't want to know what some stranger had for lunch." But the point is that all of this is totally voluntary. You don't follow the people whose lunch plans or cats you don't find interesting. But for all the cats and lunches you don't want to hear about, there's likely to be something or someone interesting that you do want to find out about.

In this case, perhaps the community sometimes came together over silly discussions -- such as the "Silverfish Hand Catch!" example we discussed in the first post, but it's those kinds of group bonding experiences that allows the community to build a relationship with each other, trust each other, and do something more interesting and compelling in the long run. I have no idea if this latest experiment will actually produce anything of value. And I already know that the same folks who complained about "nothing substantial" occurring in the #backchannel last time, will pop up to complain that now Clark is asking for "free labor" or something such as that. In the end, people who want to hate will always find something to complain about... and while they do, they'll miss the fact that some amazing new forms of communication have sprouted out right beneath their eyes while they were sneering about how beneath them it was.

Filed Under: back channel, community, journalism, stephen clark, twitter

Detroit News Anchor Realizes How Twitter Has Changed How He Engages With Viewers

from the silverfish-hand-catch! dept

One of the key points we tried to hammer home at our Techdirt Saves* Journalism event in June was the importance of realizing that news organizations are really in the business of building community. So many in the news business focus on the belief that they're in the "news" business, but that's never really been the case. The news has always been the piece that brings together a community (and the business of a news organization has usually been to then sell that community's attention to advertisers). The biggest problem that news organizations face these days isn't scary "news aggregators," but that there are now many, many, many other communities that people can join, and most of them treat their members a lot better. Many traditional news organizations, in contrast, seem to have a rather condescending view on "community." They lock up comments, they complain about readers, and they focus on just delivering the news, not engaging with their community or enabling their community to do anything useful.

Thankfully, that's not true of all news organizations (or individuals within news organizations). More and more are recognizing this important point, even if they do so in unexpected ways. krharrison points us to a great block post from Stephen Clark, a newscaster for a local Detroit TV station, about his realization of how Twitter is changing the way he relates to the community of folks who watch the news:

As I've reported in this blog before I have had a very long one-sided relationship with the people who watch my newscasts. I talk, they listen. If they had something to say to me they yelled it at the TV screen like Don Quixote tilting at windmills. Twitter changed all that. I can now hear you and I can now answer you...

I can't speak for the dozens of people who check in regularly every night... sometimes at 6 or 7:00.. but mostly 11:00. I don't know exactly what they get out of it except a kind of cool experience of actually conversing in real time with the guy on TV. But I can tell you what I get out of it. For the first time in years I actually feel like I'm talking to someone rather than at them. Frankly it's energizing!

Of course, the next step is to go beyond just talking "to" them and to talking "with" them. But that will come. In fact, getting to that point, Clark explains an amusing way that the community tried to connect with him, picking up on the recent Old Spice commercial meme of "Silverfish Hand Catch!", where some of his viewers started saying that if 100 people retweeted the request, Clark would close the broadcast by saying the line on TV. He didn't get the 100 retweets, and admits that he wouldn't have said it anyways (noting he probably would have lost his job), but he did do an "air" silverfish hand catch surreptitiously, to let folks know he was paying attention.

But, much more interesting was the realization he had while all of this was happening:

It was all a bit silly sure, but I realized something else was going on. The audience of our 11:00 newscast wasn't just talking to me... they were talking to each other! I felt like Alexander Graham Bell when he made his first call to Watson. The backchannel worked!

I know that many folks around here still like to mock and dismiss communications tools like Twitter, but many people are realizing what powerful tools they are for conversations and for building communities where none really existed before. And, in businesses where community and relationships are everything, that's quite powerful for those who figure it out.

Filed Under: communication, community, culture, journalism, news, stephen clark
Companies: twitter