J 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Propublica, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, The Fresno Bee
J100 Lecture #14 - Joy Mayer, The Trusting News Project (Engagement Journalism -
Journalism), @mayerjoy
Guest Speaker - Joy Mayer, The Trusting News Project (Engagement Journalism - Journalism),
Joymayer.com, @mayerjoy
●Education
○Originally wanted to be an English major
○College
■Most of the time she spent as a copy editor there
■Worked at the student media outlet
■Crash course on how journalism works
●Worked on a story about the first domestic act of terrorism in the
US in Oklahoma City
●Very personal story
○Having to face the horrific news coverage
○Very intense
○No one was worried about political views or money =
people NEEDED the information they had
■Some people were uncomfortable
●The bombing affected people in ways that
left a lasting impact
■Originally thought she would be a reporter
●Talked into applying for a job in Page Design
○Editorial judgement along with the graphic design aspects
of newspapers
○Then moved to teaching at the University of Missouri
■Felt that working in daily newspaper that she
wanted to do something more
■Teaching newsroom
●Go without a master’s degree to show how
to do it
○Has her own business now
■How to start your own thing and be a maker on your own terms
■Entrepreneurial spirit
●Having individual jobs
●How she started it all out
○Not sure if she would have had the nerve to make her own
company while she was younger
○Put whatever you want on your resume, you can create a
website, call yourself a founder of it = “so many
opportunities to just go do the thing you want to do”
●After teaching she followed her husband’s job to Florida
○Started with a journalism foundation about what she
wanted to get smarter about
○Having passion
■= Makes people think she will follow through and
gets others excited
■Pieced together a bunch of teaching jobs and said
“here is what I want to do, who can i get to pay me
for it?”
○Trusting News Project
■Fall of 2016
●Before issues with trusting news like now
●Knew that the trust in news was falling
○Trying to research how people, know what to trust
○Did not want to learn it for knowledge sake, wanted to
learn to help others
●Tests what she finds
○USA Today and Christian Science Monitor
○Trying to figure out if they work actiley to earn trust and
seem credible = HOW will the audience respond
○Findings
■Journalism people do a terrible job of telling the public what they are
writing about and why
■A and B testing
●See how people respond
●Language that explains motivation of each story and why the
people would appreciate
○Taking the time to explain = making an invitation
○Must know your audience to know what kinds of things
will get their attention
○DO NOT just give people a link and tell them to read it,
EXPLAIN WHY they might want to
●Engagement - What is engagement?
○Keeping the focus of our work on the people we aim to serve
■Social Engagement
■Media Engagement
○What does it mean to be social?
■Social around your content and social journalism
■Not just one way to communicate
■Broadcasting is not the only goal of journalism
■You are listening and adjusting what you say based on the feedback you
are getting
●You behave different in different social situations based on the
cues you pick up when you go into an environment
○How should I dress?
○How drunk should I get?
○Should I curse?
○What is most suitable for this situation?
○Should I eat before or there?
■Show up, listen, and look for cues to be relevant
●What does it mean to have a relationship?
○Engagement at its core is about
■Pre-publication
●Craft our message
●Tell a story
●When we are happy with it we publish
○Everyone except us and our sources is just at the beginning
■Watch the reactions
■“We must raise the baby (the story) we birthed”
■See what people are fact-checking
■= How do we bring people into what we are doing
○Mainly about the User
■Hearken example
■Engagement happens when members of the public
■Constant feedback loop
■Conversation of both parties
■There are lots of Sharing content on conversational platforms, including
social media
●Done in very effective ways
○Examples
■VOX post - Do you have ebola?
●Point is not just to share a link and calling it
a success
●Inviting people to spread the content
●Get involved
Document Summary
J100 lecture #14 - joy mayer, the trusting news project (engagement journalism - Guest speaker - joy mayer, the trusting news project (engagement journalism - journalism), Originally wanted to be an english major. Most of the time she spent as a copy editor there. Worked on a story about the first domestic act of terrorism in the. Having to face the horrific news coverage. No one was worried about political views or money = people needed the information they had. The bombing affected people in ways that left a lasting impact. Originally thought she would be a reporter. Talked into applying for a job in page design. Editorial judgement along with the graphic design aspects of newspapers. Then moved to teaching at the university of missouri. Felt that working in daily newspaper that she wanted to do something more. Go without a master"s degree to show how to do it.
