Full disclosure: I worked in local and network TV news for more than a decade. I’m told that makes me a ‘veteran’ journalist. I’ve been lucky to have worked mostly on the frontier of the industry; I was the only ‘cyberjournalist’ I’d ever heard of when I signed on to be one in 1999 (proud employee 11 at ReacTV, rebranded Zatso, then gone with the first downturn). ‘New Media’ as we know it wasn’t even a coined term yet.
I say all this because I guess I can never think of considering myself anything other than a journalist. I am a proud graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and I took only two breaks from my beloved profession – to join the Peace Corps and go to acting school – until now.
I technically work in public relations. I write technically in italics because, as director of digital services at Eastwick Communications, I am on the information frontier once again. This time, it’s Social Media. And that’s the main thing attracted me to the gig. At the time I was looking, there were plenty of interesting ways to steer my career, but this one felt so right.
It harkens back to my decision to leave my high-profile local producing and reporting job and flee to teach children English in Turkmenistan. Like any journalist would, I quickly got the ‘scoop’ on some of the shadier things taking place in my village, such as the clinic on the outskirts of town where – according to doctor friends working for the World Health Organization (WHO) – new strains of tuberculosis were being discovered and tested. To this day, I test positive for TB and must get yearly X-rays to make sure it is not active.
These are the types of experiences that have touched me and make me believe – truly – in the idea of activist and citizen journalism. I see examples of it every day in my work as someone who lives and breathes social media for a living. Take a look at the example below:
Facebook mini-feed item; soldier and child.
Powerful, eh? Even of you don’t agree with what Linda has to say, I find it amazing when I see this level of humanity come through in unexpected of circumstances – ones you’d never expect.
I see a corollary here. You may read this as self-promotional, but not me.
I think the currency the collective ‘we’ play and/or work in is information. I think we can agree that we’re seeing the accelerated dissolution of the traditional stalwarts having the same weight in the journalistic – or any community for that matter – as they once did. We know that’s true of the slow and steady departure of newspapers, or even their business standards (an ad on the front page of the the New York Times?). I know in my everyday decisions, online word of mouth is what matters – even in a community like mine with a noticeable lack of big-box stores and tons of single-store, locally run anomalies that make me love where I live. Need to find a dry cleaner, hair dresser, holistic vitamins? I’ve found them all by weighing what my friends – real and virtual – say on Yelp.
But I digress.
My corollary here is really is a question: Does the information I push out suddenly mean less now that I work for a PR company? I ask this because sometimes I feel like it does, which does a real disservice to the consumer. If I have the best information or can get a reporter or customer connected to the right people quicker, shouldn’t my role as a conduit that ‘gets’ bias and transparency be more important than ever?
There are exceptions, but I think the rule is true: PR, marking and journalists think of themselves as sitting somewhere in a hierarchy. Of course, there’s an exception to every rule; we have tons of fab reporters who’ve worked with my agency for years (bless you), but people forget that. An then there’s, arguably, the most important deviation on the word – anarchy – which might best describe the rise of user generated content. I’d love it if someone would argue this point, but as word of mouth has basically diversified, it’s more important than ever to have it.
And we all want it. Authentic, third-party ‘endorsements.’ Right?
So while some of us argue about what how we define our respective industries and what we do, I’l keeping my eye on the prize: YOU.
[cross-posted here…]
