What's New at The Arizona Republic?
The Arizona Republic is working on 5 core goals this 2016. Their number one goal:
THE 20 INITIATIVE
“Increase quality engagement with 20% digital growth.” That means having 20% more page views, 20% more engaged time, etc, both individually but more so as a whole organization. To increase engagement requires journalists to engage two different audiences. The way the news is presented needs to be restructured to engage the audiences divided by generation, the younger generation engaging in digital media while the baby boomer generation still wanting their news presented through print.
Karina Bland: Killin' the Game
This past week I had the great opportunity of sitting down with Karina Bland, a senior journalist at the Arizona Republic. With her insight, I was able to understand how she finds her stories, how she appeals to her audience, and how she consistently makes her work fly off the charts week after week.
Here's how Karina breaks it down:
"Click-Read-Scroll"- the three step process any journalist wants their readers to do once they choose their article.
Now for the reader to click on an article it is so important that the Title/Heading of your topic is attention-grabbing. Have the readers WANT to read the story. So what makes a good heading?
- News Ex: Heart Transplant Gone Wrong
- Roundups (Best, Worst, Top) Ex: 10 Best Restaurants in Scottsdale
- Number Ex: 20 Students Caught Cheating on AP Bio Exam
- Question Ex: Are You Really Human?
- Tips and Advice Ex: 100 Ways to Beat 100 Degree Weather in Arizona
- Dramatic Ex: Bernie and Trump Seen Sunbathing On Beach
Next, to read and scroll the article has to be fascinating. It has to be told in way such that the elements of creative writing used to present the story appeals to the public. Karina describes engaging the audience by "telling it like you would see it on TV." Present your facts in a way that keeps the reader stuck to the story wanting to know more. In the end, less is always more. Present what is important. Use words and phrases that are easy to read and understand.
For example, here's two ways to present a story on a robbery at a gas station in Gilbert Arizona:
1) There was a robbery at a gas station in Gilbert. Both men were armed.
2) Kaylee, a mother of two, was buying M&M's for her children when two armed men walked into a gas station in Gilbert, Arizona.
Which one would you rather read? An article that presents the fact blandly, or one that describes the perspective of a mother who was there when it happened?
For example, here's two ways to present a story on a robbery at a gas station in Gilbert Arizona:
1) There was a robbery at a gas station in Gilbert. Both men were armed.
2) Kaylee, a mother of two, was buying M&M's for her children when two armed men walked into a gas station in Gilbert, Arizona.
Which one would you rather read? An article that presents the fact blandly, or one that describes the perspective of a mother who was there when it happened?
Another important aspect as stated by Karina is how some journalists design their own story. It is know as the "manipulative" or "strategic" way that journalists use to keep their readers engaged to the story. As a journalist, you want your readers to scroll. Your story might begin with a few words, something that grabs your readers attention. Then, you place a picture, right after your first paragraph. Now your readers are wondering, "Ok, I read the first paragraph, but what does the picture have to do with the article?" So, now you've got your readers scrolling, because now they want to know the relevance of the picture to the article. See how it's manipulative but strategic? Designing stories allows journalists to play around with how they want their articles to be presented such that they keep their audience guessing and wanting to know until the end.
Psychology in Journalism
Unconsciously, us(the general public), are looking for articles we agree with or articles that enrage us. It's a natural instinct. Readers use confirmation bias, the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions. We want to see articles that make us feel like there's people that think just like us. In turn the public begins to create echo chambers where different views are censored and only the ones with same thoughts are accepted. When people see their ideas constantly "echoed" back to them by seeing articles that state things they believe, it strengthens a persons individual belief system, thereby increasing engagement in certain stories.
Page Views & Success
1,000 page views- this is a minimum, if a story doesn't hit at least a 1000 views it's a bad story
5,000 page views- acceptable, it's a fairly decent story
10,000 page views- commendable, something makes the story appealing
100,000 views- DEFINITELY AN EXCEPTIONAL STORY
Most of the time a story that hits a 100,000 views tends to be a breaking news story. Karina's stories always hit 100,000 views or more.
How Do Journalists Track Their Success Stories?
At the Arizona Republic there's a total of 3 programs that journalists use to analyze the performance of their content. They use Omniture, Chartbeat, and Pressbox.
The average read time for an article is 27 seconds. Karina's stories alone average a read time of 1.5 minutes. So basically she's killin' the game.
Karina has the #1 story on the entire AZ Republic website for the last month(be careful its a tearjerker): http://www.azcentral.com/
Her other recent successes: http://www.azcentral.com/
Psychology in Journalism
Unconsciously, us(the general public), are looking for articles we agree with or articles that enrage us. It's a natural instinct. Readers use confirmation bias, the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions. We want to see articles that make us feel like there's people that think just like us. In turn the public begins to create echo chambers where different views are censored and only the ones with same thoughts are accepted. When people see their ideas constantly "echoed" back to them by seeing articles that state things they believe, it strengthens a persons individual belief system, thereby increasing engagement in certain stories.
Page Views & Success
1,000 page views- this is a minimum, if a story doesn't hit at least a 1000 views it's a bad story
5,000 page views- acceptable, it's a fairly decent story
10,000 page views- commendable, something makes the story appealing
100,000 views- DEFINITELY AN EXCEPTIONAL STORY
Most of the time a story that hits a 100,000 views tends to be a breaking news story. Karina's stories always hit 100,000 views or more.
How Do Journalists Track Their Success Stories?
At the Arizona Republic there's a total of 3 programs that journalists use to analyze the performance of their content. They use Omniture, Chartbeat, and Pressbox.
- Omniture: tracks ONLY page views
- Chartbeat: Engagement time, number of people on that story at one time, how far a reader has read before stopping( actually points out at what point the reader stopped scrolling and exited the page
- Helpful for figuring out how to design the story such that the reader continues to scroll
- Pressbox: "new tool", total engagment time in minutes, average number of people reading through mobile, social media, or desktop, tracks how they found the story(on the Arizona Republic website, link through social media, etc.)
The Pressbox screenshot allows us to see Kaila White's best-performing stories from the last 30 days.
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The Chartbeat screenshot is on one story, about the Desert Vista High School girls. This was Kaila White's best story, surpassing 100,000 views. You can see it had more than 200 people reading the story at the same time, and with each of them reading the story for an average of 40 seconds.
 The screenshots below shows Kaila's best stories for the past week, both desktop and mobile. Up till the 4th story mobile and desktop have the same top stories. Starting with the 5th story, the top story changes from desktop to mobile.  
That's all I have for you this week! I hope it was as interesting to you as it was to me!! :)
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Hi Aditi!
ReplyDeleteVery fascinating post. I'm very interested to hear your perspective: why do you think Karina Bland's posts are so renowned? Does she get exclusive coverage of top stories, or is it the style of her writing that captivates readers?
I would say the amount of experience she has a journalist gives her the upper hand when it comes to writing stories. She knows her audience, she knows what they like. She's a credible journalist and she appeals to a certain kind of audience who enjoy her style of writing. If you take a look at her article (her most popular one about the 12 year old who shot himself), the tone and diction she uses is simple and easy to understand which makes it easier for her readers to scan and say, "okay this looks good, I want to read it." Yet even with her simple story telling skills, she gets the point across. And no, Karina finds her stories on her own, she's rarely ever assigned to a story.
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