Small-Market Newspapers and Engagement
Key points:
Respondents offered us a variety of definitions for engagement
Some saw this as an industry buzzword
Others described engagement as the DNA of small-market newspapers
Engagement was arguably the media buzzword of 201644 45 as publishers moved away from scale and chasing large traffic numbers, toward an increasing focus on deepening their relationships with new and existing audiences.46
Reviewing the literature, from both academia and the industry, we see engagement defined as a philosophy, a practice, and a process.47 Some, for instance, define engagement as community building; others link it to the ability to remember and recall a story, while some—like Jake Batsell—note the role of engagement as a business practice.48
Because definitions of engagement can vary, we asked our survey respondents what engagement meant to them, and how they measured it.
Engagement is not necessarily a term local papers relate to
Although major metros and national outlets have just begun to embrace the importance of engagement in its myriad forms, small-market newspapers have long been closely connected (both offline and in their daily output) to their local community. Failure to do so, in many cases, would have been commercial suicide.495051
Because of this, some respondents expressed frustration at our request for them to define “engagement.” Some participants felt that discussions on this topic were detached from the reality of needing to “get the paper out.” For many of these respondents, engagement is an empty industry buzzword and a label with little relevance for small-market newspapers.
Examples of responses we received from journalists in this camp included:
“Engagement is a five-dollar word dreamed up by overpaid consultants trying to sell newspapers on what they are already doing—reporting on the lives and concerns of everyday people in their communities.”
“Meaningless bullshit.”
“A meaningless term handed down by our clueless corporate overlords that no self-respecting journalist would use.”
Engagement is an established principle for many local newspapers
Others took a different view, highlighting how traditional forms of engagement such as letters to the editor, phone calls, and print readership continue to be popular.
One respondent said, “Engagement is something our paper never lost. Our readers primarily aren’t on social media beyond personal Facebook pages . . . We are still read, discussed, called, emailed, and written to. That’s all the engagement we really need.”
Image 10: Word Cloud of Terms Used by Respondents to Define “Engagement”
Some participants explained engagement purely in terms of hard data
Further contributions to this question offered a different perspective. At its most basic level, engagement was sometimes described as a means to measure impact. Specifically, respondents attributed it as a way to provide hard numbers—such as readership figures, time on site, and other quantifiable data—of interest to both publishers and advertisers alike.
A typical response, in that vein, defined engagement as “ . . . a measurable level of reader input, data tracking, or feedback.”
Respondents identified many benefits to “engagement”
An additional group defined engagement as a term to describe the broader contract between a newspaper and its community. This contract has many constituent parts, with survey participants emphasizing different elements depending on their own philosophical standpoint and newsroom practices.
Some of the characteristics of engagement highlighted by this cohort include: building relationships, creating feedback loops, being part of the community, fostering conversations, and listening and engaging with audiences in a variety of places and spaces.
As one respondent noted, “To me, engagement means interacting with readers on a variety of platforms. Particularly on social media, it’s a way for readers to talk with and ask questions of their local reporters and vice versa, and hopefully build trust with them.”
This matters, several respondents observed, due to the importance of ensuring that audiences feel invested in the success of their community and its newspaper. Effective engagement also means that newspapers reflect the needs and aspirations of their readers.
Noted one survey participant:
Good engagement tells us what is interesting to readers, lets us immediately clarify or add to information in stories already published, gives us new story ideas, and when done right gives the reader/consumer a sense of ownership that “this is their news source,” in which they have a say and a voice.
The benefits of successful engagement can therefore be both economic (increased subscribers and readers), as well as more civically minded, helping to promote dialogue and create opportunities for community cohesion.
Authors’ commentary: it’s engagement whether you call it that or not
Many of the traits we categorize as “engagement” matter to small-market newspapers and have for some time. There’s a clear economic imperative for this: effective engagement helps to drive readers and subscribers—and with it the advertising dollars that are the lifeblood of local newspapers.
But our conversations, both within this survey and the wider, in-depth interviews we have undertaken, also show that for many journalists engaging audiences is at the heart of their beliefs around what local journalism is and should be about. Engagement is central to what many local titles already do, and what they have always done. Whether they choose to apply the “engagement” label to this or not is another matter.