What I’ve been reading: A deep-dive into how newsrooms are using WhatsApp Channels + bringing design thinking into journalism
The latest What I’ve Been Reading digest – which is a round-up of interesting bits from the cross-section of digital journalism, digital communications, social media, search and more – is below.
Before I go to the reading list, I’ve had an exciting project get going which is in the local journalism space – with The Lead who I am working with through Alma, the editorial consultancy I’ve established – and as part of this there’s freelance journalism opportunities (paid £ ones) for journalists in the North of England.
We’re particularly looking for writers with experience and an interest in:
climate and the environment
housing and regeneration
education and work
health, care and wellbeing
equality and race
Drop me a note at ed@almaonline.co.uk if that’s of interest and the last 12-18 months have been particularly challenging within the media sector, especially local media, so do share on this opportunity with those you think might be interested in and the call-out is on X and LinkedIn if you want to amplify it or share there.
I’m also particularly interested to hear from new and diverse writers based in the North, and any help pushing this opportunity to individuals and networks would be very much appreciated.
Now to the reading list:
How 13 news publishers are using WhatsApp Channels – Nieman Lab – The rise, and rise, of WhatsApp as a publishing platform/distribution channel/comms channel shows no signs of stopping. This deep-dive is really useful from Nieman Lab who spoke to 13 publishers about what they are doing in the WhatsApp space. There feels to me a natural confluence between WhatsApp/newsletters/Facebook updates – although each is different there is an opportunity to do something very strong across that suite of distribution methods.
For me the way WhatsApp is being used at present seems to fall into the following camps:
An extension of the existing round-up newsletter/the bigger stories of the day posted on other platforms. This is primarily where publishers are seeing it as an opportunity to drive traffic and engagement back on-site and to other platforms. I do like how some publishers are really delibrate about what time they offer these and are clearly thinking about what their audiences are most likely doing at that time (commute to work/at home pre-work, coffee time, lunchtime, school run time, commute home, relaxing of an evening).
Subject-specific WhatsApp groups or time-sensitive news WhatsApp channels. This isn’t necessarily new, I can remember in 2016 time when working at Reach there were WhatsApp groups/ways to follow specific court cases via WhatsApp because it was a broadcast method. But the ability to quickly spin up a community of interest around a specific news-event or time sensitive news topic
Experimentation. There’s definitely still lots of room for experimenting, could individual journalists or editors have a WhatsApp channel and treat it similar to perhaps how they used to invest and engage a lot of effort in X? A nod to the time-sensitive channels above, are there opportunities for very quick-fire channels around big news events e.g. Suella’s sacking or a specific TV show being aired. And there’s polls too, being able to quickly poll such an engaged audience feels extremely powerful.
Video-led. The integration with YouTube and other video media to be able to watch directly in WhatsApp feels like a very new and highly engaged video audience to reach and engage with. I think we will see this as a big growth area for image-led and video-led storytelling being delivered via WhatsApp, especially as this is difficult to do in email newsletters without a click-through to somewhere the video is hosted.
A few other thing things to read about WhatsApp and private sharing for news:
Award-winning work that Reach has been doing building WhatsApp channels
What WhatsApp Channels means for the public sector and communications
What do younger audiences want from news organisations? We asked them… – Jacqui Merrington/The Happy Journalist – let’s just say I am extremely jealous that my former colleague Jacqui got to spend her intensive study week on the University of Central Lancashire Journalism Leadership and Innovation programme in Cape Town (South Africa!) while I went to, errr, Preston, where I live! This reflection from Jacqui is incredibly rich in her learnings on design thinking and sprints. The teams were given the task of engaging young people in news (just a small challenge) and the detail in how they went about it is laid bare by Jacqui.
For me it’s a timely reminder in keeping it small and simple, and just getting going. We can plan, and plan, and plan, but sometimes you have to bite the bullet and test/learn as you go with new ideas and new ways of doing things. This isn’t always feasible, of course, but injecting a bit of that design-thinking pace and user-involvement (showing your workings) can give something that extra level of engagement in what is a very rapidly moving and crowded digital market. And it’s proof, to the audience, that there’s someone on the other end of the machine.
In the weeks ahead then I’ll share some reflections on my involvement in the JLeaders programme this year where I’ve been an associate lecturer for the innovation projects the cohort have been working on and the key takeaways I’ve had from having the privilege of working with them, helping them shape and feeding back on their ideas, innovations and projects.
A reminder you can get this round-up in your inbox first by subscribing to my newsletter on TinyLetter, it comes out each Wednesday afternoon.