June 7, 2015
By Louis Oprisa
Early in my tenure as an editor, it hurt my pride when students on campus said they never heard of our publication. I wondered if it meant anything negative about my own work or skills as a journalist. But eventually I learned to accept their lack of awareness as a challenge related to my ability to recruit new staffers.
What I’ve tried to do to get CCNY students to care more about our news outlet is to reiterate to them that having their work published with us ultimately helps them, as well as the community they’re in. We provide valuable information to the public. And we give students an environment to strengthen their writing, photography, digital and design skills. Everybody wins. Or at least that’s how it should be.
Student media can often be seen as less appealing than taking an unpaid gig at a professional news site like BuzzFeed or Jezebel. One way to fight that is to make the platform through which your media outlet delivers content more dynamic and engaging.
Let’s be real here: No one is going to want to read student articles on a student site if it looks amateurish. If the site looks like it was done by a professional, or done by someone with the skill-set of a professional, then it might convince students to come aboard and really shape news coverage rather than being a volunteer coffee-runner.
Far too many emerging professional outlets take advantage of people still growing up and learning about the journalism industry. For example, I recently had someone try to convince me to write four stories a week for her, for a base pay of $100 a month. In addition, your growth at larger corporate enterprises is capped by someone higher up who you probably never see. At a student publication, by comparison, you have more control of what you do, you can take on more responsibilities and you can showcase your skill-set much more prominently and frequently.
The recruiting tactics for staffers also apply to readers. Every interaction you have with someone on campus is not only an opportunity to learn about them as an individual, but to learn about their needs and interests as a media consumer.
Do not enough people read or even care about your work? What do they like or care about then? If you’re not crafting content for them, who are you really creating content for?
It’s your job to figure out what is important and of interest to your community. You may not have an extravagant budget or top-of-the-line equipment at your disposal to create it, but you must do the best you can with what you have.
Originally posted on College Media Matters.