On the Media: Imagine That

In the "On the Media" podcast episode entitled "Imagine That," the hosts reflect on how the media got the idea of a Trump presidency so wrong. On of the most interesting points of the podcast was the fact that the President's real power lies in rhetoric. There's an intricate system of checks and balances in place to make sure the commander in chief can't get too powerful. Becasue of this, the hosts of "On the Media" said that Trump will mostly be running into dead ends to accomplish what he wants to accomplish and will be instead spending his time blaming the media and others for his shortcomings.

The media was so sure that the GOP nominee would be someone like Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio. But because the dismissed the even idea of Trump being president, that allowed material for Trump to build on. Now that Trump is president, the media is trying to figure out what happened. While it's very possible that fake news may have contributed to the rise of Trump, if the media had treated Trump like any other presidential candidate and not reported on him every time he made a crazy comment or criticized someone on Twitter, Trump wouldn't have gotten the attention that allowed him to ride the wave to the presidency.

Now that Trump will be president, we have to start treating him differently. If the media continues to  give him attention for saying outlandish things, Trump will continue to be able to blame the media for his mishaps. If the media goes forward in 2017 and reports on Trump's specific policies instead of finding the sensational headlines for Trump, Trump will begin to lose the attention he thrives on. By media taking a back seat and doing less of what it does best - generating clicks- this Trump phenomenon will move on like a bad dream come 2020, or even sooner.

UPDATE on Facebook Campaign

So on Wednesday, Dec. 7, I experimented with yet another type of video. I did a Facebook Live video of my morning newscast. This video generated substantially more engagement than any other post during my campaign.

Looking at the statistics, I was first surprised to see so many unique viewers. While it's true that most people didn't watch the video for longer than 15 seconds, it was great to get so many viewers. According to Insights, this post reached 605 people so far, which is a far cry from the 82 followers I have on my Facebook page right now. This is clear to me that Facebook is promoting Live videos much more than regular videos. This will be something I try more of in the future because of how much engagement it received relative to everything else on my page. 

My Campaign: Spencer Ricks, Journalist

I learned a lot about how to promote and market myself while starting and managing my Facebook page: "Spencer Ricks, Journalist." I started it with the intent to showcase my work as a journalist and show a "behind-the-scenes" look at being a journalist. Ideally, I would have started it sooner so I have more of a track record on it. But none the less, I will continue to post on it in the future and maintain the page with content.

I've experimented posting links to my articles, videos, and pictures. But my posts definately got the most engagement when I posted relevant, dramatic, or "breaking news" content. The number one post on my page for engagement was one about a death on campus:

The second most engaged with post was a helpful piece for students about a carshare program on campus:

And finally, my third most popular post was a picture of myself filming a football game: 

Because a lot of my audience was my friends and family, pictures of myself were usually pretty popular. But the helpful articles for students and the dramatic, breaking news story was the ones that got the most engagement. Knowing this, I would have focused more on posting dramatic, eye-catching stories. Because these types of stories are somewhat rare for me to cover at Dixie State University, it could have come down to bland headlines for the rest of my articles. 

I was thinking my videos would get a lot of engagement. I posted five videos, three of which were very different in nature. I posted two Snapchat videos, two edited "Radio Dixie 913" news-shorts videos, and one time-lapse video of me editing my radio newscasts. However, even though these videos took the most amount of work to produce and post, they were some of the least viewed posts on my page. In the future, to increase engagement with videos on my page, I would have experimented with more variety with videos, including with length. I am also planning on testing out a Facebook Live video on my page soon.

I will definitely be continuing to post on my Facebook page in the future. All in all, I had 41 posts on my page since August, which isn't near as many as I would have liked. Looking back, I would have posted something on my page every day so I can keep my audience in the loop. I would have also liked to advertise my page if I had the funds so I could reach a bigger audience than just my friends and family.