POLITICAL REPORTING IN THE AGE OF INFOTAINMENT ____________________________________________________ A Professional Project presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School at the University of Missouri-Columbia ___________________________________________________________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts ___________________________________________________________________ by MELISSA ORIBHABOR Jennifer Rowe, Committee Chair AUGUST 2014 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my committee members: Jennifer Rowe, Maggie Walter, and Barbara Cochran for their help with completing this professional project. Specifically, I would like to thank Jennifer Rowe for the time spent going over my work and offering edits, suggestions, and help wherever and whenever I needed it. Thank you Barbara Cochran for helping me find my sources and being my connection to the Northeast. And thank you Maggie Walter for your feedback and for meeting with me to help me get back on track. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………..……………………………………………………………………………ii Chapter 1. CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION………………………..………………………………………1 2. CHAPTER TWO: FIELD NOTES……...……………………………………………………………5 3. CHAPTER THREE: EVALUATION…..…………………….……………………………………35 4. CHAPTER FOUR: PHYSICAL EVIDENCE…………………………………………………….43 5. CHAPTER FIVE: ANALYSIS………………………………………...…………………………….85 APPENDIX 1. REFERENCES………………………………………………………………………………………..128 2. PROJECT PROPOSAL ……………………………………………………………........................133 3. CHANGES……………………………………………………………...............................................152 4. TRANSCRIPTS……………………………………………………………......................................154 iii Chapter One: Introduction Until now, I’ve never been entirely sure what I wanted to do for a future profession. The issue was never with coming up with goals, but in narrowing them down. There seems to be few professions that allow you to do many things at once. Fulfilling careers tend to be dynamic, but within one field. My ultimate career goal was to find an occupation that allowed me to take all of the areas I’ve studied, both as a graduate and undergraduate student, and apply them on a daily basis. I received my first bachelor’s degree from The University of Missouri with an emphasis in history, business (marketing, specifically) and sociology in 2008. I received my second bachelor’s degree from The University of Missouri-Kansas City with an emphasis in print journalism and mass communication in 2011. At the University of Missouri once more, I am focusing on several aspects of journalism, primarily editing, design, and broadcast. My career goal is to have a job where I can utilize all of these areas of emphasis. I came across Newz Group by accident. The company had a booth at a part- time job fair on campus. It turned out this company was the first place I found that actually fit with my professional goals. Newz Group is a digital media technology and public relations company. The primary services it provides are media monitoring, digital archiving, and E-Edition hosting for print publications. It is a family-owned small business that has offices in four states, with the home office in Columbia, Mo. 1 At Newz Group, I was given the opportunity to write, edit, design, work with people, market a service on a broad scale, and report. While working at Newz Group, I helped to expand its service offerings by a dozen. New services included: press release writing, hosting and distribution, Internet monitoring analytics, and media contact lists. I enjoyed working in a public relations capacity for this company, and I would like to continue working in public relations until I have the experience necessary to move up to government or campaign communications. What was most enjoyable about working for Newz Group was the freedom I was given to try different things, such as designing ads and writing and designing the newsletter and website. I learned about which methods of marketing and mass communication are the most effective and how to market efficiently without spending too much money. I also learned the importance of writing a press release with search engine optimization in mind, so the keywords and phrases will be picked up on Internet searches. One of the most enjoyable and useful tools I learned involved designing. I had a basic understanding of Adobe InDesign, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Illustrator when I started working at Newz Group, but in order to design items such as ads, press/media kits, and pamphlets, I needed more than just a basic knowledge. On the job, I was able to teach myself through online video tutorials and design websites to develop the skills I needed to produce quality work. The most challenging aspect of working for Newz Group was learning to market on a limited budget. When I began working for Newz Group, there was no 2 official budget for marketing or public relations and few funds were allotted for my position. As a result, there were many marketing tactics I was not able to use, such as consistently buying ad space in newspapers and magazines. To combat this, I focused a lot on direct advertising. I created postcards, mailers, fliers etc. and sent those to potential clients. Those cost less than placing an ad and did turn out to be effective. I was also able to expand my knowledge of social media management. Until that point, I had been only a casual user of social media, except for the brief time I worked on the Interactive Copy Editing desk at Columbia-Missourian.com. At Newz Group, I not only had to use social media in a professional manner, but I had to keep up with them on a regular basis. That included tweeting consistently throughout the day, regularly updating Facebook, Google+, and Linkedin, and producing content for YouTube. Going into this job I knew how to use Facebook the most, the other social media platforms were a learning experience for me. In terms of my academic research, I chose to focus on political reporting because I thought I’d like to work in that area but not necessarily as a political reporter. I want to work in communications with the government, individual politicians and/or campaigns. My research was great at giving me insight into the challenges of covering politics, political campaigns and politicians and working for Newz Group gave me the tools I need to work in that field. By working in communications for this company, which works with politicians and campaigns across the country, and gaining experience with communication directors and press secretaries, I have a better idea of what 3 communication directors and press secretaries do and the skills needed to enter that field. My research specifically focused on changes in the news industry and the topic of infotainment and how it has affected political reporters. Through research and working closely with a member of my graduate committee, Barbara Cochran, I was able to contact and interview 10 current or retired political reporters who worked for large newspapers based out of Washington, D.C., such as the Washington Post and The New York Times. We spoke about how the industry has changed during their careers and how or if infotainment has had an affect on them or their jobs. Many of them also offered their own opinions of how journalism in the future may be affected by the changes they have seen. One of the most interesting points made by many of them concerned the lack of access to political figures because the politician or members of their staff prefer to disseminate messages to the public themselves, instead of dealing with reporters. I found this to be fascinating, especially considering my desire to work in political communications. My research and professional project, which at first seemed loosely related, ended up working well together by giving me a full picture of political communications from the perspective of the politician and press secretaries and the political reporters trying to get through them to get to the politician. 4 Chapter Two: Weekly Field Notes Week 1 Overview. • Wrote an article for the newsletter about the importance of press releases • Contacted publications to inquire about advertising • Worked on newsletter design in InDesign • Researched the Conservative Political Action Conference for possible promotion opportunity • Corrected service sheet and advertisement in InDesign • Pitched idea of developing an app for the website and portals • Updated Facebook and Twitter • Researched security certification • Researched Colorado gubernatorial race • Prepared a marketing strategy and presented. Boss agreed to run a half-page ad in a magazine in West Virginia and my supervisor, Ian, and I will be attending CPAC in St. Louis in September for networking and promotional opportunities • Completed newsletter and sent it for review and editing • Pitched digital solution expansion • Designed half-page and quarter-page advertisements 5 • Wrote about Dept. of Justice/journalism scandal on Facebook • Put together packets for potential clients with advertisements, service sheets and pitch letters Analysis. I started a new method of seeking out new business called “PC packets.” They are packets put together for potential clients with special offers, a list of services, a copy of the newsletter and a pitch letter specific to the client that explains why our company can be of service to them. This week, I implemented this new strategy and I wrote several of these in a day, and I was trying to push them out as quickly as I could. I sent a version of one of the letters to another employee and she found several grammar errors that resulted from me working too fast (such as “thank you for you time”). I was really upset because I had already sent out about 10 of these letters with the same error in all of them. I realized that for a lot of what I do, I work way too fast focusing on the material, and I wasn’t paying enough attention to the execution. Additionally, there had been little editorial oversight because I was overly confident in my ability.