Understanding the Media Environment with Chris Davey — Transcript

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1. 0:05I'm Chris Davey and I'm the assistant
2. 0:07vice president for media and public
3. 0:10relations at Ohio State the news media
4. 0:12in a democracy uh plays a very specific
5. 0:16important role in uh in traditional
6. 0:20Communications Theory the role of the
7. 0:21news media is often referred to as the
8. 0:23fourth estate uh meaning that they are
9. 0:27an actual establishment of the democrac
10. 0:30for ensuring that we have an informed
11. 0:32electorate to make uh good decisions
12. 0:36about governing ourselves I mean like at
13. 0:37the philosophical level that's the role
14. 0:39of the media that we're traditionally
15. 0:40taught in in a journalism uh
16. 0:44program whether you're in the
17. 0:46traditional news media a student going
18. 0:48into the traditional news media to
19. 0:49become a reporter a journalist or
20. 0:52someone who's involved in representing
21. 0:54institutions like Ohio State or a
22. 0:55business or government to interface with
23. 0:59the media
24. 1:00um it's important to understand how that
25. 1:03institution the news media functions uh
26. 1:06in order to be successful in any career
27. 1:09regardless of whether it's in in the
28. 1:12traditional storytelling side of of the
29. 1:14media establishment or in what uh is
30. 1:18almost seems like an Antiquated term now
31. 1:20public relations uh public relations or
32. 1:23now strategic Communications whatever
33. 1:25you call it uh it's all inter interfaced
34. 1:28together more so today than ever in the
35. 1:30digital age well the best way to improve
36. 1:32any skill is to do it over and over and
37. 1:34over again right so uh you know there's
38. 1:37no magic to it really uh being a good
39. 1:40writer means uh doing a lot of reading
40. 1:42and doing a lot of writing and you I
41. 1:45think that um students do well to uh do
42. 1:50that expansively in other words not to
43. 1:53uh have a narrow focus on what they're
44. 1:56going to consume from the media or or
45. 2:00what they're going to explore in terms
46. 2:01of their skills for writing for the
47. 2:03media so if uh there's a student that
48. 2:05wants to be a sports writer uh they
49. 2:08should certainly read a lot of sports
50. 2:12content and they should practice writing
51. 2:14Sports writing on many varied platforms
52. 2:17and formats uh every day that includes
53. 2:20tweeting about sports and Facebooking
54. 2:22about sports as well as writing short
55. 2:23and long form journalism about sports
56. 2:26but they shouldn't limit themselves to
57. 2:28that uh they really should read public
58. 2:30affairs journalism and even uh try and
59. 2:32get some practice in writing public
60. 2:34affairs journalism writing advocacy
61. 2:37journalism uh or advocacy um strategic
62. 2:40Communications just all across the board
63. 2:42so uh both quantity and quality matter
64. 2:45there so you know students uh should uh
65. 2:48think expansively when they approach
66. 2:50this and uh consider it to be a lifelong
67. 2:52Pursuit I think it's important for
68. 2:54students to step out of their comfort
69. 2:56zone and uh get practice in in varied
70. 3:00forms of
71. 3:01Journalism uh both in terms of the
72. 3:04subject matter content as well as the uh
73. 3:08the format if you will so like even in
74. 3:10online digital um news there are varied
75. 3:14formats Twitter you know the 140
76. 3:17character uh iconic now format of
77. 3:21Twitter um is becoming a particular
78. 3:25almost genre of writing you know and
79. 3:28there's uh a lot that goes into
80. 3:31effective tweeting and so if someone
81. 3:34were interested in sports um they they
82. 3:36say well I want to write for the New
83. 3:38York Times and so I'm just going to
84. 3:40concentrate on writing traditional long
85. 3:42form stories about baseball because
86. 3:45that's also what I'm interested in is
87. 3:47baseball it's important to not think
88. 3:49that narrowly certainly do that if
89. 3:50that's where you want to end up but uh
90. 3:54experimenting with different uh
91. 3:56platforms Beyond long form tweeting
92. 3:58Facebooking
93. 4:00blogging um opinion writing uh all
94. 4:05across the gamut uh the more diversity
95. 4:07of experience that a young journalist
96. 4:10coming into the field has both in what
97. 4:12they can demonstrate in their portfolio
98. 4:14as well as uh what they can demonstrate
99. 4:16in their performance on the job uh the
100. 4:18more success that they're going to have
101. 4:19and that goes for platforms if you will
102. 4:23uh as well as content subject matter
103. 4:26content so I would encourage continuing
104. 4:28to use sport
105. 4:30as um as the example um I would
106. 4:33encourage someone interested in sports
107. 4:35writing to experiment with public
108. 4:36affairs uh writing to experience
109. 4:39experiment with um business writing and
110. 4:41all across the gamut and then that that
111. 4:43would go both ways the more diversity of
112. 4:45experience that that someone has really
113. 4:46in any field uh the better the better
114. 4:48but particularly in journalism and
115. 4:50strategic Communications and
116. 4:52particularly today in those
117. 4:58fields