Creating User Generated Content that works

Making User Generated Content That Works

My last post addressed why User Generated Content (USG) isn't being utilized effectively in most news organizations. This blog will cover the opposite.

First, great journalism of the future will require user generated content. Newsrooms currently expect regular multi-media journalists to dig deep into a topic or storyline. In order for a reporter to dig deep, they have to have enough understanding of the topic to ask the next right questions.

Pity the poor reporter given this assignment: Why did XYZ Bank end up on the FDIC watch list? What does that mean to the Bank, what does it mean to the depositers, what does it mean to the people with loans? How many warnings had it received, what is causing the financial difficulty, what will be required to get the bank off of the watch list? Speak to some industry insiders find out how the bank can get off of the list. What would the likelyhood of raising the proper capital to get the bank out of trouble? How can they raise the capital in the current market conditions?

Due to the paper's new multi-media journalist policy, which requires all journalists to cover all story assignments, the reporter will immediately find himself at a disadvantage unless he is a veteran business writer. Most news organizations don't have such expertise on staff so the reporter is stuck trying to write about something they don't know the first thing about.

Under a viable UGC policy, there would be a section on the newspaper's website for developing stories. The reporter would start with the basic story and post it in this section, allowing the process to take advantage of the USG theory of better journalism.

In a USG world, a reporter will have their contact lists categorized to include business leaders, elected officials, school experts, savvy local pundits, and a variety of consultants. The journalist will sort through the contacts and send out a brief questionnaire form to make it easy for the source to participate in the story, along with a link to the posted story labeled “in development.” The questionnaire will allow for attachments of pertinent information such as pictures, video, charts and graphs.

The returned questionnaire forms will provide a host of new information and angles on what the real story is. Those ideas and concepts will be posted along with the story in progress as the reporter continues to develop the final product.

As the story captures more interest, more people chime in, utilizing the questionnaire linked to the story, providing even more rich content from sources the reporter didn't even know existed. Now he has the makings of a great story.

This process can be adopted to include nearly every subject matter from governmental mergers to fashion design, and the list goes on ad infinitum. This style of UGC creates a town hall meeting that captures the knowledge of a community and beyond to get closer to the truth on any given topic. We don't set up reporters for unrealistic expectations when writing a story, they now have plenty of help.

Journalism is just at the beginning stages of being better than it every has been. The tools are available to make it easy to create content like never before. Add social media applications to this, and now you really have something. More on that later.