Do we have “brands”? Or just reputations for our work?

Posted on November 22, 2011 by Patrick Garvin

A question I’ve struggled with recently is whether journalists have “brands.” I’ve heard that term a lot in the last year, at conferences and on websites, and I’m not always sure what to make of it.

I used to cringe when hearing that term. To me, it was a gimmicky word for marketers and advertisers that had no place in the sacred world of journalism. I, and other journalists like me, drew a distinction: Disney, Wal-Mart and Fox have brands, but we were just people. We were people who worked hard and wanted to be known for doing our particular jobs well, but we were just people.

But Joe Grimm, the guy who became known for the Jobs Page and “Ask The Recruiter,” changed the way I viewed the word “brand.” A few months ago at SND STL, he lectured a session called, “Building Your Digital Brand.” His overall message that was that your “brand,” if we call it that, is what you’re known for, and not some image that you manufacture.

If I and other journalists seem sensitive about the term, it’s because we’ve felt under scrutiny for wanting to promote our work. A few months ago, Gene Weingarten of The Washington Post wrote a column about journalists and brands.

Weingarten wrote the column as a letter to a reader named Leslie, who chose Weingarten as the subject of her journalism school graduate thesis. Weingarten writes:

The best way to build a brand is to take a three-foot length of malleable iron and get one end red-hot. Then, apply it vigorously to the buttocks of the instructor who gave you this question. You want a nice, meaty sizzle.

These are financially troubled times for our profession, Leslie — times that test our character — and it is disheartening to learn that journalism schools are responding to this challenge by urging their students to market themselves like Cheez Doodles.

And later, when talking about modern journalists…

Now, the first goal seems to be self-promotion — the fame part, the “brand.” That’s because we know that, in this frenetic fight for eyeballs at all costs, the attribute that is most rewarded is screeching ubiquity, not talent. It is why Snooki — who is quite possibly literally a moron — has a best-selling book. It is why the media superstars of today are no longer people such as Bob Woodward, who break big stories, but people like Bill O’Reilly, who yell about them.

Yikes. That column made me never want to use the word ever again. But Weingarten’s missive also kind of confused me, because I didn’t think it was bad for journalists to share their work. It gets shared in thousands of newspapers a day, so why is it so bad to group it together in one spot on the Internet? When I need ideas and inspiration, I love looking at other journalists’ portfolios. To me, having your work in one spot to share with other journalists (and potential future employers) was a good thing. Certainly not worthy of the hot poker.

Maybe it’s the word “brand” that bothered him. Because it certainly bothered me. But if Joe Grimm and other journalists are just using the word to represent your skills and work for which you’re known, then is there less fuss? Grimm even pointed out that Weingarten himself has made a name or “brand” (gasp!) for himself and that’s why he’s so valuable to The Washington Post. When you read Weingarten, you know what you’re getting and you probably read it (or don’t) because you know what you’re getting.

And it’s occurred to me that’s been true about several journalists I’ve admired over the years:

Mike Royko
Lewis Grizzard
Brian McGrory
Bill McClellan

I like all those guys, but not because of the mystique behind the name, but because I like the work they do.

Which was exactly Joe Grimm’s point:

“You don’t try to brand yourself. The thing that does it is the work. And it has to be real and authentic.”

Think of it this way. Let’s say you’re looking for a graphics person who can also illustrate. You’ll start listing the names whom you know can do what you want, and then you start comparing those people’s portfolios to narrow it down. Then, you’re no longer talking about names, but rather the work and skills that defines those names.

Knowing what you’re good at doing is important as news organizations struggle to stay afloat and rethink their strategies. Grimm says:

“It’s not enough to be good. You have to be good in a remarkable way…

…You need to be good, and you need to be good in a remarkable way, and it has to be a valuable way.”

And why does Grimm suggest this? So that you can do more good work. When I think of it that way, and don’t use the b-word at all, I think I get it.

Behind the Missouri School of Journalism’s Project 573

Posted on March 17, 2011 by Patrick Garvin

This week, the Missouri School of Journalism launched Project 573, a multi-disciplined, multimedia reporting project put together by 12 seniors representing the School of Journalism’s six sequences: broadcast, convergence, magazine, photojournalism, print and strategic communication.

They decided to report on the recession of the last few years and how it’s affected American life. The result is “The American Response,” which will be updated throughout the next few months. When it launched Monday, it already had photo galleries, videos, narratives and infographics. There’s even an interactive game.

Project 573 (so named for the area code) was put together by 12 seniors, overseen by two faculty advisers, Reuben Stern and Jacqui Banaszynski. I had both Reuben and Jacqui when I attended Mizzou’s J-school. It’s because of Reuben that I took my first infographics class and chose this path.

The project was conceived by Evan Bush and Adam Falk. I was impressed by the project, especially when you realize that the Kirk and Spock of the project were seniors who had all sorts of other things going on. I remember my capstone semester in college, and I barely could function well enough to remember to eat or get gas in the car, let alone run a project like this one. So, I wanted to get their perspectives. Evan took some time to answer my questions, the answers to which are below.

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How did you guys come up with Project 573?

The project was kind of a weird moment of serendipity. Adam [Falk] and I are roommates and we spend a lot of time on “shop talk” around the house. But the project was actually fleshed out in an excited text message/ Gchat conversation. Adam was at a journalism conference, and I texted him something like, “We need to make a documentary.” Just an off-the-cuff idea I’d had. Adam quickly reminded me that the J-school probably wouldn’t let us take a year off to shoot a documentary and that a collaboration with students of other interest areas would be much more interesting.

In New York, the conference Adam attended was about the future of journalism education. I think the wheels started turning for him there; he came back jazzed on journalism and couldn’t shut up about the conference.

So we took a step back, and the day he came back, hashed out the guts of our plan in a G-Chat conversation while Adam was at work and I was in class.

I had a lunch date with a couple of other students and Dean Mills. I just jumped in and said I’d been kicking around a crazy idea–that we could bring all the sequences at the J-school together for a big happy journalism mess. Dean had been at the New York conference with Adam, so they were sort of familiar with each other.

I told him we would like to meet with him. He agreed for the next week, and then the planning began.

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How did you pitch this? How was it received?

Adam and I went to Dean’s office just bubbling with excitement and energy. We took about an hour to get ready for school that day–like we were going to a senior prom or something. We practiced a basic elevator speech at home and tried not to get too excited.

When we walked in, we made small talk for a few minutes and we didn’t get halfway through the pitch before he jumped in with basic questions. We’d expected this thing to be a fight and we’d have to have a lot of ammo.

After a couple of easy questions, he said something to the effect of, “Sounds great, let’s take the next step.”

We kind of looked at each other like, “Uh…is that a yes…and if so…let’s figure out a couple of next steps.”

It kind of felt like he’d already made up his mind before we’d even stepped foot in his office.

We’ve had a lot of feelings like that in Dean’s office. We’ll get geared up for a big pitch to him and then walk into his office and he’s already excited and ready to support us however he can.

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How did the other 10 seniors get involved with Project 573?

The hardest pitches we’ve made were to students, although pretty much everyone we talked to was interested right away. We contacted students individually based on our experiences with them in classes and seeing people’s work out there. We asked professors for recommendations. We came up a one-sheet pitch to give people.

Adam and I met with them individually, gave them a basic elevator speech, answered questions and let them take a few days to decide. Pretty much everyone we contacted was interested right away and it usually became a logistics question–how the heck are we going to get everybody Capstone credit in an established system.

It took a lot of work to make sure everyone could fit into a schedule and graduate on time.

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How did you divvy up the workload among the group?

It was a process. We didn’t know what we were doing as managers right away and weren’t comfortable taking complete ownership over a group project. We thought it was going to be really important to get everyone on board with the idea and then go from there. For the first few weeks, we had really vague discussions about what we as a group wanted the project to be.

Everyone was really interested in a truly collaborative process, but it became clear that at some level they needed someone to drive the boat. Adam and I decided to be co-editors with the group’s support and take that role so people would feel comfortable with a structure.

After that, things became more collaborative and everyone started to feel more comfortable. We all brainstormed an organizational structure where we divvied out administrative workload. We decided that everyone would be reporting, editing and either designing or helping conceptualize design.

I’d read a bit about Google’s 20% model. Basically, Googlers get to use 20% of their time however they choose as long as it fits within the mission of Google. We put that in place right before winter break and people have taken ownership of some supplementary things we call “pet projects.” For example, all of our bio videos were produced by Alex Rozier, who chose working on them as his pet project.

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How long had you been working on this before you went live?

We spent one semester in a one-hour class conceptualizing, planning, pre-reporting and designing a website. But any true reporting and web development began the last week of January when we put our noses to the grindstone and began going out into the community and working on stories.

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What kind of hurdles did you experience when working on this?

Woof. What a question.

First off, Adam and I had little to no experience in management. But we were confident (read: stupid) enough to give it a shot. Learning on the fly when 10 people are expecting results from you has its ups and downs. We have learned more about group dynamics, how to get people excited, how to lead meetings, and how to execute an idea more than any Business 4000 class could ever teach you. We were fortunate enough to recruit patient and forgiving people that liked us (or pretended to at least) enough to stick it out when we didn’t know what the heck we were doing.

Kind of along those lines, getting people on board with this thing was tough. Our class in the Fall met for one hour each week at 8 a.m. No amount of coffee was going to get everybody pumped about Project 573 consistently each class session at that time. We worked really hard at making sure everyone was involved in all the big decisions and that they began to feel ownership of this project. We had to transfer ownership from the two of us, to everyone else. By the end of the Fall semester, we’d begun to feel really confident about the way the group was starting to gel and take initiative. At the end of the semester, we had a 4-hour meeting outside of class on a Saturday. Best decision we made. Everything kind of culminated and we came together as a group. That was the moment we knew everyone was on board and ready to get out there and report.

Settling on a topic took about 8 weeks. To get everyone on board, we needed something universal, and something every reporter could get behind. So we spent a lot of time talking about what we valued in journalism. In the end, our group decided that we wanted to focus our reporting on people and universal themes.

We wanted to report on something that we would have an advantage covering in Missouri, but that would resonate on a national level. So we settled on telling the story of the economy in the heartland.

Equipment was a challenge. We wanted to shoot video on DSLRs–Nikon D7000s–because we felt like we could get more camera for the J-school’s buck. And we definitely did, but we didn’t know the equipment.

Adam, myself, Andrew Feiler and Dan Brenner came up with an equipment list that basically amounted to endless Googling of photography and videography blogs. The equipment we’re using took a lot of time to put together and is unlike anything the J-school currently has. It’s amazing stuff, but it has quirks no one at Mizzou really knows how to fix.

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What was easier than you expected?

Convincing the dean. Finding a developer. We found a guy to develop our site for free because he needed a portfolio piece. He is an absolute animal and stayed up for about 3 days finishing our site recently. He gets the web, understands journalism, and has been a pleasure to work with. All for free. Could we have stumbled into a better deal? Public Service Announcement: Josh Smith. Hire him yesterday.

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What surprises came up that you weren’t expecting?

We asked Jacqui Banaszynski to guest lecture for our class. She’s a Pullitzer-prize winning journalist who coaches writing at Mizzou. She came into Project 573 and gave a quick chat that had everyone’s jaws touching their desks. A month and a half later, she agreed to help with story coaching. Basically, she helps our reporters conceptualize stories and brainstorm how to tell them. And she suggests ways to improve stories as they come along.

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You blogged and Tweeted with this project way before Project 573’s March 14 launch date. How did this help you lay the groundwork and get interest in the community?

Community engagement is something we thought was incredibly important to start with. It’s something we didn’t know enough about and kind of did a lot of trial and error to get figured out. We have an amazing strategic communications student, Campbell Massie, working on the project. The three of us have talked a lot about improving engagement. It’s a new area for all of us, and we’ve been experimenting with it. Having an online presence was very important to us, but it was hard to justify that without content. We started a blog and started pushing that out as a way to engage with people, find an audience and get connected with social media.

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When putting this project together, from whom, where or what did you draw inspiration?

First, we looked at top student multimedia projects that we thought had similar ideas to us. We wanted a mark set that we could shoot for. Not to pigeonhole us as student journalists, but with full class schedules and the limitations of a college life, we wanted to set expectations that were attainable, yet of the highest quality. We drew inspiration from University of North Carolina’s Powering a Nation and the Soul of Athens project at the University of Ohio. We sought out some of the students who had worked on those projects and had gone onto professional careers in multimedia and chatted with them about what to expect.

After that, it’s a mixed bag of things we thought were awesome journalism. NPR’s Planet Money helped us understand broad economic concepts. The New York Times has some fantastic multimedia work in One in 8 Million and a variety of other projects. Little video blogs like Californiaisaplace were great examples of storytelling and compelling shooting.

Inspiration came from anywhere and everywhere. It just had to have a core that focused on dynamic, well-reported storytelling.

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What plans are there for this project to continue after you all graduate and move on with your careers?

We don’t have anything hard and fast lined up, but a big part of this project has been trying to find juniors to take the mantle over. One of our group member’s pet projects is to recruit new, talented students to take ownership of Project 573 and take it from here. We have a handful of people that have shown interest and expect to have more interested following the launch.

A lot of the professors in the J-school think this project is important and some have expressed interest in helping that continue. Entrepreneurship and innovation are becoming hot words at Mizzou right now, and we hope this will open the floodgates for plenty more projects with bold goals and students at the helm.

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If you’re hiring this spring, consider these students. Seriously. Be sure to check out the “Meet The Team” bios on each person. Their candid videos about the future of journalism shows their excitement for trial and error. These students have some interesting ideas and don’t seem to be afraid of the possibilities. That’s pretty refreshing, and inspiring.

“Jen Aniston sex tape” and 7 viral video traits

Posted on March 11, 2011 by Patrick Garvin

If you clicked on any of the “Jen Aniston sex tape” links hoping to see Aniston having sex, then you did exactly what they wanted you to do.

“They” being Smart Water, who hired Jennifer Aniston to make a commercial for the company’s bottled water. The video is not a sex tape at all, unless you’re Ozzie and Harriet and can be aroused by hair and lipstick. No, this video was a spoof on viral videos — and an attempt to create a viral video.

I spent last week looking up what makes a viral video, hoping to pin down what made these things work. The guys behind this ad seem to know how to make a viral video. What resulted was a video that included references to general trends and specific viral videos. Some of the references might have been too specific for casual web users, though meme-savvy people will get it.

So, I give you the breakdown of this viral video from the perspective of a guy who trolls the Internetz, but who has never made a viral video. My only research — besides looking up “how videos go viral” and “how to make a viral video” — has been tracking lots of videos and memes.

If I’ve learned anything, it’s this: The Internet is a scary place. So, let’s go.

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1. REFERENCES TO OTHER VIRAL VIDEOS

Of course this video references past viral videos; that’s what makes it a parody. The whole video references trends, but I could count three specific videos referenced:

“Numa Numa”
“Ally McBeal” Dancing baby (which predates YouTube)
“Double rainbow”

The “Numa Numa” video has been referenced before in a Geico commercial in which the zealous lip-syncing guy with glasses was shown with the Geico gecko. Funny or Die parodied the “David After Dentist” video with “Bieber After the Dentist.” That “David After Dentist” video was mashed up with the Christian Bale tirade video, and it was hilarious.

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2. CELEBRITIES

Would this Smart Water ad have been as funny without a celebrity? I don’t think so. The “David After Dentist” video inspired several parodies, but it was the Justin Bieber parody that went viral. The James Vandermemes video earlier this year worked because it featured a celebrity making fun of himself.

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3. KIDS

People love kids on the Internet. They don’t have to be cute or even well-behaved. Precocious kids, it seems, get lots of page views.

This kid in the Jennifer Aniston Smart Water video is especially precocious, lip-syncing to Far East Movement and responding with sass to Aniston’s questions. It was scripted, of course, but came off as real, which is another thing that can help videos go viral.

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4. AUTHENTICITY

The little kid might have been one of the only authentic things in this commercial, but at least we knew it was scripted from the beginning. Some of my favorite viral videos have that “Holy shit, is this real?” quality to them. And they feature people who aren’t afraid to do something silly (hence, “Numa Numa.”)

Newscasts with weird characters or mistakes are especially good for authenticity. Antoine Dodson became a meme after he was featured in a newscast about his sister being assaulted. I don’t think they’ve caught the perp, but Antoine Dodson has inspired several parodies (many including Dodson himself). The subsequent Antoine Dodson videos have not been funny, in my opinion, because he’s too aware that he’s trying to get your attention and make you laugh.

Citizen journalism we can all get behind

Posted on December 1, 2010 by Patrick Garvin

I share with you today a man’s reflections on the lessons he learned from cancer. This was published on a site wholly dedicated to “citizen journalism.” In other words, user-submitted content.

This was published Tuesday, Nov. 30, two days after he died.

My favorite part:

4. Cancer has taught me to be a more patient and loving father.

…I am more patient with [his daughter]. I treasure all of the little things she does because I know I won’t be there for all of the big milestones. I may never see her drive a car, but watching her driving her Power Wheels Jeep up and down our driveway, turning to look over her shoulder before she backs up, is a cherished memory I will always have.I may never see her get married, but hearing her talk about “boyfriends” at the age of four already raises those protective feelings in me. I may never see her graduate from school, but seeing her starting to read and write, knowing things even I have trouble with, I know she is going to be just fine.

But it’s not the cry factor that leads me to share this with you. It’s that it highlights the possibilities of citizen journalism sites. Some time back, the Columbia Missourian and the Missouri School of Journalism started MyMissourian.com, which came with the tagline, “Grassroots Journalism for Mid-Missourians.”

From the website:

All content on MyMissourian comes from stories submitted by you! Go to “Share a story or photo” to start your own conversation.

With some rules:

1. No profanity
2. No nudity
3. No personal attacks
4. No attacks on race, religion, national origin, gender and sexual orientation.

I heard some grumbling about citizen journalism attempts, and must admit that besides the occasional Facebook post, I didn’t check out many of these postings. I’m sure the YouTube videos I chose to watch instead were not worth it, but at least I’m honest.

But this piece was pretty moving. I’ll admit, I wouldn’t have checked it out had it not come recommended via Facebook and Twitter by Jacqui Banaszynski, who is a Knight Chair Professor at the Missouri School of Journalism, Poynter Fellow, Pulitzer winner and teller of some of the best stories I heard in J-school. In other words, it took someone with serious street cred to make me even look at this piece. After reading this piece, I should be willing to read it even if it’s posted in a men’s room stall.

Sure, there are probably some real bombs that get e-mailed to the site, and whomever has to wade through those deserves a beer. But if there more straightforward, honest and humbling pieces like this, then I’ll continue to read MyMissourian.com. From New England.