Social Media
I believe that, for better or for worse, social media is the new print journalism. Just like how newspaper stands would run out of papers by noon, the younger generation wakes up and opens Instagram to get their daily dose of the world’s latest news. Having informative yet engaging content is what will keep a publication relevant on social media. The attention drawn from the major platforms such as TikTok, X, Facebook and Instagram will keep publications sustainable through this unprecedented time of social media.
While it is sad that we as a society are on the track to lose the art form of print journalism, we must pour the energy once used in print to social media. Having credible news sources on social media, a place that is flooded with misinformation, will be critical to the future of journalism.
Leadership in social media
In past year’s, The Tower’s Instagram has been somewhere that not many students view. As to any student paper, this is concerning, considering the student publication is where students should get at least a fraction of their weekly news. Now, we are getting more student interactions on average than in previous years, with over 1,500 accounts reached weekly. I believe it may be credited to one key change I have directed our Social Media Manager to do.
After visiting the University of Michigan’s paper, The Michigan Daily, during my apprenticeship with the Detroit Free Press, I followed The Michigan Daily on all social media platforms. Just like every other news publication, they “tease” their stories by posting the stories photo with the headline over it with the caption being the first two to three paragraphs of the full story. The goal is that the tease will interest readers enough to read the full story online- or even subscribe.
This is a tease of a story I wrote about our principal becoming the Assistant Superintendent of Human Relations within our district. I knew that this story would get plenty of attention considering it was a story that many students cared about. As editor, I go through each story and decide if they should be teased or not. The criteria to meet for a story to be put on social media is if the story was well written, timely, newsworthy and will grab the attention of our audience.
At the start of this school year, The Tower’s advisor switched to Shannon Singer, previously an English and History teacher who has no formal education in journalism, but co-advised a high school newspaper and yearbook at Eisenhower High School as student teacher, and was Editor-in-Chief of her high school newspaper. While Mrs. Singer has done an excellent job of learning quickly to the new and, at times, incredibly stressful job, this year has been a learning experience for the whole staff. This year has been full of making small changes and adapting as we go to produce the best work possible.​
An example of this is our social media sign ups. From September-February social media would be on the same schedule as our print content. This means that some social media posts would not get published until weeks after the event. I saw this as an opportunity to improve this platform as it is now the key to our paper. Now, social media posts are due according to the individual post. For example, if the post is about the Oscar results, that will be posted the next day after the show, rather than weeks after.
Examples from our staff wide Google Sheet pre-plan that lists all of the staff's content for that issue, along with separate social media sections.
My work in Social Media
In November, I took on the task of covering our local school board and millage proposals during the 2024 election. After writing both a voters guide for the school board election and a Q&A for the millage proposal, I stayed up until around 2 a.m on election night to report on them. I was committed to getting out the local school election and national presidential election results in a timely manner. I am always looking for something new for the staff everywhere I go. I was proud The Tower was the first news outlet in my city to announce the election results.
