In the midst of an unusually busy week — both as a news reporter/editor and as a regular citizen battling our own property damages from the recent floods — we spent a day with our friend and mentor, magnoliareporter.com publisher Mike McNeill, at one of Arkansas’s prime destinations, Oaklawn. Knowing nothing about horse racing and being a first-timer at the park, Yours Truly placed no bets, but did enjoy a corned beef sandwich. In our travels, though, we talked shop: Artificial Intelligence, our respective experiences in the news business, Arkansas politics, and how we source news in a time when everyone is a reporter on social media. Mike, whose website just celebrated its 15th anniversary, has his routine down to a science, whereas The Arkadelphian, four years in business this summer, still has some things to learn. Thankfully, Mike always lends an electronic ear in our times of seeking advice. Our question, asked this time in person, was “How do you get news from organizations that post all their information on social media?”
For both of us, competing against media giants like Facebook or X is an aggravating uphill battle, and one that only we in the media business seem to comprehend. Both our websites serve our respective communities as a central hub of information aimed at showcasing local flavor and letting people know what’s happening. In addition to our routine of compiling public information into news reports, we scour countless websites daily so that our readers don’t have to. Each of our paywall-free news websites are visited by thousands of readers each day (in full disclosure, we aspire to one day attain Mike’s reach). The content our viewers see doesn’t appear based on a calculated algorithm; instead, it’s manually placed in certain sections, with much thought happening behind the scenes.
If your organization — whether it be a school district, church, nonprofit, etc. — relies solely on Facebook to get your news out to the community, you can bank on your post going widely unseen or buried in Facebook’s algorithm. We’re not condemning the use of Facebook, but rather recommending that you also share news with the community’s daily news source.
It takes only a few moments to email news to editor@arkadelphian.com. Spelling bee winners. Pom Squad accolades. Elementary school plays. Tent revivals. Civic club fundraisers. If you’ve seen it printed in a newspaper, we want it, and our readers do, too.
As a one-man newsroom, it’s impossible to be everywhere at once, but in this digital age, it remains possible for mass media organizations such as arkadelphian.com to get the word out to the community at large. Help us help you. The news ain’t all bad.
Joel Phelps is publisher and editor of arkadelphian.com. Views expressed in Bits & Pieces are his own. Email your organization’s news to editor@arkadelphian.com. Mike, we must have been thinking the same thing at the same time.
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