This month was a whirlwind for journalism. So many stories, so little time. And yet, news outlets still have not been able to crack the age-old question: how will the message reach the youth?
How, right? I mean we spend a majority of our time either fretting over school, work or that guy who slid into the DMs last week. News outlets are bringing great messages and notices every day and yet they fly over our heads without any contact. It's not because we just are not interested. Trust me, we are. Whenever the youth finds out about any catastrophe, including this year's election, we are whole-heartedly compassionate and intense about the notion. However, we really do not respond to the regular outlets of news, such as newspapers and televised news.
Sure, in the 21st century, news outlets now broadcast their breaking news via Twitter. But even that technique gets little to no attention. What actually gets attention are gossip tweets from those "relatable" accounts. And even those aren't reliable.
So what do the news outlets resort to? Snapchat, of course.
Snapchat journalism is a new and wild frontier. With Snapchat, the audience gets quick updates by checking the Snapchat spotlight channels, or by directly following the outlet. Personally, I follow on Snapchat Odyssey (@OdysseyOnline), NowThisNews (@NowThisNews), MTV (@MTV), and Teen Vogue (@TeenVogue). Also, there are the live channels whenever there is an event going on, such as the Democratic National Convention, where whoever has a Snapchat account can update that channel with live content from said event.
The con of Snapchat is that it isn't professional. The videos aren't professionally made, and sometimes miss the mark. When it comes to the Spotlight channels or live Snapchat stories, people are allowed to post from their own accounts. And not everyone posts with a genuine journalistic intention.
The reason why this tactic works so well is that the access and content are posted in real time, and therefore are up-to-date. Also, the content is presented in a way that is not filtered nor edited. And because of the audience is predominately youth, the accounts present the information in an intriguing way. Snapchat is like a live and mobile newspaper that is constantly changing. No other outlet is like that, with a raw view on the subject. Twitter and Facebook are easily edited, thus making a loophole on how true the story presented actually is. Snapchat journalism provides a real inside look that regular news outlets tend to erase.
Snapchat journalism is a new and experimental device.
