TAKEAWAY: Identify those writers in the team who have a specific expertise, and give them the space and recognition to present their knowledge and create a brand. It is a win win situation for everyone—-including the readers.
Here’s short video of USA Today promoting its columnist Michael Wolff
We hear the word “brand” used quite often these days. Some with good reason, as in our discussions of “branded journalism”, or when an advertiser wants to take his message to the brand of a newspaper or magazine where it will gain a desired audience. Perhaps it is safe to say that we are more aware of brands today than we were ten years ago. Every device we turn on flashes on dozens of brands our way.
Now I have read about the “reporter as brand” concept, which is really not new, but which we should pay more attention to. While I have used the perhaps more cynical term “cult of personality” (yes, I am told it carries negative connotations, but not in my use of it, trust me!) to encourage publishers and editors with whom I work to identify individuals in their teams who are specialists on a specific subject and who therefore should be writing columns and chronicles on those subjects, a recognition of their expertise.
For years, I have urged editors to have young members of their staffs writing columns.
We know only too well that the prestige of writing a column, in many newspapers, has been a reward for years of service. So John or Susan have been reporters at the newspaper for 25 years, time to give them a column to write. And, in many cases, John and Susan do a superb job as columnists.
But there are also those young talents in the newsroom who should also be tapped to write columns, not because of years served, but because of potential to be explored. When a newspaper is desperately trying to attract women readers between 25-35, for example, it needs to have columns written by staffers who are in that same age group. Your desired readers must see themselves on the pages (or screens) of the publication. It gives them a sense of connection.
For years, too, we have known that readers are particularly attracted to stories where a byline is accompanied by a photograph of the writer: it personalizes the engagement between reader and writer.
It is the digital age, and USA Today, which knows a thing or two about how to engage readers, is now promoting its columnists via short videos.
Great idea. Long overdue. Hope other newspapers everywhere follow the example.
Whether you call it applying the cult of personality or reporters as brands, it is the same idea: to put some faces, names and content together that your readers know they can come to your publication for.