Engagement is more than just tweeting out links

It’s always disappointing to hear that something you have to do isn’t as simple as you might have thought.

Jake Batsell, a journalism instructor at Southern Methodist University and the author of “Engaged Journalism: Connecting with Digitally Empowered News Audiences,” says that for journalists wanting to engage with their audience, “It’s not about tweeting links to stories half-heartedly.”

Well dang.

Interviewing Batsell for PBS MediaShift, Sonia Paul asks, “Engagement is a buzzword across media circles all over the world now. How do you think most media makers are understanding it, though? Is it similar or different from the way you understand it?”

Batsell’s answer:

There’s a whole different conversation on how the wider world of communications defines engagement. I think from a journalism perspective, I think the sort of default knee-jerk definition a lot of people have in their heads is that engagement means interacting with audiences on social media. But especially after doing my work for the book, I’ve found it’s a much wider understanding than that. It’s not about tweeting links to stories half-heartedly. It’s about really and authentically integrating the audience into your work and mind when doing your job.

Batsell admits this isn’t easy:

Many journalists [I talked to] came out with the sense that, if done well, engaged journalism never really ends. We’re on social media, on Facebook and Twitter and Google Plus, and still—how can I do the shoe-leather reporting I still need to do? I can see from the freelancer perspective that it can be even more tough.

And here I thought half-heartedly tweeting links was going to get it done, didn’t you?