Engaging new audiences in a 150-year-old newsroom
5 questions with Allison Shirk on always learning new things for your career, for your audiences
In PRESS AHEAD’s 5 Questions series, journalists share practical advice about journalism jobs and newsroom careers.
Allison Shirk’s career path shows one of the most rewarding aspects of journalism as a job — the possibility of always learning AND sharing that with others.
She’s now the digital and engagement editor at the Chattanooga Times Free Press in Tennessee, but she got her start doing a little bit of everything in a small newsroom. She then tackled digital reporting, data viz, business reporting, audience development and community outreach, among other skills. Along the way, she shared her knowledge with her newsrooms as well as students as an adjunct university professor. (See below for some links to resources she shares with us as well.)
In this Q&A, Allison talks about the lure of local news, the challenge (and opportunity) of having the first true audience-centric role in a 150-year-old newsroom, the digital and engagement skills every journalist should have and more.
Why journalism as a career for you?
Writing has always been one of my greatest strengths and I consider myself an adventurous and curious person, so naturally, journalism seemed like a practical but interesting field to choose for a career. I still remember visiting the local newspaper, the Omaha World Herald, when I was in elementary school and watching the printing press run and being in awe at all the pieces that have to come together to put out a daily paper.
As a mission-driven person, it seemed like a career where I could really contribute to something bigger than myself. I didn’t officially claim journalism as my major until junior year of college after I returned from a study abroad program in Morocco where I spent months reporting a story on young activists during the Arab Uprisings. That experience and being able to follow a group of people and story so closely for months solidified for me that journalism was the route I wanted to take.
What was your first job and how did you get it?
Despite being the digital and engagement editor in my newsroom now — a role that really wouldn’t have existed at a newsroom the size of mine 10 years ago — my trajectory in journalism has been relatively traditional. I started at a small-town newspaper in North Port, Florida, where I was one of only four, full-time reporters and I made $12 an hour. It wasn’t glamorous and definitely didn’t pay well but it got me in the door and I learned more there than I think I would’ve learned elsewhere or at a larger newspaper. I had to cover everything at one point or another, including crime, courts, city government and business. After about two years there, I moved to a larger newspaper across the state, the Daytona Beach News-Journal. That’s where I learned all of my digital reporting and data journalism skills. I became involved with Investigative Reporters and Editors, benefiting from a few scholarships and grants from them, and I became an unofficial data viz and Excel trainer in the newsroom.
After about two years there I moved up to Chattanooga, Tennessee, for my partner’s job and found a role as a business reporter for the Chattanooga Times Free Press. After a year or so in that role, the digital editor at the time left and I was hired into that position but with a revamped name and set of job duties. The “digital and engagement editor” role in my newsroom now truly is the first audience-centric role we’ve ever had in the 150-year-old newsroom. My main job is to supervise a team of four that maintains our website, email newsletters and social media, but when I’m not doing that then I’m strategizing on how we can better engage and reach current and new audiences with our stories and online products. My job involves a lot of outreach with community organizations and partners and I also work fairly closely with our marketing, advertising and circulation teams. I have also been an adjunct communications professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga for about five semesters now.
What specific advice do you have for someone breaking into journalism?
Two pieces of advice initially come to mind:
You probably won’t start out in the most glamorous role but you can make a decent living in this career field if you work hard. There are digital startups and nonprofits hiring reporters at much higher starting salaries than I was offered when I first entered the field and with all of the different hybrid roles existing in a newsroom now, there are a lot of creative ways you can make an impact on journalism, especially local journalism. I wanted to be a foreign correspondent and travel the world but have created a successful career so far in local journalism where I feel like I’m needed most. Please, PLEASE consider putting your good skills to use in a local news organization. WEHCO Media newsrooms across Arkansas and in Chattanooga would love to have you.
Too many young reporters come into my newsroom without digital and engagement skills I feel they should already have. Know how to write an SEO-friendly web headline, promote yourself on Twitter, take decent photos and videos on your phone, create simple data visualizations and crunch data for your stories, learn how to calmly and effectively engage readers who don’t always agree with your reporting and look for new ways to ask your audience what you should be reporting on. This is a digital-reporter’s checklist I give to every new hire in my newsroom.
What’s the best career advice you’ve ever gotten/lessons learned?
Never. Stop. Learning. Always be a student of the industry and that is how you will set yourself apart from everyone else. The industry is changing and evolving at a rapid pace right now as we all try to figure out how to create and maintain sustainable journalism. From the start of my career until now, I’ve made a point of attending conferences, completing trainings and courses and seeking out grants to help elevate and support my work and my newsroom’s work.
These are just a few organizations that I’ve worked with in recent years and almost all of them provide grants or resources to help you and your organization do quality journalism: Trusting News, Poynter Table Stakes program, American Press Institute, Report for America, Online News Association, Google News Initiative, Solutions Journalism Network and Investigative Reporters and Editors. I also like many of the free, online courses that Knight Center for Journalism has available.
Anything else you’d want to tell student journalists/early career journalists?
You are coming into journalism at a really exciting time and you get the chance to recreate an industry that is more focused on the audience’s needs and community’s needs. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me at ashirk@timesfreepress.com. I’m happy to help.
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Thank you for sharing your experience and specific advice, Allison!
For more about Allison, find her on Twitter and read on ONA about her vision for the future of digital journalism (she’s running for the board there).
— Amy
Here’s a cat gif for further inspiration and as thanks for reading. And if you want to learn more about finding jobs and navigating newsrooms, sign up to get future posts in your inbox. It’s more fun than a cat who doesn’t know how to high-five.
👇 More good stuff after the cat 🐱👇
Good stuff links!
Upstart news outlets are leading a media revolution in communities of color (Chronicle of Philanthropy)
Small companies are buying rural newspapers – but who will run them? (RJI)
How to be different — and better — this election (American Press Institute)
A third of U.S. TikTok users say they regularly get their news from it (Tech Crunch) … and an overview of news by platforms (Pew Research)
In case you missed it!
A sampling of previous PRESS AHEAD newsletter editions:
Building an audience-centric career. Insights from a reporter’s first year in the newsroom. Quick (and free!) ways to explore new skills. Secrets of salary offers. 3 ways to make your portfolio stand out. Q&A: ‘Mildly rebellious, highly curious.’ First/best/worst schedule in a newsroom. See how you compare to U.S. journalists surveyed. How to tell the world you’re looking for a job. 4 questions to ask job candidates (and be prepared to answer if you’re the candidate). Ignore the job description (sometimes). On finding audiences, finding jobs and finding purpose. How do I get experience when I have no experience? What if we approached our career development like a reporter? How did this newsletter begin? Who’s behind it? How can you benefit and WHY SO MANY QUESTIONS?