A Digital Anchor Ahead of Her Time
Plus ... surprising data on how often podcasts are updated, and hear me on a podcast!
Amy Wood has long been a hero of mine. Amy jumped on the digital news bandwagon early and has been a champion of it throughout her career. Unlike many broadcast journalists, she saw digital media as a help, not a threat, to informing the local audience about the news. She is currently an anchor in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Here is our Q&A with Amy Wood.
Image: Amy Wood
You’ve always been ahead of the curve in digital media. I think the first time I saw your work was about 20 years ago. Were you always a digital native?
More than anything I’ve always been a connector and digital/social media arrived on scene to make that easier than ever to achieve. I still love to go to a church or school and speak but, instantly in a live stream, I can reach several hundred to 1,000 people and have a personal interaction with them. It’s “public appearances” on steroids. From that you get a special relationship with your audience , story ideas news tips, etc.
As we know, not every newsie bought into web news at the start. Do you still see reluctance?
Not really, especially in our newest hires. They are fully skilled and fully comfortable with all the platforms and the ways in which we can reach people including live streaming. I do think there are stations trying to mandate station (social media) pages and that’s a mistake, because you’re taking away the incentive of the employee building a following, and you punish the audience by cutting the employee off from the audience when they move on.
Social media is personal, and connecting with an anchor or reporter is something that both the audience and the anchors/reporters want to sustain. They want to follow our career paths and they want to stay in touch. Why do we train employees when we know they’re going to leave us? We do it to bring out the best work while they’re with us. The same should go for social media — build a following that will help while they are with us and it will also live on after they move to their next spot.
What could local news do to improve its overall coverage? How much would be digital?
I think we are ripe for creating digital specific content. I do something called #TheNewsNugget, just talking about some of the top stories on the station website, pointing out the headlines that I found interesting for the day, helping people catch up on content and pushing people to stories on the web. Basically, it’s like being a personal guide to our website and the news that’s on it.
Have you ever been “called to the principal’s office” for using digital media when the station wasn’t?
Who me? The pioneering rebel? No way! 😂
I’m making you a news director. What’s your first order of business?
To solve this you need to make me an executive. I would focus on culture/retention. Translation? Put heart into your leadership, which costs nothing, and raise salaries/tweak benefits.
We can’t run newsrooms across the country with entry-level talent. We have to pepper our news rooms with a variety of levels so that we don’t have dangerous knowledge gaps and everyone has an opportunity to learn and grow.
Anything else you think we should know?
We need a more collaborative mindset in our industry that works toward making things happen. Don’t shoot down ideas (right away). Take ideas that may be a little bit out of the box and massage them into something that helps employees soar along with the companies they serve.
I’d also like to see stations tap into employees’ passions and gifts. Ask them what they think. So many employees are waiting for a chance to share brilliant solutions.
Thanks to Amy Wood for this week’s Remote Notes Q&A!
NEWS AND NOTES
TOO MUCH TALKING DURING ROYAL FUNERAL: Here’s my rant. During yesterday’s funeral for Queen Elizabeth II, American anchors could not shut up. There were solemn moments they talked over, not demonstrating respect for the occasion. It’s a funeral, we don’t need laughing, talking heads stepping all over it. In a Facebook message, Professor R.D. Sahl of the Boston University College of Communications, and a longtime anchor, wrote: (It’s) An event rich in visuals and natural sound. Let it happen.
MEGHAN MARKLE’S PODCAST DEBUTS: The timing isn’t great (unless it’s perfect), but Meghan Markle’s “Archetypes” podcast has launched. Her guests have been Serena Williams, Mindy Kaling and Mariah Carey.
The Spotify-only podcast launched in August, but was put on hold for the official mourning period of Queen Elizabeth II. The reviews have not been kind. Writes CafeMom:
The Daily Mail rounded up a few reviews, and some of them are a bit harsh. Telegraph journalist Celia Walden accused Meghan of interviewing herself instead of Serena, comparing her to a person who "hijacks every distressing anecdote with one of their own – only theirs is longer drawn-out, more distressing."
Of course, the British press has a history of treating the Duchess of Sussex poorly. With only three episodes so far, we’ll give “Archetypes” a few more episodes before rendering a verdict.
CNN SHUFFLES TEAM, WILL DEVELOP NEW AM SHOW: CNN mornings are going to look a lot different. Nightside host Don Lemon is moving to the mornings, and will be joining the net’s Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins. Lemon says his move is a promotion, but the numbers suggest otherwise. His 10 p.m. show was the lowest-rated of the prime-time cable news talk shows.
The move indicates CNN is looking to open that 10 p.m. slot and improve its numbers. No word as to what will replace “Don Lemon Tonight.”
ONLY A SMALL PERCENT OF PODCASTS ARE UPDATED: There are four million podcasts indexed on Spotify. While that may sound like a lot, it turns out only a fraction are current and regularly updated. According to Amplifi Media and Podnews, less than four percent of those podcasts are active.
With four million podcasts, less than a third created more than 10 episodes; 17 percent of those produced at least one podcast in the last year; and 3.9% of the podcasts have produced a podcast in the last 10 days.
It would seem a lot of people started podcasts during the pandemic, but have stopped creating new episodes. Our take? Don’t let the big four million number stop you from creating your own podcast, and don’t start a podcast unless you have a plan to update it every 7-10 days.
LINKS AND LIKES
PODCASTER QUIETLY MAKING $18K A MONTH: White noise is a popular podcast choice, helping people go to sleep, mediate or drown out office sounds. There are plenty of white noise podcasts out there. But one is doing really well. According to Bloomberg, Todd Moore, a Florida Keys resident, is earning $18,000 a month with his “Tmsoft's White Noise Sleep Sounds.”
The white noise “show” gets 50,000 listeners a day, putting it in the top 25% of all podcasts. Sometimes, the podcast is a story, but usually it’s just sound - as in nine hours of rain or the hum of a gas heater. Whoosh … (Apple, Spotify)
WHY A NEWSPAPER SUBSCRIPTION IS WORTH YOUR MONEY: “Investing in your local newspaper is investing in your community, and a very wise investment indeed.” So begins an excellent essay in The Eagle-Tribune, which serves parts of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The paper, which has existed for 155 years, is raising its rates. So it decided to explain why.
While putting out a daily newspaper is, of course, a labor of love for us, it still is not cheap … Like so many others, we are dealing with substantial increases in costs of materials and labor that are necessary to keep the newspaper strong. For example, the cost of the paper we print your newspaper on is up more than 30% over last year – and that’s just one example.
Subscription rates for The Eagle-Tribune start at $24.99 a month.
CLAPTON CONCERT MINI-REVIEW: Eric Clapton just wrapped a mini-tour of the US, where he had shows in Columbus, Ohio (he has a home there), Detroit, Chicago, Boston and New York. I caught the Boston show, and found it to be a disappointment.
IMAGE: Eric Clapton at the TD Garden, Boston, Sept. 16th, 2022.
Clapton was low on energy, and he continues his habit of taking perfectly good rockers like “After Midnight” and slowing them to a crawl. Full credit - Clapton is 77 and I felt lucky to see him. But Jimmie Vaughn (71) opened for him, and put on a much more enthusiastic performance.
This sends me on a tangent: Why do local papers still review major concerts? It’s not like a play, where you’re trying to decide if you want to see it. The show has usually moved on to the next city by the time you’re reading the review. I’d put my music writer on the local beat and have them seek out great acts you can catch regularly.
BEYOND THE REMOTE
I’M ON A PODCAST: Want to hear me on a podcast? Among the ones that I produce is New England Lacrosse Journal’s “Chasing the Goal,” which has an audience of high school and collegiate lax players and their families. For the first time, I went on the podcast, as we produced a “Behind the Scenes” show. Listen here:
Here we are:
That’s me in the middle, with hosts Jack Piatelli on the left and Kyle Devitte on the right. (We obviously dress very formally at work.)
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REMOTE NOTES
Newsletter #22
Copyright 2022
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I agree on the concert reviews what is the point – great suggestion! ask for Clapton - Lord help me if I’m still doing the news at 77. My read rate will be down to 5 miles an hour. As for Anchors that talk through moments that should be carried by natural sound #ShameOnThem!