Hello! My name is Angela Smith and I am the Digital Content Manager at KWCH 12 in Wichita, Kan. I began my career at KWCH in 2006 while attending Wichita State University where I received my bachelor’s degree in communications with an emphasis in electronic media. At KWCH, I helped launch Eyewitness News Saturday Morning as an associate producer. Other positions I have held throughout my nearly 15 years with the station include producer, assignment editor and now, I oversee the team’s digital products – KWCH.com, the KWCH app, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

No matter the position, the goal always remains the same: helping the community, holding the powerful accountable, bringing the story locally, and providing accurate, factual information.

Our viewers now have a number of ways to consume their news. I remember when Facebook was just for sharing photos and keeping up with old classmates from high school. Now, information is shared on the platform at such a rate that it oftentimes serves as the number one place where people get their daily news, sometimes even surpassing local news products.

Twitter serves as the hotspot for breaking news. What two big stories broke on the platform last week?

Supermodel Chrissy Teigen and her husband, John Legend, shared their story of miscarriage on Thursday. Teigen posted photos evoking empathy from not only her followers and fans but also other parents who have lost their own children before birth.

 

pic.twitter.com/iBFKYtYwi2

— chrissy teigen (@chrissyteigen) October 1, 2020

Then, early Friday morning, President Trump tweeted that he had tested positive for coronavirus. No official press releases or press conferences; the information came straight from the commander-in-chief. This, by far, was some of the most critical information shared on social media – first.

 

Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2020

News breaks now! It doesn’t wait for a newscast, and neither do news consumers. Social media allows businesses, organizations or individuals to communicate directly with their audiences. As a station, specifically in digital, our goal is to be first AND accurate when relaying that information to our own audience. We do this through push alerts, our own digital channels and then, on our newscasts at Noon/4/5/6/6:30/9/10 and This Morning.

As journalists today, we serve as a source of clarification to break down what you’ve been told, give context to the message and investigate to uncover the facts. In some cases, as with Teigen’s miscarriage, it is just as important to bring the story home on a local level to show how it’s impacting people in our community.

Who knew in 2020 most of our life would go virtual? Every day, we hold editorial meetings via Zoom to pitch ideas about what’s happening. We still get releases. We still attend press conferences. We work loosely assigned beats and always take tips, but several of the ideas we find are on social media. Through each medium, we can almost always communicate just as easily as making a phone call and doing a door knock. Those methods will never go away because nothing can beat person-to-person interaction, but social media gives us another tool to tell the stories that need to be told.

Ultimately, we always come back to the principles of journalism: accuracy, fairness (both sides of the story), does it help the community and does it hold the powerful accountable? Meeting those targets will never change.