Introducing myself and Chalkbeat’s effort to serve you better

Good morning, Chalkbeat Tennessee readers!

As promised, we want to continue to update you about our journey to becoming Chalkbeat. (In case you missed it, we told you why we created Chalkbeat, introduced you to our bureau chief Daarel Burnette and our newest reporter Jackie Zubrzycki.

Today, I want to tell you briefly about my job as “director of engagement.” I was hired as a reporter at GothamSchools– one of the websites that helped create Chalkbeat– in New York in April and then became Chalkbeat’s first “director of engagement” a couple months ago. We define engagement as, “the body of work that maximizes our readers’ opportunities to access, learn from, interact with, and act on our journalism.” In simpler terms, it means I want to get more people to read, share and talk about our stories.

Reporters can write dozens of stories a day that expose problems or spur debate, but if no one sees those stories, does the reporting even matter? Bet you can guess my answer. I’ll be making sure our reporting makes it to the people who need it most. (You can read more about my engagement strategy and my background in this Q&A published by ReportHers).

While I’ll be overseeing our engagement efforts at all four of our bureaus, I’ll be based in New York and will work closely with New York community editor Emma Sokoloff-Rubin and Colorado community editor Tiffany Montano– you’ll hear from both of them next week. We hope to hire a community editor in Tennessee soon!

Here’s what my job means for Chalkbeat Tennessee readers:

1. A strong sense of community: We want Chalkbeat Tennessee to be a place where educators, policymakers and families can come to voice their concerns, talk to one another and ultimately, act in a way that leads to better schools for everyone. One way I want to achieve that is by improving our comments section. I’ve worked with our bureau chiefs to write a new comments policy that will be shared with you and enforced regularly once our new site launches. We hope that our renewed focus to our comments section will create a more welcoming venue for reader comments that lead to productive conversation.

2. Having an advocate in the newsroom: My goal is to bring a user and reader perspective to our newsroom as often as possible. I want to make sure our stories are easy to understand and that readers feel like their voices are being heard. My job is to remind our reporters and editors every day that ultimately, we are here to serve you.

3.  More opportunities to contribute to our reporting and interact with reporters. Some of our best stories come from our tips e-mail address and we often read valuable insights in our comments section and on Twitter. I’ll be advising each bureau on how best to build relationships with readers and I’ll also be devising ways for readers to contribute to the content on our website. One example is our School Snapshot project, in which we asked you all to submit photos of something that makes your school special or unique and tell us about it.

We’re extending the deadline until the end of this month and if you haven’t submitted one yet, you can check out the photos from each of our bureaus below for some inspiration! And if you have any questions about my job or suggestions about what my job should be, e-mail me at aanand@chalkbeat.org or Tweet me at @anikaanand00.

Photo submitted by Ted Beasley Jr., the supervising producer of Germantown Community Television in Germanton, Tennessee (a suburb of Memphis, Tennessee). He writes that the television and theater programs at Germantown High School are both operated by students in the production workshop class and teachers. GHS-TV is the community television station for the city, and he writes that in the photo, “Our students are in the middle of a taping for our newscast,  Wake Up, Germantown!. The students pictured are (from left) headlines anchors Kayla Myers & Kelsey Kimble and sports anchor Cooper Terle. All are in the 12th grade.”
Photo submitted by Wendy Daniel, a fifth grade teacher at Mesa elementary in Cortez, Colorado. She wrote, “When a parent called me concerned because her child told her that he ate his science test, I had to explain!!! It was an animal cell replica made out of edible clay and if they replicated it correctly, they got to eat their science test!!!”

 

Photo submitted by assistant principal Matt Ridenour of Wea Ridge Elementary in Lafayette, Indiana. He writes, “The attached picture is what makes Lafayette’s Wea Ridge Elementary unique and cool. Assistant principal,  Matt Ridenour, raised money this summer to purchase this bicycle rickshaw. It is used to support our positive behavior program by giving deserving students rides through the school’s hallways. The picture is of assistant principal Matt Ridenour and Rep. Sheila Klinker.”
This photo was submitted by a Stuyvesant student with photo credits to Carol Deng and Jonathan Lee who are seniors at Stuyvesant High School in New York City. The person writes, “Stuyvesant High School. Study hard. Play hard. Senior Pajama day 2013.” (Patrick Wall)