Developing a Mobile-First Approach for Student Media

My staff has been working with mobile news reports for more than a year now. They’ve been reporting from a game here, or reporting on storm damage there. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. It happens whenever the spirit moves a reporter to post an update. While anyone can post to the accounts, there is a small team of staff members who are in charge of the social media posts.

While I always kind of knew there the staff needed to be a bit more organized with what they were doing, I just hadn’t taken the time to talk through much with them. I will be having a talk this week though – and I won’t have to prepare much. I stumbled upon a couple articles this week which can help students develop a plan for a mobile-first approach without getting caught up in overthinking things.

Student Newspapers Should Take a Mobile First Approach – by Rachele Kanigel, an associate professor of Journalism at San Francisco State University

10 Questions to Help you Craft a Mobile Strategy – by Regina McCombs of the Poynter Institute

Are your staffs just pushing out links or are they working to break news via social networks and/or doing any other mobile reporting?