The pandemic TikTok and local TV news a father daughter story
Transcriber: Emma Gon
Reviewer: omar idmassaoud
So I remember clearly
when the South African Covid-19 variant
was first being reported.
My 12 year-old daughter Gigi
came storming into our kitchen
and she said with great confidence,
“Dad, there’s a new Covid variant.
It’s in South Africa
and it’s killing everybody.”
I was like, Gigi, just slow down,
like, where’s this coming from?
“Tik Tok,” she said confidently.
I was like, you’ve got
to be kidding me, Tik Tok?
My daughter’s getting a piece
of information as important
as a new Covid variant from Tik Tok.
Admittedly, I thought
that was the place
for her and her girlfriends to go
make these crazy dance videos,
share them with each other, and I think
the rest of the world could see them, too.
And admittedly, sometimes,
I would be a guest in those videos.
(Laughter)
One.
(Cheers and applause)
Well…
By the way, she told me, dad,
when I posted that we blew up,
which I think is a good thing,
so I’m thinking that as a victory.
Look, Tik Tok is, as you all know,
a social media platform that allows
anyone around the ages of 13 years old
and older to create and post content
for the entire world to see.
And this is no knock on Tik Tok.
It’s a fabulous social media company
that’s taking the world by storm.
And honestly, in the last year and a half,
I’ve consumed more and then
participated in more Tik Tok
anyone in my age should ever admit to.
(Laughter)
But when it comes to getting a story
as important as a new Covid variant
or anything else that impacts
our lives in a meaningful way,
I wholeheartedly and undoubtedly believe
that she should be
getting that information,
that we should be getting that
information from a trusted news source,
ones that have clear
legal standards of gathering
and disseminating information
that you can rely on and trust,
sourced accurate information
that’s 100% based on fact,
not necessarily Tik Tok.
So prior to the pandemic,
there was a widely held belief
that local media had to evolve
in order to stay relevant
or even become relevant
with the next generation of audiences.
Over time, all local media outlets had
started to suffer from the same issues,
time specific viewing, an aging audience
and a very specific formula
on how we gathered
and reported on information
that wasn’t resonating
with younger audiences,
audiences that demand
information on their terms,
how, when and where they want it,
and most importantly,
from a relatable source
told to them by authentic people.
Look, I believe we still have
a well established model
that continues to serve local communities
with critical and factual information.
But as consumption habits have changed
to a more on demand, behavior and
distribution platforms have changed,
it will be all but continue to be
a focus of our industry to keep pace with
these changes, because guess what?
It’s not going backwards.
And if we don’t, we’ll be left out.
And the need for accurate information
has never been more important
than it is right now.
So I had no idea last March
when we were all sent home
from the pandemic, from work,
I thought like many of you,
I’d find the unused space in my house
to go about my daily work.
But what I wasn’t anticipating was
how the pandemic would invite me
to unintentionally view
my daughter’s behaviour
typical teenage girls
from the ages of 12 to 19,
I’ve got to see them practically
24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
(Laughter)
Being in the house with them
through quarantine,
I would watch them consume information
and react to it and
share it in an ecosystem
that wasn’t 100% based
on sourced and factual information.
Certainly these habits weren’t
new prior to the pandemic,
and they were not revealed
to me because of it,
but in that moment,
I was able to see them in a way
that otherwise I would not
have been able to watch.
It was abundantly clear to me
that even though the houses
they were living in,
the houses they were letting on,
the devices in their hands
were all paid for by me,
a guy working in local media,
not one of them would
consume any information
on any of the stations that I represent.
Literally, not even the dog
was paying attention to what I did.
So I would walk from room to room
and they would be laying uncomfortably
in upside down in chairs and couches,
skipping ads, which, by the way,
paid for your stuff.
Swiping, sharing, posting,
liking, bingeing.
Always on their phones,
headphones, ignoring me
and everything I do for a living.
By the way, this is my favorite.
They created a device
where hands are not used anymore,
so she can watch content
and eat Cheese Bits.
Look, I think in local news,
we’ve made many innovations and changes
that have made us more relevant
in the spaces that they live.
We’re in those spaces
with accurate, in fact,
driven information
that people can rely on.
We’re on Twitter, on Facebook,
on Instagram, we’re on Tik Tok,
but they’re just not using us
the way we want them to.
Look, we’re smart about it,
we portray our identity
there in smart ways,
we’re serving the community,
it’s important to us and we get it.
But still, my kids aren’t sharing
any of our information,
they’re not relying on it
for any real reasons,
they’re quoting and sharing information
from a number of other sources.
The scary thing is everyone’s
a content creator these days,
if you have an iPhone or iPad,
you can create content.
If you’re 13 years old, you can share
that content for the world to see.
You can even create your own narrative.
And the scary thing about
that is people believe it.
They think it’s factual. They trust it.
So we the local news has been
the source of information
for generations of people.
If you’re thirtyish or older,
you’ve always relied on local news
to give you the factual information
about the topics of the day.
And this past year alone,
we’ve had a pandemic
that’s impacted the entire world,
we had an historic election,
we’ve had a fight for racial equality
like we’ve never done before.
But no one’s paying attention to us.
We’re losing our place, so I thought
to myself, what can I do?
What can we do?
What was watching my children’s
behavior teaching me really?
What was it screaming at me to do?
It was loud and clear.
Change everything. See what happens.
Take a chance. So we did.
We changed our local news station,
New England Cable News.
We want to create something
that would smash all conventional wisdom
about what you think about
local news and programming.
We decided that we’re going
to attract female millennials,
we want to reach a group of people that
we’re currently participating with us
in any real way.
We wanted to take a digital mobile,
social approach to there,
to our production.
We focus on women 25 to 40,
whose habits are health and fitness,
money, family, food, travel, technology,
we want to pursue
those interests for them
in a way that they could use them locally.
We wanted to attract people
whose media consumption habits
were fast and quick news updates.
They love Facebook live.
They love YouTube for quick tips.
They want to do those things
to help navigate them
in their own communities in a real way.
So, in order for us
to get their attention,
we knew we had to change our brand voice,
we had to become contemporary, dynamic,
vibrant and most importantly, authentic.
We had to win back their attention
on things like breaking news and weather.
There’s way more nuanced
of weather forecast
than a sun or a cloud on your iPhone.
We had to find new ways
to tell and present stories
in a way that they would care about it.
How did it impact their life?
What was available to them
to make adjustments with
the information that we gave them?
Stories about crime aren’t just a focus
on a shooting in a neighborhood.
It’s one of the safest or the most
dangerous communities that you live in.
What’s happening with gun laws?
What’s happening legislatively?
What’s happening with policing?
So it wasn’t just the type of content
that we needed to change,
it was the person
that was presenting the content.
They had to be authentic,
raw, reliable, relatable,
with more of an edge in the language
that they were using
and the way they dressed.
Clothing went from businessware
to street appropriate.
We changed the writing
to be more conversational.
We ripped off all the plastic to become
more raw, more real, more authentic.
We also changed the viewing experience to
be more like how this audience consume
media and other places,
less commercial breaks,
30 seconds of content within
what we were showing them.
We focused on more animation,
explainer videos, life hacks,
swappable and shareable type content.
Listen, I wish I could stand here
and tell you that it changed everything
that female millennials have flocked
over to over to watch us on NECN
and that my daughters are now sharing
and liking more content
from the stations I represent.
That hasn’t happened yet,
but we’ve taken a large step
in the right direction and
the things we’re learning on NECN
we’ll be able to apply to
our other stations I represent,
NBC10, Telemundo and NBC Sports, Boston.
But that’s not what this is about.
It’s about us, the news industry
staying relevant with
the next generation of audiences
so that they can make reliable
decisions based on accurate information.
It’s about finding a way to meet them
where they are and
share fact based information.
Delivering what we must deliver in a way
that works for every person
in our communities,
on multiple languages
on multiple platforms.
It’s about meeting
our obligation to people
about what’s going on in their
neighborhoods so they can react to it
and their towns,
their businesses, their schools.
What’s happening in government?
You deserve honest, fact based, unbiased,
useful information where you live,
your news industry, our news industry
should deliver that to you
in a way that works for you.
So keep demanding of us that we do.
So in a blink of an eye,
my 12 year old will be 32 years old,
God helps me, and
when she is with the local news,
need to be there to share
information for her and our family
in a way that’s useful to her.
But for now, she’s still young,
I must thank her and my other daughters,
Gabrielle, Nataline, Camille and Gigi,
thank you for consuming random information
while lounging in awkward positions
upside down on couches.
Thank you for ignoring me
and everything that I do,
because you made me
fight for your attention,
you made me better, you made us better.
And you may not understand exactly
why that is right now,
although you should, because
I just explained it for 15 minutes.
I promise going forward
that I’ll continue to pay attention to
the several other things
that you’re probably doing wrong.
Change my business to help guide
you forward without you knowing it,
like all good dads do.
Thank you.