Hi, I’m Sinta and welcome to my TikTalk!
I spent 10 months working with The Intercept to launch and grow their TikTok account.
My work consisted of 3 phases:
1) Launching The Intercept on TikTok
2) Identifying Reporters’ Needs
3) Growing & Sustaining a New Platform
My work consisted of 3 phases:
1) Launching The Intercept on TikTok
2) Identifying Reporters’ Needs
3) Growing & Sustaining a New Platform
Phase 1: Launching on TikTok
(Jan-Aug 2022)
(Jan-Aug 2022)
During the Spring 2022 semester, Studio 20 partnered with The Intercept to strategize their launch on TikTok and cultivate their own voice on the platform. We worked closely with Intercept video procuder Travis Mannon, who would be overseeing the TikTok account.
Our project had 3 main goals:
1. Research TikTok as a platform and identify its journalistic uses.
2. Work with Intercept staff and develop in-house talent.
3. Explore potential freelance partnership models with established TikTok creators across different beats (climate, politics, justice, etc.)
As a project manager, I led the journalist-facing initiatives of our project.
We conducted a competitor’s analysis on other newsrooms’ presence on TikTok, developed a filter based video aggregator on Junkipedia as a tool for reporters to incorporate TikTok into their work flow, and built a database of over 100 TikTok creators across Intercept beats.
Our project had 3 main goals:
1. Research TikTok as a platform and identify its journalistic uses.
2. Work with Intercept staff and develop in-house talent.
3. Explore potential freelance partnership models with established TikTok creators across different beats (climate, politics, justice, etc.)
As a project manager, I led the journalist-facing initiatives of our project.
We conducted a competitor’s analysis on other newsrooms’ presence on TikTok, developed a filter based video aggregator on Junkipedia as a tool for reporters to incorporate TikTok into their work flow, and built a database of over 100 TikTok creators across Intercept beats.
I also led training workshops with Intercept journalists in which my classmates and I walked them through the step-by-step process of how to create a video on TikTok, scripting a longer-form article into a 1 minute video, and filming and editing. Our workshops aimed to gauge journalists' concerns about TikTok, understand their familiarity with the platform and content creation, and observe how TikTok could be integrated into their work flow.
We then created a digital guide for The Intercept on everything we learned throughout the project- from an overview of various journalistic approaches to TikTok, "Do's and Don'ts" on the platform, written tutorials on how to create TikToks based off our workshops and more.
Our project was accepted by the 2022 Online News Association Conference in Los Angeles, California this September, where I represented Studio 20 alongside Travis. We presented our work as a case study and held a Q+A session for attendees after the presentation to address anything TikTok. Check out our full session here.
Phase 2: Identifying Needs
(Aug-Oct 2022)
(Aug-Oct 2022)
I continued my partnership with Travis and The Intercept for my master’s thesis project in my final semester of Studio 20 this fall. After the excitement of the launch, we had to switch gears towards growth and troubleshoot any problems.
My research questions were: How can The Intercept grow and sustain their journalism on a new platform? How could a smaller newsroom or video team manage nuturing a new platform with limited resources?
A few roadblocks that emerged early included:
In order to troubleshoot these obstacles, I interviewed reporters to better understand their needs. I learned that it took one reporter about 2 hours to create a TikTok due to the app’s confusing interface. Another reporter told me that it was difficult to get back into the mindset of a story they reported months to years ago, since we were prioritizing evergreen stories rather than current events.
Speaking to reporters was crucial to the problem-solving portion of my project. I used their feedback to inform my ideas and recommendations for The Intercept’s TikTok production workflow.
My research questions were: How can The Intercept grow and sustain their journalism on a new platform? How could a smaller newsroom or video team manage nuturing a new platform with limited resources?
A few roadblocks that emerged early included:
- slow video turnaround
- complicated in-app recording
- additional workload for reporters
- plateau at 1,000 followers in early October
In order to troubleshoot these obstacles, I interviewed reporters to better understand their needs. I learned that it took one reporter about 2 hours to create a TikTok due to the app’s confusing interface. Another reporter told me that it was difficult to get back into the mindset of a story they reported months to years ago, since we were prioritizing evergreen stories rather than current events.
Speaking to reporters was crucial to the problem-solving portion of my project. I used their feedback to inform my ideas and recommendations for The Intercept’s TikTok production workflow.