Citizen Journalism meets The Tab

After rushing into the streets to interview protesters, Sarah Hall sits down at her computer and starts to write her article “Everything you need to know about the Black student protest last night.” Along with being a student at the University of Michigan, Hall is a reporter for The Tab.

The Tabis an online media news hub where students can cover what’s happening on their college campuses. This media landscape began in the U.K. at the University of Cambridge in 2009. Since then, it has expanded to the U.S. in 2015 where over 30 colleges contribute to this site. In Feb. 2016 Hall received an email asking her to write for The Tab.

The articles you see on The Tab range from a variety of hard hitting news stories to personality quizzes. While scrolling through the site, it’s not difficult to see which articles are clickbait. When you have the two headlines: “Anti-Semitic and racist graffiti scrawled on skate park near campus” and “The best UMich meme pages you need to follow asap” next to each other, it’s clear which article is intended to receive the “likes” and “shares.”

When Hall writes her stories, she’s conscious of what gets her the most views and interactions. “That is the goal! We monitor the article traffic by views and shares. The more of those, the more successful the piece is,” said Hall referring to the success of a published story. Although there is no monetary award as a contributing writer for The Tab, there are competitions and customized site merchandise as rewards.

In one of Hall’s articles, the cover photo was a picture of vulgar words spray painted on the steps of a skate park. One of the words is an often-disputed derogatory term that refers to the Black community. The words, “white women no n****** or Jews” is the first thing the audience sees in the article. Some may argue that the featured picture is too graphic, but Hall describes it as powerful. “In the article, there were other pictures of the swastikas painted all over the park, but the words were so much more offensive. I really felt the hate behind the racial slurs, and I knew it had to be the featured photo because I wanted others to feel angered too.” The photograph she used is an example of truth versus minimizing harm.

When it comes to the Six Stages of Moral Development, Hall balances between conformity and duty. As a writer who strives for clicks and views, she knows which types of articles will achieve that, but because of the expectations of The Tab’s editorial board, it’s her duty as a staff writer to strive for the most clicks.

Hall falls under Rawl’s and Mill’s Western theory of ethics. She’s most passionate in writing about social justice. “Many of my friends are people of color, and it pains me to see the way they fear for their safety on campus and the way they are treated,” explains Hall. “The least I can do is take advantage of my position and project their voices and experiences through my articles.” However, because she is a part of The Tab’s model, her main goal is clicks and she can monitor her own analytics, so she may conform into the unnecessary, cliché headlines that attract Facebook shares.

While wanting to represent and stand with those whose voices struggle to be heard, she faces the ethical dilemma of not providing enough context. Hall’s loyalties are herself and the youth of the U.S. and while that clearly shows in her writing, her reporting says otherwise. Hall reports on what she sees, but she fails to dig deeper into the problem.

In the SPJ Code of Ethics, it mentions that journalists should provide context. An example that stems from author of the website Buzzmachine,Jeff Jarvis, shows how this can be achieved. “While it may hurt the ego – acknowledging this is a means of providing context…it’s in how journalists convey their level of confidence that they can provide this context.”

A solution to providing more context is to have The Tabeditorsassign writers to a specific beat. This way allows the writers to focus more on their passions rather than having them create mindless quizzes. This also gives the writer more credibility. Instead of seeing one newsworthy article being sandwiched in between two clickbait articles, their page can be full of credible hard news pieces or rather something they’re passionate about. Similar to what writers of USAToday Collegedo, writers for The Tab can be dedicated to a certain beat. For example, Hall enjoys writing about social justice. So, instead of having her create quizzes and memes, she can do follow ups and updates on her hard news pieces. This is the best solution because Hall can build up her credibility while giving readers more context.

Featured photo courtesy of Wix