5 takeaways from Engaging with Reddit’s Endless Content: Broader Coverage, Better Journalism

Kristen Kornbluth (@kornbIuth), a volunteer with the ONA Resource Team, compiled these key moments from the ONA20 session on Oct. 1, 2020. To view a recording of the session, register for on-demand access to the ONA20 archive. Session participants included:

  • Amory Sivertson, Co-host/Producer of Endless Thread, WBUR, Boston’s NPR News Station
  • Will Federman, Director of Digital Audience Development, TEGNA
  • Syd Robinson, Writer, BuzzFeed
  • Moderator: Gabriel Sands, Senior Partnerships Manager, News & Journalism, Reddit

5 key takeaways:

  1. Reddit engagement is two-fold: on- and off-platform. On-platform engagement efforts can include AMAs (ask me anything), comment engagement, and live streaming with RPAN (Reddit Public Access Network). Off-platform involves sourcing content from Reddit to different platforms.
  2. Reddit is way more about engaging communities than individual people. Many Reddit users follow communities/Subreddits rather than individuals.
  3. Reddit helps generate new ideas, makes news more accessible, provides many different perspectives and allows you to get as niche as you want when sourcing content.
  4. One of Reddit’s strengths is having a “largely unduplicated” audience — users that aren’t found on Snapchat, Twitter, etc.
  5. When sourcing stories from Reddit, don’t ask folks to unintentionally dox themselves, don’t put too much pressure on them to answer and reach out from an official account so they know you’re legit.

Memorable/tweetable quotes:

  • “Reddit is a Swiss Army knife… lots of different tools.” —Gabriel Sands
  • “It’s not all about you — it’s about your community and what they’re doing together.” —Gabriel Sands
  • “For every dark corner, there is a [reddit] community that is pushing back.” —Amory Sivertson
  • “Expertise matters [when choosing AMA speakers].” —Will Federman

Links to additional resources

Was there anything mentioned in the session that attendees might want to track down?