Streaming Content Producer Angela Chen on reinventing local TV news for the streaming generation at ABC7 Chicago
Northeastern University’s Reinventing Local TV News Project (RLTVN) wants to revolutionize local TV news to appeal to younger audiences. In partnership with leading newsrooms in Boston, New York and Chicago, the project has funded year-long fellowships for three producers and one animator. At the heart of this effort is a focus on over-the-top content — streaming videos delivered over the internet — that positions local news stations to tell high-quality, in-depth stories on platforms where young people already consume content.
Angela Chen was a 2024 RLTVN fellow in her role as ABC7 Chicago’s Streaming Content Producer. During her time as a fellow, she has completed many video projects, including stories on a 54-year-old pro-aging content creator, a Venezuelan migrant volunteer and an art non-profit.
As her fellowship ended in October, Storybench spoke with Chen to talk about her experience crafting compelling news stories for streaming platforms, working with Northeastern students to appeal to younger audiences, and reimagining local news for the digital age.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What makes targeting younger audiences different than targeting older audiences that typically watch the news?
Younger audiences are on different platforms. They aren’t necessarily watching broadcast TV: They grew up watching streaming. That has changed the game in terms of where you reach them. They’re obviously on social media – whether it’s TikTok, Instagram, Youtube – a lot more than the older peers are. Because they’re on different platforms, how can you engage those audiences on those platforms? Younger audiences don’t necessarily want the suit-up anchor to tell them what’s going on. They want to hear from real people’s experiences. And that’s why a lot of younger audiences are on TikTok because it’s your day to day person telling you about what they’re experiencing. But at the end of the day, everyone wants to hear a good story and people are curious about what’s happening in the world.
How has your position allowed you creative freedom when creating content?
It was a really exciting opportunity to experience stories that would interest me. A lot of times in newsrooms you’re assigned stories and maybe you’re not as invested. Here, there’s so much more leeway to get creative and try something different. How I go about that is to honestly produce stories that interest me and see what is trending on social media. What are people talking about that are my age or young? Stories that interest me are human interest stories – so really getting to know an individual and what their story is.
How do you ensure that what you’re publishing is attracting young viewers?
To be able to look at performance metrics [is] actually really important because of layoffs in the media industry. How can we make money? How we sustain as a business and tracking performance metrics is one way of keeping informed. As a journalist, I can’t be creating content and throwing the dice. I am still figuring it out in terms of what we’ve been gathering. It’s been 24-hour, one week and 30 day metrics in regards to viewership and engagement. That can look very different depending on the platform. Just seeing where interest drops off. Where that interest stays strong can inform how engaging of a storyteller I am, but how [engaging] that story is. A strong intro is incredibly important. There’s always like an audience drop off around 30 seconds on Youtube. Those first 10-20 seconds is where the viewer will decide whether or not they will stay and watch the rest of your story. It can also be one of the most difficult parts too. But at the same time, people are watching documentaries. An element of surprise throughout the story like ‘Oh here’s another golden nugget’ can keep it engaging. Keep them curious asking questions. Once they ask a question, deliver on those questions.
How was your experience working with Northeastern students remotely?
It’s been good. It makes me feel like a student again. As a student, you experiment with things and you learn. That’s always exciting. It’s interesting to hear what the students find in their own research and what they pitch because they’re not on the ground here in [Chicago]. That can get really difficult in terms of finding stories and sources, but I’m always interested to hear what stories they find. And usually they always have creative stories. It’s been a really cool project to be a part of.
What have been some challenges you have faced?
I operate completely by myself. There’s a blessing and a challenge with that. Just me producing my own ideas like “is this okay or should I do it differently?” Not having a team to bounce that off can be difficult. Another memorable moment is doing that migrant story. It was my first time interviewing a source who I had a language barrier with. I was using Google Translate to translate his responses and my questions. It made me think despite the fact there can be a language barrier, you can still tell those stories. Just because you can’t speak a language doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be pursuing those stories. We have so many tools that are accessible for us these days. Get creative with what you have. Don’t be afraid.
Reporting untold stories was a big part of your fellowship. What makes telling those stories important to you?
At the end of the day, there’s a lot of important stories and I don’t think some stories are more important than others. A lot of the time, it’s who has the bandwidth to go tell these stories. Because I have been given so much creative freedom as well as this opportunity to tell a story that maybe someone else didn’t have the bandwidth to, it feels fulfilling. It feels like you’re contributing to something bigger and important.
- Streaming Content Producer Angela Chen on reinventing local TV news for the streaming generation at ABC7 Chicago - December 6, 2024
- Transforming journalism with data and AI: Research on representation, equity and accountability in news from the 2024 Computation + Journalism Symposium - November 26, 2024
- “Not just broadcast:” WBUR CEO Margaret Low on the future of the business of news - November 19, 2024
