Obligatory news is killing community journalism. Please stop.

By Rob Golub

I see Obligatory Disease (O.D.?) infecting community journalism publications all the time. Allow me, please, to now helicopter in with a cure.

There are entire publications focused on the coverage they should have, rather than coverage that inspires or serves their readers. Obligatory coverage leads to irrelevance, then layoffs. We need a different path, and I'm here to give you one.

Consider a classic O.D. scenario. If you write a 1,500-word piece on a banquet, you have no doubt covered something that people in your community care about. Sources will be pleased, or at least not displeased. Who can argue with coverage of a banquet, one that's fundraising to make the community better?

But here's the thing. The banquet may be important, even critical for your community, but coverage in this way can be detrimental to your news product. It's not even good for the banquet or for the cause it supports. The reality is that a 1,500-word piece, "14th annual banquet benefits nonprofit," will not be well read, except perhaps by sources looking for their quotes, and it will draw on space and staff time.

People don't read obligatory coverage. They don't remember it or talk about it. Here's a way to think of obligatory coverage, a definition: It's work that has no point, other than to satisfy sources. It just checks a box – yeah, did that. It's a story that breaks a cardinal rule of journalism, to find a good, responsible angle.

Every word of your publication, every hour of a reporter's time, is an opportunity to either do needed journalism or to serve and connect emotionally with your community, or both. Those words and hours are precious gold coins, and obligatory coverage just throws it all away.

What to do? We must develop tools for our toolbox to replace the obligatory, with coverage that serves and connects with readers. One great tool – and this is really just one – is the standalone photo. The standalone photo works for digital or print, but I'll now lay it out for print, because it can be harder to imagine in that format. The idea is that you've got a headline, above a photo, with a caption under said photo. You can even run a headline above several photos, with a caption for each shot. Put a bow on the package with a single unifying caption in a box.

This converts your obligatory, poorly read piece that can chew up reporter hours, into names and faces, which are emotionally triggering for an audience. Nobody is taping to the fridge a soulless "14th annual banquet benefits nonprofit," but a quick or even source-supplied photo of happy people sends the message about the banquet, and it connects your news product with your audience. Put "Fundraising for furry friends" atop a photo that includes a local family member, and that shot could get taped to that fridge, or shared to followers.

For those of you working in print, you need stories. Something needs to flow around those ads, and a standalone photo isn't always going to work for that. Use your now-freed-up staff time to write something that serves your readers.

In judo, which I admittedly know almost nothing about, one uses their opponent's weight against them, or so I'm told. Be an audience judo master. Your opponent is the pull of the obligatory. Flip that into a beautiful opportunity for audience connection that better serves your community and takes less time. Go win that bout!