Alex Migdal’s first time combining social media with journalism was in 2012 as the multimedia editor of The Gateway, the University of Alberta’s student paper.
“I managed our video production on YouTube and launched our first Instagram account. I think it was in 2012, with a terrible filter because that’s what we used at the time,” laughed Migdal in an April interview with The Ubyssey.
Migdal said that the 2010s brought “a lot of optimism” toward how journalism could be represented through social media.
“[Social media] suddenly opened up this really wide audience, and this was before we started to see the more sinister impacts,” said Migdal.
And now, looking back at his time at The Gateway, Migdal said he can see he reported on “hints” of what he enjoys reporting on now.
“I was always finding other avenues to push out that journalism, whether it be through video, tweets, Instagram. So, I started the intersection of journalism and social media [at The Gateway] especially when it was more nascent.”
Now, Migdal is the senior producer of social media and audience development at the CBC and an adjunct journalism professor at UBC.
Migdal, who attended UBC for his master’s in journalism, said the social media and journalism landscapes have changed since he was a student.
“Even what we’re teaching now at the school, in terms of social media, was not something we were teaching when I was at the school,” said Migdal.
Migdal fell into social media by chance while working at the CBC. He said editors had to “find people in the shadows … especially if you were younger [people would ask], ‘Are you interested in doing this? Do you want to give it a shot?’”
But Migdal said new journalists are now drawn to social media from the start of their careers — something he attributes to the success of vertical videos, like the ones you see on your feed.
“It is younger journalists now who are consuming that content and resonate with it and want to produce that type of content,” said Migdal. “If you have the skill set and the desire to do it … you can really pitch yourself at the news outlet that you work [for] and my suspicion would be any outlet would be happy to have you take the reins of that.”
At UBC, Migdal co-teaches JRNL 420: Decoding Social Media with Dr. Ori Tenenboim.
“I didn’t actually take the decoding social media course when I was at the j-school,” said Migdal. “But I will certainly say that I think there’s a greater awareness now, that social media is really embedded in the day-to-day gathering of the newsroom.”
While Tenenboim teaches the “academic, theoretical side of social media,” Migdal teaches the practical side of things, such as how to produce social video content for social media platforms, make corrections online when journalists get things wrong and share news on different platforms in the wake of Bill C-18, or the Online News Act.
Bill C-18 requires social platforms like Google, Facebook and Instagram (under Meta) to pay Canadian newsrooms when their journalism is displayed on their sites. In response to this, Google and Meta announced they would no longer share Canadian news links in June 2023.
Despite the hurdle Meta’s news ban has brought to journalists, Migdal said the block has invited an opportunity for innovation.
“I do miss producing news for Instagram because it is a really visual, accessible platform,” said Migdal. “But I also think it’s been a really exciting opportunity … so I’ve pivoted my book entirely to TikTok into vertical video, and there’s so much potential there.”
Migdal said more goes on behind the scenes of a good vertical video than most people might think — “the more seamless … and effortless it looks, usually the more ... production that has gone behind it.”
Migdal said this pivot can also allow journalists to reach new audiences. For example, TikTok’s audiences skew toward younger viewers and allows for a more global reach compared to other social media platforms.
“We can reach people outside of Canada, and any kind of journalist can build awareness of their news outlet … outside the confines of just their city, their province, their country,” said Migdal.
Though visual journalism is accessible for audiences, sometimes social media content can miss important context, something Migdal said is his “pet peeve.”
“I think it’s really easy to get away with that stuff on TikTok, and I think that’s the unfortunate part about it,” said Migdal “I’m of the mindset that balance is really important, context is really important, being accurate is important.”
But despite the importance of getting things right, Migdal said news on social media does so much more than just inform the masses.
“There’s this part of journalism that I think is really important ... it’s holding power to account and it’s being of service to the public,” said Migdal. “But … it’s lightening people’s days, lightening the collective mood … being able to do things that are fun, that are clever, that surprise people, that make their day. I think, to me, that’s one of the most gratifying parts of the job.”
“When you’re able to make somebody stop mid-scroll and [go] ‘Oh, I wasn’t expecting that. Cool to see from a journalism outlet.’ … I think that that’s the type of work that I started to do and want to keep doing.”
This article is part of The Ubyssey's 2024 student action supplement,Press the Issue.
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