THIS ONE TIME WE HELPED WITH…
The Situation
Newsrooms began to hear through our research that viewers couldn’t connect with them and that communities were not faring better as a result of their reporting. Realizing that they wouldn’t be able to change behavior within newsrooms with data alone, Scripps needed a new way to understand their viewers and their work.
The Ask
The ability to understand news viewers in order to reimagine local news offerings and approach.
The Approach
Deep Anthropological Research to get to know news viewers—not just habits, but their lives, hopes, dreams, fears, core motivators and the things that make their days.
Empathy Training was conducted in order to help the team observe and synthesize the findings from this completely new research approach. The training was designed to help them understand how empathy helps people feel connected and understood, in addition to how to observe body language and engage in empathic conversations.
The Success
This research resulted in a brand new station used as a beta for digital content now used throughout the organization. The training had such a big impact on how the team understood the negative impact lack of empathy had on their viewers that an initiative to take the training across all the stations was launched.