Abstract
When it was originally released in 1996, Reaching Audiences was a textbook ahead of its time. During the final throes of an era when mass media monopolies took audience attention for granted, authors McAdams and Yopp made the case that journalism students needed to embrace an audience-focused mind-set that evolved beyond the prevailing, “I’m the expert,” one-way lecture mode of news delivery. As Barbara J. DeSanto noted in a 1997 review of the book’s first edition, “Too often media writing students spend the first part of a semester trying to write for the teacher … [Reaching Audiences] highlights the obvious, yet often unspoken, fact that media messages are composed for audiences.”
Now in its sixth edition, Reaching Audiences is even more committed to the principle that media practitioners of all stripes must write in a way that earns their audience’s attention, particularly on digital platforms. “Whether the message is a Tweet or a 2,500-word article,” the authors argue, “students who want to become exceptional communicators must know how to gather information, sort it, and put it in a format audiences will notice and understand” (p. xiv).
After establishing their audience-focused premise in the introduction, Yopp and McAdams spend several chapters delving into the nuts and bolts of basic grammar before capably covering the timeless elements of journalistic writing, such as the inverted pyramid and nut graph. The second half of the book is more nuanced, including chapters on recognizing bias and stereotypes, legal and ethical issues, and platform-specific chapters on writing for digital delivery, broadcast media, and strategic communication.
For an enduring work that champions “understanding today’s audiences,” the book does not get off to an especially auspicious start. Opening anecdotes chronicle the multi-platform media habits of upper-middle-class parents, one of whom listens to National Public Radio during her daily commute while the other faithfully picks up the print edition of The Washington Post from his doorstep. “At the same time,” the chapter assumes, directly addressing the millennial student reader, “you are selecting information sources such as fashion blogs or celebrity tweets” (p. 2).
If the communications majors to whom this book is targeted can get past that condescending sentence without throwing the book across the room, they will find plenty of instructive, cross-disciplinary examples of journalists, public relations specialists, advertising copywriters, and web developers, all of whom rely upon good writing skills to do their jobs.
The book also stresses the importance of self-editing with the audience in mind. Chapter 5, “Getting to the Point,” urges students to bring a stronger sense of purpose and intention to their writing, shaped by anticipation of audience needs and wants. This important concept can be applied to everything from using the most intuitive key words for search engine optimization to settling on your lead.
This sixth edition has been thoroughly updated with timely material. Chapter 11, “Recognizing Bias and Stereotypes,” deftly weaves theory with practice, highlighting recent examples of media bias including the portrayals of National Basketball Association (NBA) player Jeremy Lin and U.S. citizens who happen to be Muslim.
A particularly helpful section focuses on avoiding plagiarism in the digital age. The chapters on broadcast and strategic communication barely scratch the surface, but at least expose students to different writing forms and possibilities. And throughout the book, the authors emphasize the importance of mastering the fundamentals of clear, coherent writing for any platform: “By the time students read this edition, technology will have changed from what exists as we write this sentence. Technology changes. The importance of good writing does not” (p. xiii).
The breadth of the entire book might be too much for students to absorb in a single course. It may be more effectively and realistically deployed over a two-course sequence, beginning with grammar boot camps and carrying over into introductory reporting classes. Following this strategy would require a bit of curricular coordination, but students would benefit from the effort. After nearly two decades of guiding students to adopt an audience-focused writing style, Reaching Audiences remains more relevant than ever.