GLC Director of Content Strategy Janet Celosia attended a journalism industry event in Texas and shares the insights she gathered that are applicable to content marketing.

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Tacos on a Tuesday in Texas — my idea of a night out! The occasion was a gathering for Northwestern University and Medill School of Journalism, Media and Integrated Marketing Communications alumni held at the Texas Tribune and hosted by its cofounder and Medill alum, Evan Smith. My former grad school advisor and now journalism school dean, Charles Whitaker, was in town to present Smith an award for his achievements spearheading a nonprofit journalism start-up.

Put two and two together, add about 40 alumni to the mix, and you get some inspiring vibes.

“We live in two Americas, one informed and one not,” Smith said, emphasizing the ever-important need for accurate and fact-based news and information. He cited a recent report from the Local News Initiative at Northwestern University, which found that one-fifth of Americans live in a news desert (a community with one or no local newspapers) and thus have limited access to local news.

This issue concerned me as a journalism school graduate and content strategist for 15-plus years. Smith got me thinking about content marketers’ role in today’s complex information ecosystem. “What responsibility do we have as marketing content creators?” 

Quality content is vital to the audiences that we serve. 

Our partners and clients at GLC distribute healthcare content through websites, magazines, videos, blogs and social media that inform millions of Americans on the latest medical information and health news. Our reach includes audiences in areas needing more reporting and information. 

As content marketers, the content we put out matters. An e-mail newsletter on staying healthy or a preventive health screening brochure might be one of the few health information sources a person in an information desert receives. Taking action based on this information (or not) could have significant health and well-being implications. 

Among other duties, our responsibility as creators and marketers is to ensure that content is accurate, useful, relevant, valuable and informative. Even if there isn’t a call-to-action at the end of our pitch, our work could still benefit from a fact check or a quality-control process. 

At the event, I ran into colleagues, classmates and alumni, old and new. Many were working in public relations and marketing, and others had pivoted to consulting and executive coaching. Given that we all came together on this Tuesday night to connect with our media and journalism roots, I suspect what we still had in common was a responsibility to report information accurately, look at all sides of the story and dig deeper whenever possible. 

The training I had in journalism has continued to serve as a foundation for the work that I do every day, whether it be interviewing a physician for a story, creating a social media campaign or developing a content strategy for an association. 

What path led you to the world of content marketing? What skills have you found essential? I’d love to hear your story. 

You can reach Janet at [email protected].