Reach PLC Social Media Assistant Says Certain Word Ban Lowers Media Engagement
- sophieannhumphrey
- Jul 19, 2022
- 2 min read
Updated: Jul 20, 2022
As a young fresh graduate, Kirshon Wilkins has quite the impressive CV, working in the media industry since 2017. His first big position was at Aldershot Town Football Club as a media assistant where he created multimedia content including match reports and videos. Now, he works at Reach Plc the media conglomerate, and tells me it was a world away from his previous positions.
When asked what guidelines Kirshon follows at work when he has to post stories, he told me: "With social media, on Facebook they don't like certain words so they've banned us from using them. For example, any word that sounds over the top as it can be misleading and can discredit the story. Facebook will penalise us for it in terms of our engagement for the day."
As he works on tabloids at Reach, (The Daily Star, the Daily Express and The Mirror) he highlights that the most important thing is to make "social sell". Given that their content consists of news and celebrity content, it is common that The Daily Star, who focus on what Kirshon defines as 'fun' stories, have less concern for language and political correctness than, say, a serious news publication.
In fact, it seems the company is less worried about being cancelled, but more about what their readers say online.
"A daily task of mine is to check Facebook comments on our stories when I can. Anything rude, offensive or inappropriate will result in the user being reported."
Kirshon also confirmed what I already suspected: that a publication's political affiliation does change the tone of their articles, and what they can publish. Given that the company publishes over 80 titles, the political standing of each paper differs drastically. Although these three are tabloids, they still have varying aims and content, which could make their writers getting cancelled very easy.
In his experience, when asked, Kirshon himself has not been a victim of cancel culture, but he points out those who work online who have their names shown in a by-line can be. He has seen rude comments on stories he has had a by-line in, but has not received personal messages of harassment or ridicule.
He said: "Authors that write stories online they have their bylines on their articles. If someone doesn't like what someone says, they can easily find out their Twitter or social media and abuse them."
With his job, Kirshon experiences it firsthand in writing articles and selecting and editing posts for social media. Though he may not himself be a victim of cancel culture, he has certainly proved to me that mob mentality is very, very real.
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