I didn’t set out to do “audience work.” I just kept asking questions that didn’t seem to belong to any one team:
Who is this for?
How will they find it?
Will they see themselves in it?
Will it matter to them?
And how do we even know?
At the time, “audience” was a word the industry was beginning to use to describe a kind of role that didn’t quite fit anywhere else—work that touched engagement, product, design, editorial, and community. I needed something to help define the questions I was asking and the Swiss Army knife kind of work my team and I were doing.
So I leaned into the term—not because it was a perfect fit, but because it helped describe something that needed naming. I was one of the people pushing for clearer roles, new titles, and defined spaces where this work could live. That structure created room for audience-focused work to grow, and in many ways, it moved the conversation forward.
But over time, I’ve come to understand that naming the work wasn’t enough. In some cases, the structure we built may have unintentionally reinforced the idea that audience was someone else’s job—something that lived in a department or happened at the end of a process.
That was never the intent. The real goal has always been to center people in the work. It has always been about rooting journalism in meaningful relationships and treating connection not as an extra, but as a core part of the mission.
Almost 10 years—and many roles and titles—later, I’ve come to believe something simple but important:
“Audience work” is a misnomer. The audience is the foundation. The work is connection.
When audience is treated as a separate lane—something that happens after the journalism is done—we limit its potential. We make it smaller than it really is. And we miss the chance to build the kind of relationship this work was always meant to have.
No matter what role I’ve held—or what the job description said—the most meaningful work has always centered people. It’s the work that made space for them to be part of it, not just on the receiving end of it.
At some point, I came across a metaphor that helped me make sense of why the work never quite fit into traditional structures. In a 2018 piece for OpenNews, Hannah Birch described people like us—those who move between editorial, product, design, and connection—as platypuses. Not quite one thing. Not easily labeled. And not broken—just built differently.
That metaphor landed because that’s exactly how this work has always felt.
I’ve stopped trying to find the perfect lane for this work. It’s always moved across the lines—between teams, timelines, and ways of thinking.
For many of us, it’s looked like holding threads across systems. Sometimes without a clear title. Sometimes without recognition. But always with intention.
That kind of work doesn’t happen in a silo.
It isn’t limited to one team.
And more than anything, it isn’t just a specialty—it’s a mindset that touches everything we do.
The real work—the work that builds purpose and trust—lives in how we connect.
So what does that actually look like?
It looks like involving people before the product is built or the story is written.
It looks like designing with—not just for—communities.
It looks like slowing down long enough to ask, Who are we really doing this for? And how will they experience it?
It also looks like rethinking how we define success.
Not just clicks, but clarity.
Not just reach, but resonance.
Not just metrics, but meaning.
It means asking harder questions and being open to what we hear in return.
I’ve been calling this “audience work” for years because there wasn’t a better word. But now I see it for what it really is:
It’s the connective tissue. The compass.
It’s culture-building. Relationship-building. Purpose-building.
And it belongs in everyone’s job description—not as a task, but as a shared responsibility.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been collecting and documenting the philosophies, systems, lessons, and tools I’ve helped shape—first at Mississippi Today, then through Deep South Today. I’m not doing this to establish a legacy. I’m doing it to name what’s been learned—so others can step in, steer it forward, and deepen its purpose.
Because this work is always evolving. And that’s the whole point.
The foundation matters. But the next step is always someone else’s to shape.
That’s what I’m continuing to explore through LF Voices Collective—a space for cultural storytelling, connection, and audience-centered design. It’s not a model with all the answers. It’s a living framework that asks better questions:
What happens when connection becomes the function, not the afterthought?
What could journalism, cultural work, and civic storytelling look like if the people we serve weren’t just the audience—but the beginning of the process?
If you work in journalism—or in any field that exists to serve people—this isn’t a call to change your title or build a new team. It’s just a call to remember why the work exists at all.
We don’t do it to be heard.
We do it to connect.
And that starts with seeing the audience not as an endpoint—but as the beginning of everything.
