By Sydney Moate
David Rose is the news anchor for Fox 13 Seattle at 6, 10, and 11 p.m., as well as the host of The Spotlight, a weekly half-hour broadcast focused on crime and safety issues. Rose was hired as weekend news anchor and weekday reporter. Eight months later, he was promoted to anchor the 10 pm News. Rose has worked for Q13 for more than 17 years, joining in July 2007, before the FOX Broadcasting Company purchased Q13 from Tribune Media in 2020, and changed the station brand to FOX 13 Seattle.
Rose has 10,860 followers on Facebook, 6,452 followers on Instagram, and 18.700 followers on X. His posts on local crime usually attract between 100-1000 views and likes. In an interview over email, this is what David Rose had to say on the use of social media in his work:
Q: What is your favorite topic of reporting?
A. Crime. I love helping victims get justice. From 2008 to 2022, I hosted Washington’s Most Wanted which gave a voice to victims and helped law enforcement solve crimes and locate almost 1500 fugitives.
Q: Do you enjoy utilizing social media in your work?
A: I don’t enjoy it as much as I used to because media companies like Meta have made it difficult for news stories to reach wide audiences. Social media companies don’t want users to click away from sites like Facebook so their algorithms don’t prioritize other information over links to news stories.
Q: How does access to social media help you with your job?
A: While we don’t reach as wide of an audience on social media as we used to, it still generates tremendous leads and story ideas. Access to social media remains crucial to driving traffic to our website.
Q: Do you feel that sharing your crime reporting to social media helps to spread your stories and keep the community safer?
A: Yes, social media absolutely helps. I have three Facebook pages, one Instagram page and two Twitter accounts. Many tips come into Crime Stoppers from users of social media. I also get ideas for stories and viewers contact me to ask for help because of my social media profiles.
Q: Does social media ever make your job harder? If so, how?
A: Social media doesn’t make my job harder. However, it can be very time consuming. At one point, I was spending several hours a day answering questions from viewers sending me instant messages. It wasn’t leaving me enough time to research, write and produce stories. I disabled instant messaging and encouraged people to email me instead. It slowed the volume of requests to a manageable amount.
Q: How has social media changed since you started using it?
A: Tik Tok and Instagram are more popular now than Facebook and many people get their news from those Apps. Youtube has also become a priority for us.
Q: How has your reporting changed since social media became popular?
A: My reporting has stayed the same. However, we focus heavily on producing stories in a manner that are appropriate for each social media site. For example, while we will post the video of a news story directly to Youtube, we may make a graphic with text and a compelling image to share on Instagram. For TikTok, we may upload a behind the scenes video of how we made the story.
Q: What advice would you have for an aspiring journalist regarding the use of social media?
A: Think twice about everything you post on any personal social media site. If you wouldn’t want your mom to see it or read it, don’t post it. Media companies will look at your social media when making a hiring decision. It’s important to remember that when you are posting on a station branded account, you represent that company and it’s not about you but about the content. That being said, always be yourself on social media. Viewers see right through you if you are not authentic. Figure out what drives your passion whether it is sports, hard news, entertainment news or weather and post about those topics.
Q: How do you decide what is beneficial to post and what is not?
A: I try to post stories that either help keep the community safe, ask for help from the public or inform the users about an important issue. The main thing is to not waste a social media users’ time.
This Q&A is part of a series created by students in Courtney Cowgill’s Social Media and Audience Engagement course at the University of Montana School of Journalism. Students sought out people in media who are doing social media for good to offer tips and insights into the ever-evolving landscape of social media.
Montana Journalism 