Journalist Study: Christina Cocca

Christina Cocca is a journalist for NowThis News. NowThis News is a website and media company that was founded in 2012 by former Huffington Post chairman, Kenneth Lerrer and former Huffington Post CEO, Eric Hippeau. It is a strictly digital publication that posts videos to its website and social media pages such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube.

The news outlet focuses heavily on investigative reporting and interviewing in the form of video news. As rated the #1 video news brand, NowThis News covers topics from news, politics, entertainment, money, food and sports to columns such as her, nerd and weed. Cocca is the News Director at NowThis. Via LinkedIn, Cocca describes herself as a digital master of all trades. An avid user of Linkedin, Cocca has over 500 connections and her personal bio states she is a an expert in building teams and uniting departments in media companies including BuzzFeed, NBC, NowThis and Whisper. Also listed are the places she has been awarded from; Los Angeles Press Club, California Newspaper Publishers Association, and California Media Association. For Cocca, LinkedIn deems to be her professional news source. Her artsy profile picture helps connections dive into her skill and expertise while getting a feel for her approach.

As for twitter, the first thing a viewer notices may be the timeline photo Cocca decided to use. The hot pink photo reads “Out of Service When Lit.” The verified twitter user @coccacocca mainly tweets out celebrity news. This news director isn’t afraid to tweet out some of her opinions. As stated in Chapter 7, a journalist should stay away from tweeting about a political party. Although the tweets below clearly establish an issue, more fact based information would be a more professional approach. NowThis is a very liberal news organization to begin with, but high profile journalist should not side for the sake of their viewers.

With the entertainment industry rising, I feel a lot more “risky” posts may be used to help define the individual’s personality. Personally, I feel strongly about professionalism so believe that her twitter photo is a little much, but that may just be what helps her feel more “herself” to her following. Also, after working in Los Angeles for the summer, I noticed that it provides a different “professional” vibe than other places. Ultimately, what we deem acceptable here can change.

On Twitter, Christina could do a better job at keeping her post up to date. Cocca tweets every couple days and a lot of times only retweet accounts with no additional input added. As for Instagram and Facebook, Christina Cocca does have active accounts. The only problem is she is private. With only 580 followers on Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter are the most effective ways to reach this journalists.

As a successful new director based in Los Angeles, I believe that Cocca should not be private on Instagram. Instagram is a great way to share visual news, especially when representing a company that thoroughly supports video news.