CRESCENT People: John Boyanoski — Why Print Media isn’t Dead and Why Volunteerism Trumped Journalism.

As important as electronic outlets have become, a lot of us still long for those days when newspapers offered more than they offer today. There was the morning paper, and there was the evening paper. It was as real time information as you would have with all the various web outlets.  Was it immediate?  No, but most people check for information in the morning and then again the afternoon.  Unless you’re just monitoring Facebook and Twitter constantly throughout the day, you’re not going to get that kind of immediacy, anyway.  You’re just looking for that once or twice a day.  I’d love to see newspapers put something like that together again.

The thing to remember about that, too, is I’m always…I tell people that I read web sites and I do everything, but I want to go to a newspaper web site, click on the one story I see, maybe click another story, and I’m done.  When I pick up a newspaper, I read it cover to cover and say, “I didn’t realize that was going on.”  I scan everything on it.  I’m sorry. It’s still an easier format than clicking.  A lot of people have grown up clicking, but they don’t know any better.

Some of the papers are experimenting with apps for tablets and smartphones, but they’re nothing more than digitized versions of the papers with no ease in updating or searching. They take forever to load, too. They’re still having a tough time understanding the electronic evolution of news and information.

I’m a traditionalist.  But I do like the idea when I’m going to read stuff…supposedly, when I’m on the web, I’m scanning.  I’m looking for ideas, I’m looking for something.  When I read a newspaper, it’s like taking time to build a relationship with something, if that makes sense.  It’s not that immediate rush, and that’s what a lot of web stuff is.  It’s not bad. I don’t want to say it’s bad, but there is still a place for print for a lot of people.  We like to say print’s dead and it’s hurting and will die eventually, but it’s not dead yet.  People are still reading more newspapers than they’re reading anything on a web site, for a most part.  That’s my opinion.

Why did you decide to jump ship from the journalism side and go over to the evil world of PR.

OK, again, print’s not dead.  I had a job. It was a good job, and I had security to some extent, but I looked at it.  I was young enough where I could switch careers.  Fifteen years from now, I’d still have a job at the newspaper, probably, but I’d lose it then.  I’d reach my ceiling, and I said “What happens then?”  Well, it’s tougher to rebuild when you’re in your late forties as opposed to early thirties, so it really was a thing where I wanted to say, “Looking down the road, where can I…where’s my future?”  I can work in PR.  If I want to leave PR, I can transition to something else.  There’s a bigger world, bigger market, more security, but that’s the financial side.  Personal side is that I’ve lived in South Carolina since 1999, all in the Upstate.  I’ve covered political campaigns.  I’ve covered crime.  I’ve covered business.  I never gave back and, for me, the idea of giving back was huge.  So when I switched over to PR and I no longer had to be non-biased, not showing emotions, not showing, “Hey, I like that candidate,” but I never could put a yard sign in my yard.  I’d never had a yard sign in my entire life to show who I support.  I didn’t want anyone to say “John Boyanoski is a Republican” or “John Boyanoski is a Democrat” or “No wonder he wrote a slanted story for ‘Candidate A.’ He supported this guy, who’s a friend of his.”  I never wanted that, so in the last two years, I have been involved in campaigns, writing op-eds, putting yards signs out, doing all the little gritty stuff I’ve always wanted to do that I’d missed.

I can do who I want.

I’ve gotten involved with the Greenville Chamber.  They’ve got a young professionals’ group called PULSE.  I’m their chair-elect for 2013, so I was on the board for 2011.  I’m on the board for 2012.  I’ll be on the board in 2013.  I’m on the Meals on Wheels advisory council.  I’m a member of Greenville Forward.  I’m a member of the Greenville Track Club.  I volunteered with Habitat for Humanity.  I’m a member of Kiwanis Matrix Professionals.  I helped out the YMCA, the Greenville Library.  I’m giving back.

For once, I’m actually becoming part of the solution in South Carolina. I’m not saying I was part of the problem as a newspaper reporter, but I wasn’t helping.  I look forward to taking an active role in helping shape the Upstate, shaping Greenville, and actually help the whole state.  I really want to be someone who, when I look back, I want to be someone who can say, “Yeah, I did what I could to make South Carolina better.”

For me, that’s volunteering.  That is helping.  That is taking leadership roles when it is needed.  Later this week, I’m going to be with Greenville Forward.  I want to take a more active role.  I want to sit on councils.  I want to put together events.  I want to be part of what’s making Greenville move forward.

Is it idealistic?  Is it pie-in-the-sky?  Sometimes yes, but sometimes you need…I’m never going to donate a million dollars to build something in South Carolina, but I can help get kids in schools.  I can help teach.  I can help educate.  I can help clean up a park.  Just give back those little ways.  That’s one of the reasons, too.  I can actually do it with a clean conscience without anyone ever saying, “Well, that’s why he wrote the story, because John Boyanoski forced him to write his story.”  I can honestly say I’m doing something because I really want to do it.

But that’s what it is.  It’s…I like helping out.  A little more on the Chamber’s PULSE because that’s where I’m really involved.  We’re young professionals, twenty-two to thirty-nine.  950 members and we’re really trying to give back.

That’s a group that’s grown substantially. 

It is.  It started with 250 members five years ago.  We’re up to 950.  It’s not a straight progression because someone’s not going to join PULSE at twenty-two and stay for seventeen years.

You’re going to build your network over three to four to five years.  You’re going to get your friends.  You’re going to build your alliances.  You’re going to move on, but our thing is creating that network for young professionals — giving them a voice. We’re giving them lunches where they can meet with leaders.  We’re giving them mentoring programs.  We’re giving them sporting opportunities where they can take part in events and be among young professionals and build those networks, and hopefully, by being a member of PULSE, they get more activated in bigger things.

They go to Chamber events.  They meet with people in the Chamber and say, “Hey, I found a job for PULSE.”  Our members are saying, “I’m sitting on a commission,” or “I’m volunteering,” or “I didn’t know about that. I learned about it because I’m a member of PULSE.”  That’s what really, for me, is the big, big thing we offer.

And if someone wants to get involved with PULSE, who do they call. 

They can go to the Greenville Chamber’s web site and we’re linked on there.  We’re also, just look up Greenville PULSE and you just join.  It’s a $50 a year membership. If you’re a Chamber member or if your company is a Chamber member, it’s a $50 a year membership, $75 if not.  I always tell people if they join PULSE, go to the bare minimum — the six lunches, the six social events — they’re getting their… that’s $150 worth of activities they’re getting for $50.  They’re making their money back just for showing up and that not even taking a volunteering role, getting activated.

We’re open for memberships year-round.  It’s year-by-year so people can sign up any time.  We’re obviously signing up for 2012 right now, but that’s how people get involved.  I tell people “PULSE is like anything else.  What you put in is what you’re going to get out of it.”  If you’re going to be active, you’re going to meet more people. You’re going to learn more people. You’ll get more out of it.

Our benchmark person is Jil Littlejohn.  She moved up here from Atlanta, joined PULSE and was on City Council two years later.  Now, was that all because of PULSE?  No, but it helped build her initial base by saying, “I’m here, I want to help out,” and it got her face in front of people who wanted her to run and take it to the next level.  We tell people, we have people on various boards across the city and county.  We have a lot of young people who are leaders in their businesses or moving up quickly and they’re using a lot of PULSE, that early networking base.

We had Hayne Hipp, long-time Greenville business leader, speak to our group, and we had some Chamber executives or Chamber board members. They saw some 250 young people crammed into a room talking about leadership.  You could see their eyes kind of open up thinking, “Oh, wait a minute, there is a growing force of young people in Greenville who want to say…”  When I say young people, somebody thinks, “Oh, it’s high school and college kids.”  No, these are young professionals.  These are people working at GE, Fluor, Greenville Hospital, BMW who want to take that next level.  These are people who came to Greenville because they love Greenville.  They want to make Greenville better, and the Upstate as well.  That’s what we do.

For Part 1, Click HERE. For Part 2, Click HERE. For Part 3, Click HERE.