Best of CASE District VII Award
 

Institution: University of California San Diego

Title of entry: What’s Trending? Real-Time Expertise in a Viral News Cycle

About this entry: As a leading public research university, UC San Diego extends its culture of innovation into how it approaches storytelling — recognizing that as viral moments and rapid news cycles shape public conversation, universities risk being absent from the stories dominating feeds and headlines. With this in mind, UC San Diego Today developed a recurring rapid-response editorial approach to insert faculty expertise into real-time cultural conversations.

The five stories submitted here, including “Do TikTok’s Viral Life Hacks Actually Help Your Mental Health?,” “Your Feed is Full of Nutrition Trends -Are Any of Them Legit?” and “Why Are People Lining Up for Labubus?” demonstrate this model in action. A content strategist monitors trends, identifies faculty experts and produces accessible, research-backed stories while topics are still capturing national attention. Formats range from narrative explainers to Q&As, prioritizing clarity without sacrificing speed.

The strategy has produced measurable results. Three of the five stories ranked among the Top 20 most-clicked stories in UC San Diego Today’s twice-weekly newsletter between January and September 2025. The viral life hacks story was the most-clicked article in May 2025. The Labubu story generated 16,847 views - exceptionally high for the publication -with an average time on page of 2 minutes 30 seconds. The nutrition trends story sustained an average time on page of 3 minutes 10 seconds, signaling deep engagement.

Faculty featured in these stories were subsequently interviewed or quoted on the topics by national and international outlets, extending the reach of the original UC San Diego Today reporting.