Media bosses mull Internet challenges
The three-day International Press Institute (IPI) World Congress opened with fervent debate on the long-term challenges and opportunities posed by the advent of the age of new media.
From instant news on the Internet to average folk catching extraordinary events on their mobile phones, the threats – and opportunities – for traditional newspapers are increasing.
Krishna Bharat, a principal scientist for Internet search engine giant Google, warned editors that the web was going to reshape their industry.
"With each previous new technology, the face of journalism changed and we reinvented ourselves, but the heart of journalism – the editorial process, editorial objectivity and values – did not change," Bharat said.
"Our industry’s methods of information collection and dissemination will change but not core editorial practices."
He told editors: "Rather than ask, ‘How is the Internet going to affect my current operation?’, it is smarter and more useful to ask: ‘What benefits can the Internet bring to the news audience?’ and ‘How can I help bring that opportunity to the market?’"
He warned that bloggers – people recording online their lives, the events they witnessed first-hand and what they thought of it – were going to grow increasingly significant.
Bharat said that as the number of bloggers rose, some of them would be seen to provide valuable coverage – and editors had best take that into account.
"In a world of one million bloggers, some will be trusted by news media and build up trust," he said.
Delegates debated the value of citizen journalism, citing last year’s London attacks, where many of the most striking images and footage were captured by people on the spot, trapped in the bombed Underground trains which professional journalists could not reach.
IPI chairman Wilfred D. Kiboro told the assembled editors, media executives and leading journalists that the press had some learning to do in order to keep pace with progress.
"Journalists need to talk in new voices and new ways, because in a globalised world you can no longer expect that you will publish a newspaper only for a short time," the Kenyan press baron said.
"With the Internet and other forms of digital distribution, that newspaper will reach every country in the world and you will find yourself sucked into a war you never bargained for."
Emily Bell, the editor-in-chief of British newspaper The Guardian’s website, said the press could not hope to succeed in the high-speed, high-tech age by simply replicating the printed page online.
The Guardian’s website has attempted to stay ahead of the technology game, and has 13 million online readers per month compared to daily circulation figures of around 390,000, Bell said.
"The momentum of change is terrifying," she told delegates.
"We have to be of the web, and not just on the web. We’ve introduced blogs. We’ve built a podcast studio producing nine podcasts per week, averaging 100,000 downloads – and we only started that six weeks ago."
"You have to go where the audience goes, otherwise you don’t have much of a future," Bell warned.
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