In a rare two-day gathering of more than 1,500 industry leaders, journalists, and stakeholders from across the globe, participants in the recent Saudi Media Forum 2023 emphasized the need to consciously keep pace with the rapid transformation of the media environment.
This writer is posting the full transcript of her brief statement as a panelist in one of the forum’s several discussions titled “News Agencies between was and will be” held at Hotel Riyadh on 20 February.
“News agencies across the globe have immensely evolved. If I am not mistaken, back in the 1920s a news agency, the Association of Morning Newspapers, was formed in New York City to gather incoming reports from Europe. In 1856, even before other local news agencies sprang up, the General News Association — comprising many important New York City papers —was organized.
Now we have the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, Reuters, Bloomberg News, United Press International, and CBC News, among others.
Essentially, a news agency, referred to as a wire service, newswire, or news service, gathers news and sells it to subscribing newspapers, enriching them with a variety of news materials. Modern media now avail of their services, such as radio TV and the internet. Modern methods have overtaken the Jurassic method of transmission using teletype machines.
Significantly, we have progressed from scarcity to an abundance of journalism. We credit this to the World Wide Web, hence changing the structure of news production and consumption.
There are two factors:
1. The syndication of news production has been overtaken by search, sharing, and aggregation because of an explosion of new journalism sources in the digital world.
2. Non-journalism news producers such as public relations companies, social media content agencies, governments, corporations, educational institutions, charities and advocacy groups who are all churning out their own information have joined the bandwagon drawing public interest.
We haven’t reached “peak content” yet. The level, like the oceans and seas, will continue to rise — boding well for a journalist who can filter and connect.
Given all these, searching through the internet is not the answer. It is a significant step towards a truly intelligent semantic and curation.
It is not all about that list where someone else does the searching for you. Editorial selection based on audience data and personalization is the new discoverability.
News organizations should relate to “quality” and ask, “how do you connect people to ‘better’ journalism?”
Professor Charlie Beckett of Polis, the think-tank for research and debate around international journalism and society in the Department of Media and Communications, said it is right that there is a lot of rubbish out there — fake news and misinformation. Although this does not mean that there is less good material. We know that “good” journalism has always had to find a way to the people in a world of other less worthy distractions.
Whether we like it or not, this is the challenge for news agencies because more than ever people are getting good content in almost identical ways as the bad, for example, through sharing on Facebook and other social media platforms.
In the words of Professor Beckett, “there was always a somewhat naive hope that the future of news was going to be like The Matrix (a triumph of good technology over bad technology) or perhaps like Star Trek (the triumph of the liberal, rational, human spirit using technology to boldly go, etc.).”
The best news organizations can adapt to this new environment by changing their style and tailoring their work to the multiple tones and moods of people’s new media diets, blended with quality.
Given how people consume and distribute journalism, news organizations must strategize new business opportunities in a targeted, efficient and flexible way. Newsroom management now involves continually monitoring, reacting to, and developing content for connectivity, responsiveness to people’s needs, and a balanced information diet.
Since we are a part of the mediated lives of people who are always on their mobile devices accessing platforms, apps, and networks in a more personalized way, we can position vulnerable people’s life stories within a wider social context.
News is no longer just the product it was intended to be; it has inevitably become a service.”
My gratitude goes to my co-panelists Vasily Pushkov, Director for International Cooperation of Sputnik (Russia); Fahad Hassan Al Agraq, President of Saudi Press Agency; Abdullah Abdul Karim, Acting Executive Director for News Content Sector of Emirates News Agency; and moderator Waled Khanfour of Al-Ekhbariya channel, for their invaluable insights on the reality and future of media beyond the realm of the Philippine setting.