First the newsreels, then the 24/7 televised news took over the traditional model that prevailed during decades in which the printed newspapers held the priority for managing and disseminating information.
This is the genesis of the greatest challenges that the traditional media have had to face during each cycle of innovation nowadays, as they strive not to renounce to their essential mission whilst adapting to the new technologies as they come and go, as an effort to survive to a market with ever growing competitiveness.
Despite the great impact of this 24-hours TV news model, which allowed the public to see through their own eyes the images of a live episode happening any where in the world, the written press understood that they had to bet on other dimensions of the news or different models, and that’s precisely what has made them go through a successful reinvention process.
What does that reinvention consist in? Well, in a re-focus of its contents to see the news details that simply are beyond their current form (brevity and quickness), and all possible backgrounds of the data – eliminating superficiality, scarce or vague verifications and lack of filters or rules to contrast the sources – so that the public can handle a more real and less manipulated context of the facts.
That’s why they opted to give higher priority to the research and analysis of the facts, to take advantage of the technologies that allow a smooth management of the databases, and more recently, a highly advanced tool that we call artificial intelligence, which interprets and showcases many different faces of an event beyond the “Breaking News”, which tend to be the strongest aspect of social media.
Under the capacity of adapting and applying those new technologies that today constitute the optimal support for digital communications, the written press frees its fight for survival, but always on the basis of the reliability and quality of its contents.
The formidable change brought by the informative television, especially the 24/7 one, didn’t diminish the level of influence and penetration of the written press nor did it succumb it at all, as many feared at the time of this emergent model’s climax.
Simply put, all media channels, just like the matter, are destined to transform. Everyone can assume this principle as long as the importance of innovations is not dismissed or overlooked. The success lays in assuming the change and applying the new things as convenience knocks the door.
The tight-fisted key for reinvention is to protect and maintain the rules of the professional journalism, which is way too immune against the plague of fake news, manipulations or distortions seen on other platforms, and holds a clear concept of the legal and natural limits of freedom, so as not to overrun them arbitrarily.
– Translated from Spanish by Randy Rodriguez.
Director's Thoughts 