Podcasts, on one hand, and the efficient use of all the information treasured by data stores, are driving new ways of telling stories through the printed and digital media that operate unified.
Thanks to the sound format, which are podcasts, newspapers can extract fragments of stories then spread as text or TV series, turning them into a new product.
There are already, for example, podcasts specialized in the daily offerings of digital media, such as those that offer healthy life advice, food, breaking news or summaries of important news, interviews and dramas prepared from events that impact our society.
The New York Times is betting on the development of podcasts, especially with content that attracts younger audiences, as a way to strengthen its enviable positioning as a large receiver of digital subscriptions, with more than three million users at the moment.
The same is done by La Nacion, from Argentina, which has prepared a varied offer of daily podcasts, including one that offers advice on how to take advantage of time, another on the magic of songs, the life of politicians and the attractive places of their country.
As for the use of “big data”, the forms have begun to install units of compilation, analysis and extrapolation of data to float unknown stories or relevant angles of a current event, offering a valuable element of context and novelty to their readers.
During the fifth SIP-Connect Technology Conference, which sponsored the Inter-American Press Society in Miami, I heard Michael Greenspon, global manager of licenses and innovation at The New York Times, reveal that this newspaper has hired 100 people, mainly mathematicians and scientists, to work on data together with traditional and digital journalists.
Something that caught my attention is that, contrary to what was thought in the sense that the setup of the written press tended to get progressively diminished, the NYT has 1,600 journalists at this time, the largest number in its entire history.
Gaston Roitberg, head of the digital content at La Nacion from Buenos Aires, told us about some shocking stories raised from the use of “big data” that have allowed the newspaper to win international awards for data journalism in the recent years, and that the commitment to strengthen this unit of analysis will be greater in the immediate future.
– Translated from Spanish by Randy Rodriguez.
Director's Thoughts 