With this transition process that we live towards a robust model of communications through digital media, one of the most dilemmatic questions is not about which is going to be the definitive best time for technology, but the drastic replacement of that ingrained older “chip” or mentality that traditional journalists tend to have which delays them significantly into blending in properly into this new model.
I have already referred, before, to the how many of the newsrooms that are going through this change are experiencing certain difficulties when they become multiplatforms, on which journalists must present the news in different formats, such as visually and aurally, not just textually, as was the main focus of journalists of the previous generations.
In one of the exhibitions of the fifth SIP-Connect Technology Conference, experts in digital transformations Eduardo Tessler, from Brazil, and Chus del Rio, from Spain, have doubts that newspapers professionals can serve the digital world if they haven’t gone through a real change of chip or mentality to adapt to the system.
“The change stumbles upon new professionals and thus new challenges arise for everyone. The traditional printed newspapers aren’t up to optimal news standards anymore. Their role has drastically changed. We must know what’s our audience asking for to then meet their needs”, they said.
The change of mentality, which is almost like saying attitude and aptitude, does not occur very easily among professionals who have tanned in the parameters of traditional journalism that allowed them a threshold of 24 hours to verify and process the news content, without recurring to the techniques of new redacting styles or the recording and editing of audiovisuals, unlike today’s digital journalists.
The priority is to recognize that there has been a significant change between the working conditions of the past and the present, and that the readers of yesterday are today’s “users”, who do not only consume the news but other interesting content formatted by technology, as well.
If this reality is not assumed as is, then we won’t be mentally prepared to place a brand new chip on our brains that allows to think and act accordingly to digital sphere or at least the transition couldn’t be any smooth.
To prevent many traditional journalists from lagging behind this process, newspapers companies organize training workshops and specific tests to measure both their aptitudes and attitudes for the change.
At the same time, multiplatform journals open their doors to the new generations of journalists trained for the usage of technological tools under this digital age. With this group of newer professionals, there’s no real adaptation problem, as they arrive with the brand new “chip” already ingrained on their brains.
– Translated from Spanish by Randy Rodriguez.
Director's Thoughts 