Ten months of struggle through the Covid pandemic have undoubtedly created a new school of modern journalism in which human stories become the center and object of information, rather than outright declarations.
Readers and users of both information and specialized contents, today, make up the right audience that can trace all routes of information by themselves while subordinating to our strategies of broadcasting those realities that nobody should be alien to.
Due to the nature of the ongoing trauma, the experience of remotely managing the news has meant for the LISTIN DIARIO and many other traditional newspapers, a hard pull on the lever of profound renewal.
All planning and execution ways of journalistic tasks prior to the pandemic are now indefinitely left behind. We’re forced to enter rapid method reengineerings, in order to rearrange hierarchical structures and ways of connecting with the reader.
When reviewing this experience, as a panelist on a virtual conference of the school of social communications of the PUCMM university, I realized that we’ve done unthinkable things under the most dramatic conditions, with a deserted newsroom that later solidly reunified on the digital world.
To give you an idea, in recent months we’ve consolidated an editorial line focused on the dramas that have derived right from the pandemic disorder, both in terms of economic hardships and health care situations.
The priority was to exercise a journalism of solutions, looking for alternatives to overcome the crisis and addressing as many issues as possible, trying to discover questions and answers.
Beyond information and numbers, as relevant as they can be, we focus on human beings telling us their most relevant stories. On the other hand, taking advantage of tech facilities, we’ve produced audiovisual stories with a novel offer that we’ve called “the 9 o’clock coming-in”, a variety of programs that diffuse and discuss the uncertainties of our everyday.
With 184 headings and 160 editorials about the same topic, the production of the weekly special reports “The Extra” and “Sunday Readings”, plus informative podcasts, live broadcasts, citizen campaigns and debates, special coverings on Covid protection, economy, education, environment, and emergencies, it’s been exemplified the big effort on changing and adapting to a new school of journalism that’s only beginning to show its potential.
- Translated from Spanish by Randy Rodriguez.
Director's Thoughts 