Implementing the digital mindset is one of the most difficult processes that marks the transition between journalism in print newspapers on paper and that of electronic editions.
Because it is not only about making a systemic connection of a model for planning, searching and disposing of news in a paper format, but also about assuming new dynamics in the presentation and monitoring of stories.
While the planners of the print newsroom work on the production of a newspaper with a specific number of pages that has predetermined closing times, those of the digital do so according to an infinite field of time and space, more flexible but also more demanding.
The journalists of the traditional model were forged with parameters determined by editorial rules that took into account the “inverted pyramid” of the basic questions to be answered, and that was enough.
On the other hand, in digital media, a looser, more colloquial field predominates to give the news, because it does not always have an end point (as in the paper medium), but it is continuous and admits value additions at any time.
Getting used to these very different forms is one of the most complicated exercises for the so-called veteran journalists of the traditional press who, little by little, have learned to play with different chips both on the printed and digital platforms.
But that is not the most relevant and decisive change. The change consists in assuming that in the digital sphere a new culture of consumption or preferences predominates, different styles and languages and, more than anything, a factor of interaction with the public that did not exist in the traditional model.
Changing that “chip” is not as easy as proposing it. That is why Dominican digital journalism still has too much ground ahead to explore and master in order to fulfill its tasks successfully.
But that’s where we go!
- Translated from Spanish by Randy Rodriguez.
Director's Thoughts 