To the extent that audiences prefer audiovisual news, the journalist gets out of the old schemes that kept him practically anonymous sooner.
When the printed newspapers monopolized the dissemination of news processed with high professional sense, the author’s signature became an identity stamp and depending on the frequency, importance or hierarchical importance that their news had, to that degree it marked their name.
As this model has changed with the digital transformation, the ways of doing journalism have also changed.
Now being more audiovisual, the journalist becomes an inevitable link in history, because users want to see, hear and gauge the character who informs them and the ways in which he does it.
This allows journalists to break out of the old shells of anonymity and make themselves visible to the public, in some cases showing their levels of dominance in the stories, their ability to “hook” users and build perceptions of credibility.
Video and audio formats, now widely used in digital journalism, demand that they have more prominence or visibility than in the past, when they were barely known for their signatures, not so much for their faces or their ways of interacting directly with the public.
By being more visible, less anonymous, many even become friendly, credible, and even attractive figures, as is often the case with many of our novice reporters, digital natives, who already have legions of loyal and enthusiastic “fans” capable of talk and explain to the public their daily adventures in the search for the news.
That is the journalist of these new times.
- Translated from Spanish by Randy Rodriguez.
Director's Thoughts 