Uniting two formats, print and digital in the same newsroom, is the pinnacle of the so-called multimedia convergence, the most complete expression of the new communications ecosystem.
Technologically speaking, multimedia is crystallized by uniting the resources of each medium (text, graphics, audio and video) through the facilities that allow different applications on the web.
But this would not be enough. Because a properly technological conjunction must be accompanied by a process of coupling rules, languages and tools and work rhythms, so that it finally lays the foundations of the new culture of cyberjournalism.
And the latter is not easy when it comes to involving journalists and traditional styles with the professionals of the new generation, essentially trained for the dynamics of digital journalism.
Both segments are compatible in what is the exercise of journalism, but not so much so when it comes to using different informational tools to reach their audiences with “products” differentiated from each other.
The audience made up of digital users is easily identifiable and exploitable. Their consumption preferences, their usual hours, their reactions and their expectations can be known, because that is what technologies exist for.
But in the case of the audiences of readers of the paper, these respond to often very different patterns that, to discover them, surveys, focus-groups and tables would be needed for the approximate interpretation of their predilections.
This diversity of parameters is, for the moment, one of the main obstacles that still prevent us from achieving excellence and the most optimal realization of what we call multimedia.
- Translated from Spanish by Randy Rodriguez.
Director's Thoughts 