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By Luis Manuel Botello
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| ICFJ VP of Programs Patrick Butler speaks at the opening ceremony. |
In the digital age, is everyone a journalist or is no one a journalist? Where is technology leading journalists? How can journalists better interact with their audiences using the Web?
These are some of the questions posed by more than 500 people at the 3rd International Journalists’ Conference, “The New Forms in Journalism,” focusing on digital media and held in Guadalajara, Mexico, from Nov. 29 to Dec. 3.
The conference, organized by the University of Guadalajara and the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), brought together journalists, academics and technology experts from around the world to discuss how the digital revolution has impacted the way journalists do their work through multimedia platforms.
José Luis Orihuela, communications professor at the University of Navarra, Spain, and author of the blog eCuaderno.com says that “those who write for the Web become media themselves, but they are not necessarily journalists. Citizen journalists are a good complement to traditional journalists.”
Conference participants, many of them journalism students from across Latin America, questioned the quality of information found on the Web.
“As journalists, we should reevaluate our work if we want to survive in this digital age. It is important now that users have become media and we, the professionals, do not know what to become,” added Orihuela.
Marco Levario, editor of the Mexican media magazine, Etcéter@ http://www.etcetera.com.mx/, says that unfortunately those using the Web are not looking for important information related to social issues; they are mainly looking for entertainment and for some sort of identity by interacting with others. “Journalists have in the web just another tool that they should embrace to inform about important social issues, taking advance of the huge impact the web allows us to have.”
The conference provided a good opportunity for experts to hint how technology may be evolving in years to come. “Technology is just a tool and it will never replace journalism,” said Ricardo Medina, manager of academic development for Microsoft. And for Eugenio Godard Zapata, Guadalajara general director for IBM (Mexico), the real challenge for content providers will be to make it easy for users to find their information on the web.
Eduardo Hauser, founder and CEO of the DailyMe, a next-generation electronic publishing company, showed how news gathering and delivery will be personalized. During the session on business models for new media, Hauser added that the traditional media will have to invest more in research and innovation to keep up with the emerging digital news organizations.
Tom Kennedy, managing editor for multimedia at Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, explained that the cost of innovation for the traditional media is very high, but technology has opened new ways to produce in-depth stories using multimedia platforms to reach new audiences. “We journalists need to reeducate ourselves. First of all, there is a need to consider the needs of the public and, second, the skills of each journalist,” he said.
But the impact to the media industry is even bigger in developing countries. Emilio Aliaga, editorial and new media director for Televisa Digital (Mexico), says his company is constantly testing new products and expanding its web portal. “We had to train our staff again,” says Aliaga.
Neil Budde, vice president and editor in chief of Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Sports, and Yahoo! Finance, said that in the ‘90s, nobody understood the impact of the internet and the radical change it generated; today it is the news consumer who has the control in his/her hand — the one that clicks the mouse. Budde added that Yahoo is exploring different ways to provide information the audience wants by making alliances with the traditional media and making sure web users find reliable information in the portal. “But while technology opens new ways to reach the audience, we should also understand that not everybody has access to high speed internet,” he added.
Mexico has been one of the dangerous countries to be a journalist, according to press freedom groups. But the internet has opened new possibilities to report on issues not covered by the mainstream media as well. During the session on the Internet and Press Freedom, Wael Abbas, an Egyptian blogger and winner of ICFJ’s 2007 Knight International Journalism Award, explained how the web has made it possible for him and other bloggers to bypass the government-controlled media to expose human rights atrocities that would have been unknown otherwise. A few days before his participation in the Mexico digital media conference, Abbas’ YouTube account with his video stories was shut down. But thanks to international pressure at the time of the conference, the account was opened again.
Other digital media experts attending the conference included:
• Nathalie Applewhite, Associate Director, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting
• Ana Arana, investigative reporter and current Knight International Journalism Fellow in Mexico City
• David Beard, Boston Globe, Editor of boston.com
• Beth Belton, news editor at the Associated Press
• Renata Cabrales, editor of elpais.com.co
• Craig Duff, New York Times and former Knight International Journalism Fellow
• Stephen Franklin, Chicago Tribune and former Knight International Journalism Fellow
• Doug Harbrecht, New Media Editorial Director, Kiplingers.com
• Doug Mitchell, Next Generation National Public Radio/Podcasting, former Knight International Journalism Fellow
• Javier Darío Restrepo, Colombian expert in journalism ethics
• ICFJ staff members Patrick Butler (Vice President for Programs), Luis Botello (Senior Program Director), Sharon Moshavi (Director of Digital Media) and Johanna Carrillo (Manager, IJNet)
The conference was part of the 23rd Guadalajara International Book Fair, the largest book fair in the Spanish-speaking world, attracting journalists and professionals from across the region. This year more than 500,000 people attended the Guadalajara Book Fair.
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