BY NURFARAHIN OKI
KUCHING: Journalism plays a crucial role in fostering a healthy news diet for the public.
According to a professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science Department of Media and Communications, Charlie Beckett, there is a need for journalism to adapt to the evolving preferences of audiences.
He stressed that journalists should present news in a manner that resonates with the public, providing solutions to the issues highlighted in their reporting.
“Give them the journalism in the right format at the right time but also offer them added value.
“Give them content that can be useful in their lives, but also give them serendipity and joy. Give them a surprise and tell them about something that’s good in the world,” he said.
He was presenting his talk entitled ‘Building and Maintaining Trust and Confidence in the Media Amidst Digital Disruptions’ during the inaugural Sarawak Media Conference (SMeC) 2024 held at Riverside Majestic Hotel on Sunday (May 26).
On the same note, Beckett said that the use of technology in newsroom culture and editorial policy cannot be ignored but needs to be embraced instead.
“Journalists should use the same technologies that are disrupting the users but also have to find non-technological solutions.
“There is more computing power in the iPhone than there was in the broadcast newsroom that I ran back in 2006.
“So, thanks to digital technologies and the internet, we can reach more people,” said the former journalist.
Beckett also mentioned that journalism is not a factory or a manufacturing industry anymore but a service, and journalist ought to be thinking like that.
“New technologies offer amazing potential for creativity and new ways to find stories, create content, and connect people to journalism, but journalism is always behind the curve.
“We need to think of newsrooms as laboratories and not factories, so we need to think of the people who make the news as a resource for investment,” he said.
