KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 5 — With the decline of sales and circulation for print newspapers and the pressure for online news organisations to produce content that drives high readership traffic, what is the future for journalism?
Will there be a demand for well-researched, investigative stories, or clickbait pieces for Facebook likes and shares?
Industry experts at a talk organised by the Institute of Journalists Malaysia (IoJ) at the Cooler Lumpur Festival in the Publika shopping mall here agreed that while journalism will still be relevant in the future, its current focus on a text-driven format needs to be re-looked and that journalists need to consider other accompanying methods in order to tell a story.
“I think journalism is surviving quite well, saying that it’s the death of journalism is an exaggeration. The industry is changing quite fast, but there will always be a demand for news.
“But we have to adapt to the challenges, and the biggest challenge is the globalisation of news industries,” one of the “Saving Journalism in the Age of Social Media” forum panellists, Malaysiakini chief executive Premesh Chandran, said.
Another panellist, Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily’s COO Tan Lee Chin said that news organisations should strive to produce different content from the current news cycle by producing “good local stories” that are relevant.
“We really need to produce good local stories that are relevant... It is actually quite hard to produce in-depth investigative stories.
“And in this race for an audience we cannot rely on what we have been doing,” she said, referring to news organisations lifting stories from competitors and rewriting them for publication.
Karangkraf Media Group’s executive adviser Datuk Abdul Jalil Ali said that news organisations need to evolve beyond presenting “plain news” to readers, and that text-driven content will no longer suffice for a news story.
“Graphics, pictures can tell more than words, that is the challenge for journalists now. Not only just writing articles, news has to have more information,” he said.
Abdul Jalil rubbished the view that journalists will no longer have a role to play in the future, saying that news organisations still played an important role in informing readers of facts, and refuting rumours or false news.
“The most important thing to consider is: is everything being shared on social media valid? There is a lot of rubbish but you must know how to weave through it.
“Online portals, news companies will still be here. The credibility of the news being presented is important,” he said.
Premesh said that news organisations ought to also look into diversifying their income streams in order to be sustainable and independent.
“If you have really good content, the best way is to develop a membership or subscription base, or to rely on events and other types of revenue streams.
“If advertising is your main source of income, advertisers will want you to serve their needs as opposed to your readers’ needs,” he said.
* A previous version of this story contained an error which has since been corrected.
