FEED issue 29 Newsletter

10 YOUR TAKE News

The future of news will be decentralised and ‘story-centric’, with journalists continuing to have to do more with less

ne of the most important ways to understand where the newsroom is headed in the future is to look at its past. The changes have been rapid and disruptive, and the newsroom of 2020 is a very different beast from that of 2010. This is not too surprising. While the transition to non-linear working was well underway and newsrooms were already transitioning to file-based ways of working, the world of 2010 was a very different time. Social media was still in its relative infancy, with Facebook at only 600 million active users as opposed to the current 2.5 billion, and Instagram didn’t launch until later in the year. Newsrooms were TV-first environments, and glossy, high- profile news shows were the big beasts of the newsroom set-up, commanding staff and resources, with most of the enterprise largely subordinate to their needs. A STORY-CENTRIC APPROACH In 2020, the dynamic has changed vastly. Being first with the news has always been important, but today that means far more than hitting 24/7 news channels with a story. Citizen journalism is now a key part, with the public taking it upon themselves to break news on Twitter. Video is pumped out to YouTube and social media, and television is seen as a distant cousin in a

story-centric approach that has had no choice but to become output agnostic. As a system vendor, we have had to adapt our own approach, ensuring that products remain relevant to the way that newsrooms operate in 2020 and beyond. This has meant establishing professional tools for delivering platform-agnostic content and establishing these within our current – and future – feature sets. This is a trend we also see developing far more over the coming years, as the story- centric approach is implemented across newsrooms everywhere. 2020 has come with a unique set of challenges for newsrooms and broadcasters, with many people confined to their homes and entire businesses working remotely. Focusing on telling the story is key, and the growing abundance of information available around the clock can make that difficult. TRANSITIONING TO THE NEW APPROACH We recognise the importance of staying connected, especially when many organisations have no choice but to adapt an ever more remote-focused methodology, all while remaining cost- efficient and within budget. Our web-based clients support remote working and enable journalists to research, structure and plan

MICHAEL PFITZNER Vice-president for newsroom solutions at CGI

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