Credibility and creativity: The essentials for a transition from traditional journalism to online platforms

People will always want to read accurate, relevant, and timely information that they can trust to be objective and balanced. They will always look for writers and organisations who they feel they can regard as relatively agenda-free or at the very least, transparent with their process and their own goals. That is why traditional journalism that has always served the public’s interest will never die, although it may evolve into another form that is consistent with the development of technology and how this impacts the behaviour of the information-devouring public.

Nowhere is this most obvious than with the explosive revelations unleashed by a dozen international agencies, led by Germany, as they milked the now-famous Panama Papers which uncovered the offshore accounts of world leaders, captains of industry, and celebrities. As Tim Adams of The Guardian writes, “As the past couple of weeks’ revelations from Panama have emphasised, the painstaking, mischief-making work of newsrooms is still our best hope for shedding light on the shadiest corners of the world, a role amplified by a global readership, big data, and an increasingly interconnected media.”

At the same time, the British journalist acknowledged that his profession is the “fourth most endangered job” as of 2015. Reporters, writers, and editors have been laid off by the dozens from among formidable institutions like the Gigaom, Al-Jazeera America, Mashable and his own Guardian Media Group. It should be noted that even online content provider have been affected by the so-called employment bloodbath, and not just the traditional journalists who had cut their teeth on the now disappearing print publications.

The math is actually simple: continual employment comes from a sustainable business model, which comes from a predictable and reliable source of revenue. The challenge now for content providers and media agencies alike is to provide information in its various forms in a style, format and with enough substance that news readers are willing to pay for them. Although free content is the norm in the digital landscape today, pioneers like Blendle are adopting the strategy which has made Netflix and Spotify a success in the movie and music streaming spheres, respectively: provide a platform by which readers can download their favourite news stories and articles from the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Vanity Fair. After trying out the free services, readers will enjoy the quality of the content, want more, and will be more than willing to pay a few dollars for a subscription.

Ultimately, Blendle is a platform that will leverage on the tried-and-tested content that is being generated by longstanding, popular publications that have an online equivalent. However, this may not be enough for those same publishers who now agree that the news they publish must offer that critical balance of credibility and creativity. This was the consensus of more than 100 journalists from the US, Latin America and Spain who gathered at the 9th Ibero-American Colloquium on Digital Journalism organised by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas at the University of Texas at Austin in April. Readers need more than just a simple presentation of information to be engaged. Some of the ideas that the participants considered were “memes on demand, interactive television, 360º videos and videos exclusively made for social networks.” Should these new features attract an increasing number of audience, then advertising and its revenues just might follow.

One pioneer that may have struck the right formula is Born2Invest , a news content curation platform that offers through its app real-time news concerning every business category from almost every country in the world. Homegrown journalists from these nations localise news items derived from reputable news agencies around the world into succinct summaries that an app user can easily read, understand and digest. The localisation makes the news items immediately relevant to the user, and its 80-word count likewise converts it into an easy, yet, substantial read. Aside from English, other linguistic options include Arabic, French, German, Russian and Thai, just to name a few. Thousands of on-the-go investors, business owners, entrepreneurs, and department managers have made Born2Invest a go-to site for news that helps them in their decision-making and business-related strategic formulation.

The Independent is another pioneer, as well as a traditional newspaper that has successfully crossed over from print into the digital domain. According to an analysis by Journalism , the digital version trimmed down its content into shorter, readable form which can be downloaded through its app. Analytics guides the choice for its reporting, which is also supported by data culled from various databases. The approach has brought in the paying audience. Although digital subscription charges L12.99 a month, the online readership has grown 30 percent the past year. Projections estimate another 50 percent increase this year. In a development that will make journalists happy, the Independent has hired 40 more to staff their digital department.

Journalism and news reportage are alive and well; they are just in search of viable, forward-thinking platforms and publishers which can help them transition to a brave new world. As Knight Center director Rosental Alves puts it, “The newspaper of 20 years ago is dead, transformed into something different than it was.” With speculations that the smartphone will soon replace the PC, this change is just beginning.