Not yet digital journalism
A man uses his phone to record proceedings during a past function. With time the misinformation bubble will burst. People will become sensation-fatigued. They will seek truthful and unbiased sources.
What you need to know:
- Instances of reporters being harassed – even flogged – for using their phones to gather news are still par for the course with public figures in politics and administration.
- The entertainment industry remains the MoJo pacesetter and loads of multimedia content creators always grab exclusive one-on-ones with celebrities literally anywhere.
Over the past couple of days, you have consumed more news content on your phone than on any other platform. But is that digital journalism? You interacting with media content distributed via the internet? Let’s take a step back.
Before that content got to you, someone figured your phone was the most convenient place to find you and strategised to get their content on your phone’s screen. Each day, more and more people are coming to this realisation and that means it is no longer your usual media organisations battling one another for your attention.
Your neighbour is also now scrambling to divert your eyeballs to their latest production on YouTube and TikTok. The fight for pageviews is murkier than ever before and not even reputation is levelling the playing field for renowned media establishments.
Digital content played a huge part in 2022 during campaigns and mobile journalism had a golden chance to flourish. MoJo, if you like, brought the aspirants closer to voters and journalists could produce a lot more audience-centric media content. A win-win and indication of our country’s positivity toward embracing new media.
But not so fast. Instances of reporters being harassed – even flogged – for using their phones to gather news are still par for the course with public figures in politics and administration. The entertainment industry remains the MoJo pacesetter and loads of multimedia content creators always grab exclusive one-on-ones with celebrities literally anywhere.
Indeed, there are several reasons why independent content creators are raking in better figures than most newsrooms but key among them is custom. A number of newsrooms are lethargic in embracing and supporting digital journalism instead prioritising the usual way of doing business.
Anything outside the bracket is still, albeit in lower tones now, considered off, unofficial, and amateurish. News sites are only starting to get some sway and for a long time, news websites by most newsrooms were used as trash pits for stories ‘killed’ by the mainstream platforms. Not that much has changed anyway. Reporters still prefer their content printed or rendered on broadcast channels since those are the platforms valued more by newsrooms and thus better renumerated.
Perhaps we are underthinking digital journalism. The audience is king and perception is way more powerful than relevance and importance accorded to media content based on journalistic norms. It is time we accepted and embraced the upgrades coming with digital journalism. It is time for business unusual.
- Mr Oluoch is a digital journalist at Nation Media Group. [email protected].
