Adapting Journalism Skills for the Digital Age: A Comprehensive Guide (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: I studied online journalism 10 years ago. Back then, most people in my class didn't own a smartphone. The most popular social network was Facebook, and free Wi-Fi in public spaces was a rare commodity. Journalism has changed a lot with the advancement of the Internet and smart devices. So, what skills do we as journalists need in this digital age? Let's find out. This is GMF Compact. Be a social media pro. TikTok, Instagram, Twitter. These are not just platforms where people spend hours every day watching videos of funny cats or cute babies. Social networks have become important channels for media outlets to get news and content to their users. As journalists, we need to understand how to package stories for different social media. In some cases, that may mean letting go of standards that might apply for a TV news report, and perhaps even decorating our videos with stickers and emoji on Instagram, if this brings a message across to the respective audience. Speaking of videos, they are becoming the most important type of online content. Most social networks prioritize anything with moving images. While it's not necessary for us to become the next Steven Spielberg, we need to have a good idea of how to shoot videos and how to edit them, especially on mobile devices. Same goes for photos. Other than relying on filters and effects, the most important task for us is to know how to get a good shot, playing with angles, light, and proportions. Thinking visually also means thinking of how to present a story live or streaming live from where the action is happening. With the advance of analytics tools, knowing your audience has gone from merely being informed about demographics. We're competing against thousands of apps and websites for the attention of our audience, so it's absolutely necessary for us to study how our users interact with our content, where they click, what parts they skip over, over what texts and images they linger. We have faster access to information, but that also means that we can easily access false information. That is why verifying content and proper fact-checking are absolutely vital. Oftentimes, false or misleading information comes from seemingly trustworthy sources. So when activists, celebrities, or politicians tweet statistics on the environment or crime rate or claim that a certain person said something, we have to go to the original source to find out whether the claims are true. Now, these are all important skills, but they only help us excel in our work as journalists if we pair them with basic journalistic principles like good research, first-class interview techniques, and good storytelling. As technology advances, it is our task as journalists to advance our competence to always be able to provide our users the best content.