The growth and sustainability of the Latin American media are in danger. The largest, with some exceptions, have difficulty developing their audiences further and the small ones do not fully establish themselves in their markets due to the lack of resources and technology, according to a survey on the state of digital transformation carried out by the Press Institute of the Inter-American Press Association (SIP). The survey, which included executives and editors from 326 media outlets from 22 countries, mostly digital natives, also revealed an acute lack of physical security training for journalists and cybersecurity.
A 60% of executives and editors who responded to the survey come from small media with 10 or fewer journalists10% said they have 10 to 15 journalists and 30% are from media with 25 to more than 50 journalists. Almost 70% of the responses were given by owners or executives. "We are still analyzing data received from a wide variety of media. I want to highlight the great participation of media that have emerged in the last five years through digital platforms"affirmed the president of the Commission of the IAPA Press Institute, Ernesto Kraiselburd. The adoption of new technologies advances very slowly among the media in the region. Only 8.75% of those surveyed said they had a “podcasting” strategy in their Newsrooms and 25% responded that their sites do not offer video content.
Only 1.5% said they use Artificial Intelligence tools, although 73% said they would like to "better understand" the advantages offered by this technology. Survey Shows Better Utilization of Audience Monitoring and Analytics Tools from the media in relation to the results of last year’s survey, but the challenge of creating new audiences remains, particularly among young people. main challenge
The need to produce more visual content and through new narratives (41%) is the main challenge for newsrooms. Almost 50% of those who responded said that in their environment they have received training or help from Google’s Showcase or GNI programs (32.96%) and from Meta’s Video Accelerator or Mentoring (15.5%). Only 16% of those surveyed, around 50 outlets, said that they already have a platform to charge for content, while 23% said they were not interested in that type of income. Mostmore than 60%, estimated that they would like to adopt a payment platform, but do not have the resources to do so or need to improve their content to charge for it. 32.9% of the media consulted believe their disappearance is very possible or possible, compared to 27.25% in 2022. 50% of those who responded said they knew or had information about media outlets that have closed in recent years. The survey was carried out between the months of January and February. "Although digital media have helped to contain the digital deserts that the closure of traditional media is leaving, we see that it is not enough since those New media still can’t find sustainable business models"Kraiselburg said, highlighting the concern of the organization on the subject. The complete results, which will serve as a guide for the IAPA Press Institute to help develop its training programs,can be seen here. TheYepis a non-profit organization dedicated to the defense and promotion of freedom of the press and expression in the Americas. It is made up of more than 1,300 publications from the Western Hemisphere, and is based in Miami, Florida, United States. | 