The director of Quo magazine, Darío Pescador, closed the XXIII Journalism Congress held in Huesca with his conclusions on the present and future of the journalistic profession
“You have to see how time flies, right? These 23 years talking about journalism in Huesca give many stories to tell, which after all is what we journalists do. And yet it seems like just yesterday that Facebook started – 16 years ago.
Instagram is “only” 12 years old, and YouTube started “only” 17 years ago. Really, if someone says again at this congress that journalism has to adapt to “new” formats, I’m going to have to eat my cover so I don’t say something inconvenient.
the future was already there
It is true that the pandemic has plunged us all into a state of suspended animation for almost two years, from which we are now beginning to wake up. But we are waking up in the future. A future that was already there, but the world had to be turned upside down for us to see it.
We’ve been talking about how in the journalistic profession for many years. Paper or digital. Free or paid. Video or audio. Long or short. Live or recorded. target or supporter. And while we were busy arguing, people consumed and produced information as they wanted, more and better.
As we debate whether or not to post online, people are reporting the war on TikTok. As we consider whether or not we charge for information, there are those who started playing Fortnite on Twitch and are becoming news outlets. We talk so much about how to do journalism that we forget to ask ourselves: who does journalism?
We cannot forget that journalists provide a service to the public: to investigate and report on reality. But in this connected world, this is a job anyone can do. Conspiracy theories, fake news, and covert advertising have as much or more audience than news reports.
An essential tool for understanding the world
Fortunately, there are those who are looking and willing to pay for someone who performs this task with efficiency, integrity, and talent. But we cannot forget that none of these characteristics are exclusive to journalists. As the director of El País, Pepa Bueno, said, “if citizens no longer perceive us as an essential tool for understanding the world, then we will disappear”. a task that prize prize this year, the presenter of the second edition of the TVE news program, Carlos Franganillo, remembers that it is a team effort.
To explain the world, you have to be in the world. The newscasts continue to put viewers, as if by magic, on the front lines of the war or at the front of the demonstration. Television journalist Diego Sánchez explains that television’s competition today is the cell phone screen, which is where people spend most of the day, and that screen must be converted into an ally.
As food journalists have reminded us, clientelism, being too close to those who feed you compromises your work as a journalist, and this is equally true whether for a deconstructed plate of lentils, for political favor or for the money of advertising institutions.
It’s a round trip. Journalism often does what the public asks, but it also influences what the public consumes by betting on themes, formats and content.
As the professor at the Rey Juan Carlos University recalled Mercedes del Hoyoquality journalism is worthwhile, but it is not being paid, and good journalism cannot be done in the conditions in which journalists are entering the workforce.
The story has to reach your audience
The good news from the congress is the success of payment models for both newspaper companies and those reporting in the margins. Veteran journalist Pedro G. Cuartango recalled that it is increasingly difficult to distinguish the truth from the lie, and journalists have to recover people who have been lost in disinformation.
To recover this lost audience, it is necessary to go and find it wherever it is. The investigative journalist and youtuber Carlos Tamayo He gave us a lesson in reality with a simple premise: the goal is not just against the story, but for the story to reach its audience. Adapt your report to each format and each audience and connect it. Use your content on one network to promote your content on another. Once again, the how is at the service of the who.
Anna Surinyach He explained to us how a photograph is a conversation, how the photojournalist must look the person in the eye and how the same image can mean different things depending on who is using it.
In the same way, talent does not understand gender, as journalist Almudena Rivera, from the newspaper Marca, said, and that goes for both women’s sports and women’s sports journalism. Another round trip.
Local journalists participated in the congress to claim the importance of reaching people in their environment, in the places and with the faces they know, which explains the rise of local media in terms of both audience and subscriptions. Also because one of the projects presented at the congress transforms the residents of a neighborhood simultaneously into protagonists and reporters of their daily reality.
Podcast, pozca, potca, poscat, polka
It seems that at this congress everyone came to talk about your podcast, another “new” format that is already 17 years old, but is now finding its place in our lives. What he still hasn’t achieved is a uniform pronunciation in our language. The pozca, potca, posca or polka is less like radio and more like a friend whispering a story to us, and therein lies its power.
Pedro Simón, journalist for El Mundo and writer, made it clear to us that “a reporter is like a taxi driver, he is a guy who takes you on a trip, and the responsibility for the trip belongs to whoever tells the story.”
So now we know how and who. With any luck, in the next few years we will discover why we do journalism, but perhaps that is less important than doing it every day. Until then, good luck and thank you.”
Photograph: Veronica Lacasa
