Adaptation and professional skills, two journalism keys that go beyond technology

Martin Baron, Director of the Washington Post, stated, "The Internet, practically from morning till night, has given rise to a new medium. It is shaping a new form of journalism", during the Festival Gabo, which is organized by the Gabriel García Márquez Foundation for the New Journalism. He referred to the changes that the network has brought, and how it has influenced the profession. 

His speech helps identify the changes that are coming and some that are already in place, but which in every case imply the need for the media and journalists to develop their capacities to adapt and strengthen their professional skills. 

Even though the current scenario for journalism presents difficulties, it also opens several fronts for journalistic innovation in terms of the use of technologies, strengthening of the distribution channels, and management of the editorial offices.

• Technologies: mobile devices have earned their space, modifying both the technical composition of the channels (programming language, responsive design, upload speed) as well as the content formats. In addition, the incursion of the augmented and virtual reality may be foreseen, enabling the exploration of personal narratives with a high emotional content, as explained by Avery Holt, from the University of Utah, during the ISOJ2016. Other technological elements that are approaching with a potential for influence are robots and social video. 

• Distribution channels: although the social networks have been around for several years in the journalism ecosystem, it currently assimilates the determining role of the exposure of the content of the media, mainly as a result of the position of the audience facing information.   During his speech, Baron stated, "People do not consider that it is their responsibility to seek information and news. They do not even consider it necessary. People expect that information and relevant news find them through the social networks". In the short term, the relationship between media, contents, and social networks will be closer.  

• Management at the editorial offices: as a consequence of the two previous points, the media will adapt. Technologies, mobiles for example, are already being used so that journalists do not have to come and go to and from the editorial offices to report and produce their reports. They also help improve the capillarity of the media to reach the different coverage areas, as explained in Journalism.co.uk. On the other hand, the social networks have shown the need to incorporate or strengthen the capacity to listen to the audiences both to understand the reality, and also the people's interests, which means a greater influence of the public in the making of the stories. 

Some of these changes have already been incorporated to the media. Beyond new devices or adaptation to informative consumption patterns, what is behind these innovation fronts are the adaptation skills and capacities to coordinate all these elements in the practice of journalism. With respect to this point, in his speech Baron said, "Unless you have the pertinent technological skills, unless you assign the adequate resources to the technology, success will not be possible".