MARCH 3, 2022

Talking Trends: The Key Challenges Facing Media Companies

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News organizations must invest in innovation to attract new audiences and retain those they already have, but face doing so against a background of massive disruption within the industry.

In the next episode of the Making the Media Podcast, host Craig Wilson talks to Nic Newman from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism about the key trends facing media companies in the year ahead.

On the podcast, they discuss the major challenges facing broadcasters, as highlighted in a recent report—of which Nic was the lead author. Changing business models, new delivery platforms, attracting younger audiences, different news agendas, the use of artificial intelligence, and trust in journalism all feature in the episode.

But Nic says media companies face massive challenges to remain relevant in a rapidly shifting landscape. “How does journalism really stand out from the mass of information on the internet? How does it show that it has value to audiences? I think that's got really muddled in the last 10 years or so, and I think we need to find some way to reset that effectively in combination with platforms, in combination with governments, etc.“

They discuss where so-called robo-journalism could be appropriate to enable journalists to focus on key editorial tasks, despite some fears about the use of AI in news.

Nic says the return to the office after the pandemic is also something which is exercising companies as they try to reconnect with staff after two years of remote or hybrid working. “The real loss that people told us was around connection with the company and the company culture and collaboration and communication, and I think that's the thing that people are worried about. In this sort of intervening period, people have done their work quite efficiently, but actually they've lost that connection, and so the next few months is about how to do that. That goes back to, you know, staff well-being, mental health, finding ways to get people experiencing and valuing each other as colleagues rather than just sort of machines who are producing copy, and I think nobody's got the answer to those things.”

Find out more on the next episode of the podcast, available on all major podcast platforms on Monday, March 7.

 

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  • Craig Wilson headshot

    Craig Wilson is a newsroom specialist with over thirty years of experience in the broadcast industry. Craig has held various roles with Avid and is now the Global Media and Cloud Product Evangelist and host of the Making the Media podcast.

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