During the 78th SIP-IAPA General Assembly organized by the Inter-American Press Association in Madrid, Protecmedia, the Spanish technology company specializing in editorial solutions for the media, analyzed the challenges that journalism will address in the coming years.
The company opened the Assembly with a panel where the challenges of journalism in the data era were analyzed. For this edition, SIP-IAPA counted on leading experts in both journalism and data analysis, from Spain and Latin America.
For the opening, Alejandro Lorenzo, Protecmedia CEO, highlighted the importance of technology “with a cause” as a fundamental tool designed to help newsrooms and the media achieve their goal of doing good journalism in an environment in which fake news, infoxication and attacks on press freedom are challenges to overcome every day.
For her part, Aida Méndez, GFK DAM chief, spoke about data being “like a knife, it can be a tool (and help us achieve our goals) or a weapon (that kills our best journalistic intentions). For this reason at GFK we seek not only the volume of data, but we believe that we should focus on the quality and depth of that data: not only knowing how many people read us, but how they read us, how often or when.”
Other challenges that journalism faces are the new monetization and financing models. In this regard, Vicente Ruiz Gómez, deputy chief on El Mundo, stated that “the hybrid model of advertising and subscriptions has helped us a lot to change the strategy — the volume model made us create a worse product; focusing on content and subscription has led us to make a better product. The content quality marks the number of subscriptions each day; it is a daily test.”
Roberto Álvarez, Prensa Ibérica CDO and CIO, focused on the increase of cyberattacks and the need to increase security in the media to guarantee their independence. He said that, “since the beginning of the war, cyberattacks have been multiplied by five; this led us to focus on this issue, but also to make the entire newsroom aware that everyone is part of this problem.” In addition, he explained the response to this insecurity: “From IT we have focused on migrating the websites to the Cloud and on two different platforms constantly active so that, if one goes down, the other automatically starts.”
During the talk, the topic of the different ways of getting information from the new generations also was addressed. Carlos Jornet, La Voz del Interior chief editor, reflected that “newspapers, to reach those audiences that are informed by other ways, can start including content generated by creators. This would give us freshness and the possibility of reaching new topics and the younger generations with greater power, but combining them with professional journalism’s verification techniques, if we do not want to lose the value of the information.”
Protecmedia also offered a meeting at the height of the Assembly for its attendees, holding a cocktail party at the Reina Sofía National Art Center Museum. Previously, attendees had the opportunity to enjoy a private guided tour of the museum's most emblematic works and an explanation of El Guernica by Pablo Picasso.
About Protecmedia:
Protecmedia is a Spanish company specializing in software development for media. It has more than 40 years of international experience in over 26 countries around the world. It delivers integrated solutions that cover editorial, audience and advertising processes. More information at: www.protecmedia.com
