Publish at February 28 2024 Updated February 28 2024
Journalism, considered the fourth estate, has been and still is the stuff of dreams for many people. The importance of journalists is no longer in question, but in a society that is evolving, particularly in terms of technology, sources of information and training, it's legitimate to ask how to remain the best. What would be the ideal profile of a journalist in the digital age?
Journalism remains a profession with codes that must be respected, including those concerning truth and accuracy. A journalist must check his or her source of information; he or she must always strive to be precise, to give all the relevant facts available to him or her, and to ensure that they have been verified. When information has not been verified, it should not be published. Truthfulness and transparency are only possible if the journalist is independent. The question of a journalist's independence is highly debatable, given that they are often part of media with precise editorial lines.
In Cameroon, one journalist, Bruno Bidjang, now incarcerated in the central prison, officially sided with his boss accused of kidnapping and murdering another journalist. He even went so far as to withdraw from the most prestigious school of journalism,Esstic, because the school would not make his boss the godfather of a graduating class. This is not an isolated case, but independence would make it possible to be fair and impartial.
Being impartial implies being responsible and having a sense of humanity. Journalists must not harm individuals or groups acting in good faith. What they publish may be hurtful, but they must be aware of the impact of words and images on the lives of others, as Amaury de Rochegonde points out in an article on the Challenges of tomorrow's journalism,
"The multitasking aspect (videos, photos, sounds...) must not be at the expense of the fundamentals of the profession (verification, contradictory sources, contextualization...)".
From research to publication, journalists are obliged to perform several tasks. Note-taking, interviewing, writing the story, video editing, photo-taking and sound recording are just some of the activities a journalist has to carry out. While in some cases, especially in the traditional media, tasks can be divided between several people, this is not the case for the web journalist.
Web journalists need to be multi-media specialists, working in a variety of media: text, image, video, sound, podcasts, etc. They need to be comfortable working with a variety of media. They need to be at ease with these different formats and know how to adapt them to web usage. Multitasking is becoming increasingly important as the media landscape evolves, but above all, versatility means getting to grips with digital activities.
In a well-prepared report by the Council of Europe, published in 2016, at a time when artificial intelligence, albeit existing, had not yet occupied the debates with its text and content generators, the shift towards digital journalism was already very significant. One of the conclusions was as follows:
"The evolution towards a world where digital, mobile and social media occupy an increasingly important place and wage an increasingly bitter battle for the public's attention. As a result, traditional media such as broadcasters and newspapers are coming under increased pressure."
Aware of this shift, it's important for today's journalist to master web writing. The digital journalist must understand the specifics of online writing, including search engine optimization (SEO). They need to know how to use keywords, structure articles with headings and intertitles, and optimize content length.
The same inspiring report develops a whole section on the impact of social networks in journalism. Not only does it contribute to the dissemination of information, it also makes it obsolete very quickly. As a result, journalists need to be enterprising.
Reactivity and immediacy must guide the journalist. In an environment where information circulates at lightning speed, the journalist must be reactive. He or she writes and updates articles in real time, integrates hypertext links, videos and images, and quickly informs Internet users.
This is all the more important as whoever has primacy of information will certainly have the largest audience. It's not enough to be the first to provide information; you also need to be there to answer users' questions.
More and more mainstream media have social networking pages on which excerpts from their programs are later broadcast. When they are posted there, comments follow, often requiring a response.
Journalists can react to comments made by Internet users on published articles or videos. They also monitor blogs and influential sites to suggest relevant topics. It's important not to neglect this aspect, especially as "it's the social networks that control access to the public." (Simon, 2019).
It's certainly true that the journalist is often fragmented into several professions : we have sports specialists, conflict specialists, reporters, editors, to name but a few. Whatever the specialty, it's important to have a general knowledge. After all, news has the particularity of touching on several fields at once.
Information about an athlete's injury, for example, may call up medical data. Above all, a general knowledge of the subject enables information to be processed quickly, saving time and enabling it to be passed on to the public as quickly as possible. Journalists need to have a good general knowledge and keep abreast of the latest technological developments. This enables them to propose subjects in line with readers' needs.
What would journalism be without ethics? While optimizing information, journalists must also respect journalistic ethics. It's important to hammer home this point, because in the face of financial, economic and even political pressure, journalists are often obliged to satisfy their employers or the people who own the media outlets.
This is notably what GELLON Lucille describes in an article published in 2014 entitled "Philosophy: The ethics of journalists". This article highlights constraints likely to corrupt journalists' ethics.
A journalist's ability to handle several languages is a boon in many respects: access to diversified and international sources, interviews with foreign personalities and coverage of international events, understanding of other cultures, adaptability in communicating with colleagues, translation of documents etc.
In an increasingly structured and ever-changing field, it's important to be trained in order to avoid drifting. In the 80s and 90s, journalists were mainly trained on the job, and between 1980 and 2005, there was a sevenfold increase in the number of journalism training centers, as Géraud Lafarge and Dominique Marchetti (2011) point out:
"Whereas the initial professional training of journalists used to take place "on the job", it is now tending to become more "academic" in the sense that passing through a training course recognized by the profession constitutes an almost indispensable sesame for access to the major national general and political news media, which make up the most reputable fraction of the journalistic space."
So, whether by going to school or training on the job, or through tutorials or other online tools, journalists need to train themselves to adapt to the demands of the times.
Training opens doors to new skills and orientations in the field. One of the most recent is undoubtedly "datajournalism". Yes, the data trade that monopolizes the digital landscape is a boon for journalists.
We've heard of the "data linguist", the "dada analyst", the "data scientist" and so on; now it's time for "datajournalism". A data journalist is someone who has access to a rich resource base from which he or she collects data, analyzes it and publishes it. To do this, they need to master a range of IT tools, in addition to their collaborative skills:
"The data journalist needs to master a number of IT tools and programs. One example is Adrian Holovaty's use of a programming language to automate the collection and cross-checking of data from local authorities, police and other civilian sources with Chicago Crime and EveryBlock." ( Krajnc, 2023).
The boundaries between the different compartments of journalism are becoming ever closer, removing certain tasks while creating new ones.
With artificial intelligence, or digital technology in general, competition is becoming fierce, and to gain a foothold in the field, it's important to stand out from the crowd. Not only do you need to know the fundamentals of the field, but you also need to be multitasking, multilingual, proactive, cultured, digitally literate and so on.
Even if media school is less of a dream (Baillargeon, 2016), the fact remains that digital is at the same time an opportunity for journalism players (Nielsen et al, 2016). Datajournalism is proof that journalism is becoming more sophisticated in the age of AI.
Image: DALL E 3 "Multitasking journalist".
References
Amaury de Rochegonde, 2022, "The challenges of tomorrow's journalism", https://www.strategies.fr/emploi-formation/management/LQ1040710C/les-defis-du-journalisme-de-demain.html
Baillargeon, Stéphane, 2016, "L'école des médias fait moins rêver", Les désaffections médiatiques, https://www.ledevoir.com/les-desaffections-mediatiques.
Krajnc, Antoine, 2023, "What is datajournalism?", https://www.jedha.co/blog/data-journalisme#:~:text=Le%20journalisme%20de%20donn%C3%A9es%20permet,informations%20chiffr%C3%A9es%20en%20sa%20possession.
Lafarge, Géraud, Marchetti, Dominique, 2011, " Les portes fermées du journalisme, L'espace social des étudiants des formations " reconnues ", https://www.cairn.info/revue-actes-de-la-recherche-en-sciences-sociales-2011-4-page-72.htm
Nielsen, Rasmus Kleis et al, 2016, "Challenges and prospects for media and news journalism in the age of digital, mobile and social media development", Council of Europe Report.
https://rm.coe.int/16806c0384%20
Simon, Felix, 2019, "Five things to know about the future of journalism", https://fr.ejo.ch/articles-courts/cinq-choses-savoir-avenir-journalisme-reuteurs-institute-numerique-futur-tendances
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