Educational Program: The Digital Transformation of the Newsroom
Technology continues to fundamentally disrupt how audiences consume news. Innovation will transform newsrooms and how media adapts to delivering content where and when consumers demand it. MJV Technology & Innovation advises the world's largest companies on adapting to digital disruption. Their digital innovation team dove into how the future of media consumption is changing and how newsrooms can provide cutting-edge customer experiences. In this educational program, foreign correspondents learned about the top trends changing how news is consumed, threats and opportunities for media in the digital landscape, and how the newsroom of the future can innovate for today’s consumer.
The Association of Foreign Press Correspondents (AFPC-USA) was eager to learn more about this topic. The panel included Bruna Lopes, who is the Innovation Director for MJV Technology & Innovation, and Murillo Albanez, who is the organization’s Future Design Leader.
Lopes holds an MBA in Digital Transformation and the Future of Business, specialization in Communication Design and Marketing at the Wilson School of Design in Canada, and a bachelor's in Industrial Design. She is an Innovation Director at MJV Technology & Innovation, and she is accountable for several projects, supported by approaches such as service design, strategic foresight, and agile. She also had the opportunity to lead and participate in innovation missions to Amsterdam, New York, San Francisco, and Hong Kong.
Albanez is an expert in Strategic Foresight and trend research at the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies (CIFS), Institute for the Future (IFTF), Istituto Europeo di Design (IED), and Armando Alvares Penteado Foundation (FAAP). He holds a degree in International Relations and is certified by the University of Oxford in English Language and Culture Studies. He has already worked in the health and consumer goods industries on strategic and innovation projects for the education, beverage, financial, energy, telecommunications, and retail sectors. He combines user-centered and systemic perspectives to deliver solutions and strategies for preparing and building futures for clients.
This educational program was held on Tuesday, April 12 and was moderated by journalist Elena Lentza, who is a member of the Board of Directors for the Club of Foreign Press Correspondents USA (AFPC-USA Club). She has been an international reporter since 2018, when she moved to New York as the correspondent for the Portuguese News Agency LUSA.
The AFPC-USA is solely responsible for the content of this educational program. Below, readers will find a summary of some of the most important takeaways from the presentation.
ON THEIR RESPECTIVE PROFESSIONS
Lopes says the biggest challenge she is facing now is changing customer preferences because they are more in touch with “new technologies, new brands, and new realities.” Because of this, there is added pressure in helping the organization’s clients keep expanding their own businesses.
Albanez says that in his capacity as the organization’s Future Design Leader, he is tasked with exploring “future perspectives” and “future scenarios.” These scenarios are then examined further and “based on trends that we observe today.” Above all, he and his team, in addition to making risk assessments, “actually envision possibilities of future to get the business prepared for those futures.”
ON HOW NEWS CONSUMERS HAVE CHANGED
Albanez says there has been a “decline in news consumption” that is driven by anxiety that was “specifically influenced by the pandemic continuous broadcast and the bad news that came with it.” He says people have felt “overwhelmed” by bad news and “overwhelmed” by information, which has caused them to “isolate” themselves further. He notes that there has been a decline in traffic to news media websites from 2021 to 2022.
Albanez notes that society has become more polarized, and has the charts to back this up. People have used both search engines and social media to look for information that affirms their personal worldviews. In fact, people are turning to social media more than actual news websites. He mentions the potential of a platform that can present news in a social media format, an effort that could theoretically boost media literacy and media confidence.
Albanez adds that the rise of artificial intelligence—which has undoubtedly impacted the news landscape—has shown that countries will use new technologies to hamper “freedom of expression” and monitor their citizens. He notes that artificial intelligence tools have been employed to disseminate misinformation and disinformation. To this point, Lopes adds that proving that information presented has not been manipulated or created using artificial intelligence tools “is going to be one of the biggest challenges that we need to face right now and also in the future.” Both believe that artificial intelligence use needs to be significantly regulated; Albanez notes that “enhancing human critical thinking is an essential tool to fighting misinformation.”
Albanez observes that there is an “ongoing movement placing consumers at the center in the news industry” and that media leaders are exploring “audio and visual formats as their big bet in how to communicate and distribute the news.” The user news model helps media leaders determine “what consumers want from the news they read” as well as “the information they consume.”
Lopes points out that there have indeed been “generational changes” in how people consume news and stresses the importance of inclusivity “to avoid creating an even more significant generational gap between people.”
ON HOW MEDIA OUTLETS ARE USING IMMERSION TECHNOLOGIES
Albanez points to the case of a South Korean news outlet that has used a digital news anchor created using artificial intelligence to communicate breaking news developments. He also points to efforts by news outlets, like the Times of London, who have used artificial intelligence to boost their subscriber base by creating “personalized newsletters, personalized content, personalized web pages.” These algorithms understand each subscriber’s ideal news preferences. Journalists are also using the Metaverse to “create engaging stories.” This allows news consumers to “access the story and get in touch with the information” in a way that doesn’t require them to “go to a website and read a long, long page.”
ON WHETHER NEWS TODAY CAN EXIST WITHOUT DIGITAL TOOLS
Lopes says, in reference to generational differences, “that we are all moving forward to adapt and to adopt digital tools in our daily lives.” She expresses concerns about how people will be able to consume information without “digital access,” adding to an earlier point made by Lentza about how large segments of society can be left behind as society and its technologies continue to advance. Inclusive solutions are necessary to bridge the gap between those who have internet access and those who don’t.
ON MEDIA BUSINESS MODELS
Lopes observes that “getting the attention” of the public is “the fight of the century” between brands, social media, and broadcasting and media all fighting for attention from consumers. She stresses the importance of the value proposition, which is a simple statement that summarizes why a customer would choose your product or service. She asks: “What is the value we are creating here and how can we reach out to those customers and be more customer-centric? How can we better understand their needs? How can we better understand what they want?”
Amid a wider discussion about the importance of businesses being in tune with the kind of business they would like to run and the consumers they would like to attract, Albanez notes that “we need to understand what the consumer wants from the business as well” because “bandwagoning,” that is, following the market rather than taking a risk, could always backfire.
ON THE MOST IMPORTANT SKILLS JOURNALISTS SHOULD LEARN RIGHT NOW
Albanez stresses the importance of being open to working with “emerging technologies” that could radically change economies.
