By Layan Damanhouri
RIYADH – Despite the rise in digital media startups and electronic news sources, the newspaper industry is not threatened to decline. This was presented by experts and journalists at the Arabnet Media exchange held in Riyadh this week.
“No platform will disappear if it is able to digitally transform itself,” says Rasha Ghamlouch, senior program manager at Arabnet. “Organizations must embrace digitization and serve the news on multiple platforms to catch up with the reader today.”
Today media outlets reached a roadblock forcing traditional media such as newspapers, radio, and TV to either digitally transform or face the consequence of closing down. This is a global phenomenon, journalists said. Newspapers around the world are forced to change their business model.
On reading habits, Ghamlouch further says technology changed readers’ behavior towards the news. “Nowadays the social networks and media networks gave the reader a chance to not only receive the news directly but also interact with a public audience. For instance, readers can comment on the platform itself, share news and exchange views.”
She adds newspapers don’t need to decrease the quality of content. “The same news can be branched out in innovative ways and in visual and interactive formats.”
Asked about the quality of media in the Arab world, CEO of Kasra Nawaf Felemban said it is relatively “weak”. He further says, “There is a focus on politics, religion, and news. We lost touch with stories that are humane, social, and entertaining. We are proud of our Arabic language and culture. The reader wants to receive an overall view of the news around him, not just politics.”
Kasra is an online news site established recently that delivers stories from around the Arab World. Kasra’s readers are mainly youth under the age of 35. Data analytics and analyze readers’ habits on a website is important to understand the readers of a certain news outlet. “We’ve found that people generally especially youth want to read summaries and short text. They prefer visuals.”
He adds, “It’s important to grab the attention of the reader in the first 3 seconds of his time landing on an article.”
Other experts further discussed ways to a digital transformation. Journalists must be always open to development and learning new skills. Startups know the importance of digital transformation and will invest up to 50% of their budget on data analytics, something traditional newspapers hesitate on, a digital media expert said. Leaders of news outlets should have a digital strategy as their main strategic vision, they added.
