In this roundtable, a group of media professionals discuss the evolving role of journalism in the digital era. Speaker A laments the prevalence of "cut‑and‑paste" content and the erosion of quality, emphasizing the need for genuine value‑add for readers. Speakers D and A note a shift where audiences now seek raw information to form their own opinions rather than relying on editorial viewpoints. The conversation highlights the explosion of interactive media—forums, newsletters, and especially Twitter—which enables rapid news dissemination but also facilitates the spread of misinformation, as illustrated by a Twitter example. Speaker B contrasts traditional newspapers with bloggers, arguing that blogs inject alternative perspectives despite potential inaccuracies. The panel also tackles the challenge for PR agencies and publications to stay relevant when content creation is free and ubiquitous. Finally, Speaker E introduces a hunting metaphor, describing the need for brands to both hunt for audiences and avoid being hunted, underscoring strategic audience acquisition in a crowded digital jungle.
Chapters
What they like, what they want is they want me to gather the views of the industry people. Not my opinion. They don't want to hear me, but they want me to do the job of interviewing you, you, you, you, and put together their views.
I think that's where the—
that's what value add is all about. That's what— yeah. Yeah, but not much. That's what I mentioned before.
We do do a lot.
You know, they still, they just, you know, a lot of it, if you just look at it, we call it cut and paste. And I think it's very sad for the journalism industry. And I realize that it takes a toll on the quality of the kind of news that goes out. You know, of course, cost is a consideration, but I mean, for me as a freelance writer, as someone who has been in journalism for nearly 15 years now, and I really see You know, it's a shame that because now everybody claims to be a writer, but who are the ones who can really write good quality stories and really get the news out? And we are really talking about, you know, value add to the readers, and the readers want to hear opinions.
But that's also where things change, is that in the past readers would listen to someone's opinion, but now readers are getting make their own opinions.
They just want to get information.
Well, because they want to make their own opinions. They've changed from the— we read The Economist, people still read The Economist, to actually get somebody's high point of view and maybe a thorough review of what's going on. But the rest of it, we receive, I don't know, like dozens of email newsletters and stuff like that just to get a snippet and then make our own interpretation of it. So there's been kind of a shift also in terms of our own control of information. So it's give me the facts, And I'll decide whether it's worth my time or not, instead of giving me the opinion. I think that's where some things have changed.
Also, because right now there's so much interactive media going on, there's a lot of forums and all these online news services, and you always have a forum for discussion. And I guess maybe that's why people like to have their piece, you know, they want to speak their mind. So that maybe that is— I always wonder, you know, Maybe, you know, it just makes writers irrelevant next time. Because you just need someone, like what Tim said, you know, to put up 6 press releases in an hour's time. Anybody can do the job. As long as anyone who speaks reasonable English has a reasonable standard of English, then they can do it.
You know, Malaysia has been plagued by a number of controversies, right? What comes out in the newspaper, be it The Star, The News, Straits Times, The Sun, they are all so-called official publications. Sometimes the truths are a bit varnished, varnished away. But then when you get bloggers coming in, you read their opinion with a bit more interest, right? Be it true or false, but at least you have the other side of the story. Then they ask questions that you think about it yourself, but at least they put it onto the public domain. Why is this? How can they get away with such things? Don't they have size check? And that's, you know, things that you, you talk around the coffee table. Now you have someone who's willing to take a risk and put all those things up, and that's where it generates the interest.
If I take Twitter as a case in point, right, so this is interesting because they get the news out so-called the fastest when the earthquake or calamities especially is good examples, right? And, uh, and, and, and, and the thing is that what I noticed about Twitter is that, um, the, the, the posts that get the most Retweeted means that they get spread the fastest. Normally links to a very good insightful article or story, Wall Street Journal or something like that. And well, well, and then that, then they get their opinion and everything, right? And then they add a little bit of a few words, comments, and then they, they spread it, right? And then there was this example when I was thinking, I said that actually it's very easy to spread a lie on Twitter. I just say something and people retweet it, you know, it's controversial. But someone corrected me and said, actually, it's true, you can do that for a couple of hours. And the nature of crowdsourcing, which is getting, getting— somebody will pick it up and correct you, and then they will correct back. So that's kind of like interesting how dynamics are changing.
PR agencies, how— or even your publication, how do you make it relevant? What's the content? Because internet is now free for all. Everybody can be anybody, can Twitter, can blog. Whether it is correct, libelous, defamation, you know, whatever it is, they just type whatever they want. How do you make it relevant? I think that's the biggest problem because it's free of charge.
2 things happening. Somebody's hunting something, somebody's being hunted for something. But I think before you even talk to the customer, you have to understand this jungle is not what they thought. I want this, I want that. Jungle is really evolving. And really, I think the greatest value I taught down here is help them to hunt and help them prevent from being hunted. Or in my case, I really wanted people to come and find me. How do I get people to come and find me? So the hunting and the hunted, or the prey and the predator thing, is very key all the more, I think, to help them manage all those things down there. It appears like, why should I be paying you this? You know what? You don't pay me this, you know what will happen? Nothing will happen.
