Facebook and Google have become the most important news sources for an increasing number of people. In addition, the tech giants have taken an increasingly large share of the traditional media’s advertising revenue. The reason is because they’re able to adopt new technology.

Therefore, Facebook and Google are not only many publishers’ most important distributors of content, they are also their biggest competitors in terms of time consumed by users. And, at the same time, their biggest competitors in the advertising market.

Our social mission

Traditional media also have a social mission that must be financed. The tech giants do not. Many of the areas in which traditional media spends a lot of money — such as on investigative journalism, commentary journalism, culture reviews, and ongoing news coverage — benefit society, as well as the media industry.

Yet, much of this does not generate income. Traditional media are as much in the democracy business as in the media business. Traditional media also have a different approach to regulatory guidelines in many countries than the international tech giants.

Personalisation

If traditional media manages to strengthen its position, technology will be absolutely decisive. Most online newspapers in the world are miles behind the tech giants when it comes to user experience.

Traditional online newspapers have minimal user interaction. Most online newspapers are similar to printed newspapers, with only slightly different packaging and layout. If they have Web TV at all, this is often presented in a wide-screen format, which is completely unsuitable for a mobile screen.

Additionally, traditional media is only just beginning to tap into personalisation. When it comes to the lack of personalised content, there are several reasons why traditional media lags behind. One is simply a lack of resources to develop, or acquire, such advanced technology. The second is conservatism.

Among traditional media, there is a belief that editors should decide what users get and not the users themselves. The third is caution related to privacy, which probably sits more on the backbone of traditional media.

Changes ahead

There have been some recent changes.

Data-driven tools are now dominating more newsrooms. Many make use of Artificial Intelligence when monitoring news and gathering information. More people are also making use of robot journalism, which delivers more information faster and in a more educational way in several subject areas.

Automated translation tools also mean we can now easily monitor news from large parts of the world. These tools mean traditional media can pick up stories from media in different countries faster. Services such as ChatGPT are still immature, but this will undoubtedly help contribute to improving news media’s content production.

Collaboration

A challenge with developing new technology are the associated costs. Global tech giants have enormous economies of scale and operate globally. Traditional media can join forces, either through cooperation with other traditional media houses or by being part of large media groups. But most media groups are national, and compared to the global organisation of the tech giants, the traditional media wields little power.

Organisations such as INMA play an important role in how the media industry can strengthen itself using AI. Global knowledge-sharing in the industry and more collaboration will be more important than ever in the future.

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