News journalism changing 'dramatically'

RTÉ director general Noel Curran has said the organisation must embrace opportunities provided by new technology to engage with a different audience.

Speaking at a conference on the future of journalism in the internet age at the Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA), he said there was a place for a publicly-owned news and media service with an Irish voice.

Recent editorial mistakes and rapid technological changes posed deep questions for RTÉ during what was an uncertain, challenging but “very, very exciting” time for news journalism.

Mr Curran said RTÉ’s editorial mistakes in the past year had reinforced the importance of public trust. “That currency is something that is earned over time…it can be easily damaged,” he said.

He said the sector was undergoing change that was as dramatic as any that had happened since the advent of RTÉ television 50 years ago.

He described new entrants into the news market as “agile, low cost and quick”. He said that as an organisation RTÉ had been “very conservative” about sharing content in the past.

He said the organisation had to find a way to “monetise our digital offerings”.

The Irish Times editor Kevin O’Sullivan said he was optimistic about a digital future for those capable of adapting quickly. “For traditional media businesses, it is change or die,” he said.

Mr O’Sullivan said “news as we know it” was under threat from an “inferior product where one eye is always trained on traffic numbers”.

He described the digital age as exciting, chaotic and exasperating. “The old hierarchical model of ‘we will tell you the news’ is over,” he said.

He noted there was a “reduced advertising cake” for all Irish media interests.

However, he said there was a good opportunity for those who knew their audience intimately. “We are not for moving aside as others acting in their own self-interest dismiss us as a legacy player.”

Brian Fallon, director of Distilled Media Ltd which includes thejournal.ie, described the market as "insanely competitive".

He said internet usage was “exploding” while newspaper circulation was falling. Mr Fallon he would like to see RTÉ sharing content and collaborating with other journalistic outlets.

He said user-generated content would be the core of any future journalistic product. “People do not really want to pay for news online,” Mr Fallon said. He also noted that online advertising spend was one of the only growth areas in the sector.

Ann O'Dea, chief executive of siliconrepublic.com, said the industry was in a period of huge transition which created major risks for media owners, managers and journalists themselves.

She said journalists were going to have “to really re-look” at what they do. “A lot of the Chinese walls are going to have to come down.”

Ms O’Dea said journalism was not just about writing anymore and video was “going to be absolutely huge”. However, she said she believed that high-quality journalism “will very much prevail”.