News charity: Media is vital to protect our democracy
Although the industry is facing a battle with relevancy, independent, accurate and reliable journalism has never been more important, according to renowned journalist Meera Selva.
The chief executive of Internews, an international media support organisation, says print, digital and broadcast news must adapt to the changing media landscape in order to maintain the attention and trust of the public – particularly as the world is facing so many challenges.
“The biggest issue facing journalism today is irrelevance,” she explained. “And the biggest danger is that people just don’t tune into news at all, in any shape or form. This can be for a number of reasons, including the fact that some feel the news is not relevant to them, it’s put together by people who don’t have their best interests at heart, it bores them, or they simply can’t reach it.
“The other very difficult one to engage with is that people do know where to find the news, and they know it’s important, but it just depresses them. It’s a paradox because the worse the world gets, the more crises there are, the bigger the news stories – and those stories just become overwhelming for people.
“You can’t deny reality, you can’t deny the bad news and just pretend everything’s OK but we do need to engage with the fact that people just get turned off by relentless negativity as well.
“The pandemic cut journalism dead in many ways because the world stopped and you couldn’t get to anywhere to report on anything. But, at the same time, there was instant recognition that news is vital.
“You need news when there is a crisis, you need to be able to communicate with the public, and you need to have channels that are trusted and reliable, and have both the technological capacity to keep going and also the editorial expertise.”
To ensure independent journalism remains relevant and viable, we must ensure more diversity in newsrooms and support journalists’ physical and digital safety – something Internews will continue to focus on during the challenges ahead.
Selva said: “Changes in technology and society mean there are more people than ever who can get their stories out there, and journalism itself has evolved to bring in a wide array of voices. Internews supports independent journalism worldwide because it believes a functioning media ecosystem is vital for good governance, democracy and engagement.”