Mobile. Video. Data: the future of journalism and news [GEN]

The business of media is changing. Journalism is changing along with how we define news and how it is packaged. On the back of these new developments around news, journalism and storytelling there are many conferences that aim to interrogate their future.

Journalism is at a pivotal point, facing challenges and concerns around the power shifts that come with social media and user-generated content. This year, it seems GEN (Global Editors Network) Summit wants to bring together industries best and brightest to address and perhaps come with viable answers to these challenges.

The event touts some heavyweight speakers that will discuss topics from Robot Journalism, the move from mass media to media surveillance and a big issue for journalists today: what freedom of expression in the digital age actually means.

Every new technological innovation in the last 20 years has disrupted the media massively. The event therefore also hopes to discuss how media houses can reshape their newsrooms around live reporting and video sharing, to keep up with the new world of real time reporting and timeous news.

The conference theme is “Mobile. Video. Data. Challenge the Status Quo.” According to the event organisers, its aim is to get the industry thinking about these tools as the paramount when it comes to innovating within the newsroom. Each session will aim to push this idea that the future of journalistic content lies with this three things.

As these editors gather to talk mobile, video and data, we must ask a few questions of what these tools mean not just for the production of content but for its consumption as well. Are we heading to age where news rooms will have to produce mobile-only content or mobile-only platforms that address to the age of mobile immersion? If we begin building content that is mobile-only because of the stage the world is currently at, what about broadband and data? Will video content become the most dominant when it comes to the news, as mobile devices make video production and video editing much simpler than before?

There has been a recent move toward data journalism, something that GEN is a big supporter of, the organisation also host a data journalism contest to encourage more data journalism in the industry. This signals a new age for media consumers and readers. An age that could perhaps put an end to quick fire and pithy content. Data journalism gives rises to well researched, visualised and information-rich story packages that goes beyond the headline to understand the matter.

How will these questions be answered? What are the solutions to the conundrums of media production and media consumption? If there are new ways of seeing and new ways of reporting and distributing how do the two reconcile?

Come June 11 a slew of editors, hackers, journalists and other media professionals will descend on Barcelona, Spain to listen to industry experts and leaders, workshop ideas around these issues and perhaps hazard some solutions to some of the problems facing the media right now.

To help workshop some these ideas around news and journalism, GEN will host and Editors’s Lab, which is an editorial hackathon to build new tools for the newsroom, and a Startups for News session. Startup for News is GEN’s global search for innovative startups providing services to newsrooms.

“With this programme, GEN is helping to create interaction between start­up innovators and media senior executives and thus encourage the implementation of innovative practices in the newsroom. For start­up innovators, this programme is THE platform to access senior executives who can take them to the next level. For media executives, it is a unique opportunity to discover the tools that can shape the future of journalism,” says GEN.