Journalism is not dead - old news habits are dead' said Samatha Barry, Head of Social Media and Emering Media, CNN Worldwide at the RTE MojoCon 360 conference held in Galway on 4th to 6th May 2017. Barry was joined by a panel of experts including Michael Rosenblum, CEO, the VJ.com, Mark Joyella, Freelance Journalist, IIicco Elia, Head of Mobile, DigitasLBI and Montaser Marai, Manager of Media Development, Aljazeera Media Institute. The panel was chaired by Margaret E. Ward, Founder and CEO of Clear Ink Ltd and created a lively and healthy discussion the topic and indeed set the scene for what was a fantastic 3 day conference in Galway. In agreeing with Samantha Barry, Mark Joyella said that 'Journalism is not dead, it is going through a life cylce change and he compared the current state of the media industry to 'wildfires' We are currently putting resources in to putting out the 'wildfires' in a bid to protect the current status but by doing this he warned that we will be ignore the shoots that are creating a new ecosystem for journalists and one that should not be ignored. In CNN, the approach is 'a CNN news habit for every generation, on every platform'. According to Barry and Joyella the current landscape provides opportunities for mobile journalists to reach out to communities and to news providers to re-engage with listeners. Ward concluded the debate by saying that we need to get rid of the arrogance that can be associated with journalism and we must begin to educate people about what journalists do if we are to survive. The clip below provides you with thoughts on the topic and certainly Mojo has a role to play in the future of journalism.
