Along with that, how does each newsroom enter the digital transformation journey to survive and develop in the digital media era?
June, a month with a big and meaningful anniversary for Vietnamese journalists, is also an opportunity for "job stories" to become the focus. In particular, the concern of many newsrooms focuses on the story of digital transformation in the digital media era so that it is appropriate and effective...
Great pressure from information flow
Many people believe that today's press is "underdog" in front of social networks, when there is no reporter at the scene, no newsroom can keep up with events taking place anywhere, anytime across the world. country. Meanwhile, social networks with large member communities and ready internet-connected phones can do this very well. This is a big challenge that press agencies must overcome, clearly demonstrating the role of information that is not only instantaneous but also verified and authentic; bring a multi-dimensional, objective perspective on a specific issue.
At the same time, for various reasons, the basic forms of distribution of newspapers - publications, electronic articles, radio/television programs - have difficulty attracting readers. The "problem" is how to transform and develop in the direction of modernity, while ensuring the right orientation, clearly expressing the principles and purposes of the official press agency, and distributing the content. attractive to readers.
In fact, these are stories from a few years ago, but only the tip of the iceberg. From a broader perspective, the newspaper market is increasingly competitive – with a race for sources, content, and ways of presenting and distributing information... feeling a lot of pressure.
How to capture the “gut” of readers, build and connect a loyal community of readers while still attracting new listens – views – reads? How to update the trend of communication technology, build a suitable content system, and have a staff to meet the requirements of a modern, dynamic and multi-connected newsroom?
In that context, the Vietnam Integration Journal - as a scientific press agency on policy, law and management - also has its own missions, contributing to the image of a united Vietnam. integration with the world through progressive policies, through strict laws and management science in line with the development trend of the times. At the same time, it is an effort to give readers a broader and more in-depth look at the country's policy and legal issues as well as the country's politics, economy and society in the context of global integration.
In order to convey those contents, besides periodic and topical publications, the Journal also promotes its online presence through the Vietnamese version of Electronic Integration (www.vietnamhoinhap.vn), thereby creating an additional channel to provide instant, attractive and diverse information and gradually bring the newsroom to "evolve" with the digital era. In particular, most recently, the Newsroom has made great strides when investing in Content Management System - CMS advanced, changed the interface and improved the system of categories to be more comprehensive and attractive.
The technology partner selected by the Editor is VietnamPedia - a company with great technology potential, with a young staff and many prestigious certificates in the field of Information and Communication Technology. This is also a unit with a lot of experience in building press CMS systems and systems with a large number of users, load capacity and high security. VietnamPedia's staff has been involved in the design, construction and operation of large CMS systems in Vietnam such as Vccorp's press cms system, forum system F319.com, ttvnol.com, muare.vn...... ..
Choosing the right digitalization strategy is the “key” to solving the problem
To see more clearly about this new technological advancement of Vietnam Integration Magazine, the representative of technology partner is Mr. Khúc Ngọc Anh - Director of VietnamPedia Company - shared around this topic.
How do you assess the current digital transformation trend of journalism? Are we "inflating" the role of technology, forgetting that content is still the deciding factor to keep readers engaged with online news?
According to a report by the International Center for Journalists ICFJ1, as of 2019 most regions of the world have seen an increase in the number of hybrid newsrooms, which are newsrooms that combine the traditional model systems and digital models. The percentage of newsrooms publishing on website platforms accounts for nearly 50%.
Further even in Vietnam, we also witness a big change in the way the public receives information: anywhere, anytime, on any device (computer, phone, tablet, etc.) The richness of digital formats, the way content is distributed and shared… Along with that is huge competition from social media, video-streaming services and applications for smartphones.
In a world of such massive information flows, it's not enough, if not impossible, for newsrooms to focus on "good content" as they always do. We have more to care about: competition for time, more convenient and positive user experience, personalized content delivered to users through suggestions/recommendations, even Even advertising must also be "more convenient to the eye", suitable for devices and internet access speed... To do all of that, it is clear that newsrooms need to change the way they "do journalism", have a strategy. invest in the right technology to digitize the entire operation.
It is known that VietnamPedia has experience in building press CMS systems for many newsrooms, as well as systems with a large number of users. From this process, what do you think about the difficult points that make the units "afraid" to change?
In my opinion, each newsroom of different sizes will have its own problems. However, in general, their concerns and concerns are centered around a few key issues: Data, Security and Human Resources.
In particular, when transferring the system to electronic newspapers that have been operating for decades with a large number of news articles, images, clips, etc., the volume of data that needs to be planned and moved is huge. So the biggest worry of many newsrooms is "dropping" news articles, losing data. Next are questions about security, about training or recruiting the right personnel to take over and operate the system...
With its strengths, VietnamPedia has successfully performed many "difficult cases", transferring all CMS data from the old system to the new system not only ensuring the integrity of all data, keeping SEO links indexed by google, but also normalize old data according to the latest technology standards. During this whole process, it is extremely important to standardize the old data format and standardize the SEO for the old data, helping the newsroom to preserve its special "property" of news articles as well as ensuring top web rankings.
Besides, with the view of how to make the technology "transparent" to the end user, VietnamPedia tries to optimize the user-friendly control interface, making it easy for the staff of the newsroom to operate. According to the decentralized system, the information flow of news processing is managed scientifically and transparently.
As for security concerns, personnel or server management, updating technology or expanding other modules, we also deploy it as a service to be ready to provide to businesses, organizations, media agencies, newspapers…
On the occasion of the Vietnam Revolutionary Press Day, I wish the press agencies as well as the journalists to always be in a state of innovation and creativity, keeping "clear eyes, clear heart, sharp pen" to bring a lot of information. hot, objective and useful to the masses. We also hope to have more opportunities to accompany the agencies, brothers and sisters, so that technology becomes a reliable and effective means of conveying information.
According to Vietnam Integration magazine
Number 253+254+256 June/2022