One of the industries most affected by the coronavirus pandemic is the media.
In April this year, Australia’s News Corp, owned by the influential Murdoch family, suspended print editions of over 60 local newspapers due to the financial strain caused by the virus.
The Atlantic in America laid off 68 of its staff, which is equivalent to 17 per cent of its headcount, joining publications such as The Economist, which laid off 90 staff members due to the Covid-19-induced economic fallout.
Although studies show that consumption of news on both online and television platforms has grown significantly during the pandemic, newspaper consumption has declined globally due to lockdowns, which have inhibited their distribution.
BUDGET CUTS
Advertisers are no longer spending on advertising because in any crisis that requires budget cuts, marketing budgets are often among the first to be reduced. With advertising at an all-time low and an inability to monetise online audiences, the media industry is facing very tough times ahead.
While this introduction might seem apocalyptic, there couldn’t be a better time to rethink the future of journalism.
Experts have noted that the changes in audience consumption habits (more TV consumption) will likely not be sustainable after the pandemic. However, the ‘net effect’ of this pandemic will most likely be that coronavirus will speed up – and not slow down – the shift to digital for media.
This is why, in the post-Covid era – if ever there will be one – we must create a resilient media industry that can survive the volatility of an unpredictable world, whether it is a pandemic, a digital disruption or an unfriendly regime.
To achieve this, the media industry must create, test and solidify an innovation system that is context-specific, inclusive and especially tailor-made to solve the problems of the Kenyan media industry.
The current decline in revenues, accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic is an indictment on the industry’s lack of an elaborate system of innovation which, in my opinion, should have been set in motion the moment Internet and smartphone penetration reached about 50 per cent in Kenya. (Currently, internet penetration stands at 87 per cent.)
INNOVATION
So how would Kenyan media use innovation in a post-Covid regime?
If the industry wants to make solid changes to its models then it must start with an industry-wide strategy that will bring together a network of stakeholder institutions including the industry, academy and technology companies, which will create, support, import and disseminate the latest ideas and technologies required for the revival of this industry.
CHANGING INDUSTRY
This innovation system will serve the industry as a pipeline of ideas that actively encourages, nurtures and grows an ecosystem of innovators who are keen on changing the media industry.
It will be a bonus if these innovators are a bunch of young, technologically adept, numbers-literate, free-thinking Kenyans.
There are four things we must think about as we create a solid innovation system for a Kenyan media of the future. First and most important is entrepreneurship.
We need to encourage our journalists to think like and become entrepreneurs by first and foremost, supporting and incubating ideas from journalists through funding of these ideas and providing them with enough cover to protect them from in-house politics and pressures to earn revenue in their first few months of existence.
To develop enterprising journalists and media professionals, we must encourage experimentation, allow them to fail and give them room to succeed.
Second thing we should consider is education and training. Journalism schools are doing a decent job of churning journalism graduates but we must supplement this knowledge with the skills that are needed for the future of journalism.
For instance, we must start training journalists on how to code and we must ensure that our reporters are fluent and comfortable with numbers.
CREATING PARTNERSHIPS
Third, we must get serious research and development by creating partnerships and linkages between the media, technology partners and academia. These partnerships will support journalists and media innovators who want to monetise their ideas with media companies that are looking for fresh ideas to boost the industry.
Lastly and equally fundamental, is that we need to have more physical innovation initiatives in the form of hubs and labs that provide technical support to journalists who are keen on commercialising their ideas.
We need to stop thinking about ‘driving innovation’ in our industry, and instead create environments and cultures that make innovation attractive, possible and fruitful.
I hope that if this pandemic has taught the media industry anything, it the fundamental need to ‘think innovation’.
The writer is the director of the Innovation Centre at Aga Khan University Graduate School of Media and Communications. The views expressed in this column are hers; [email protected]
