5Ws& H: Is ‘What’ dead in traditional media?
If you ever went through journalism school, you will know all about the 5 Ws & H. They are Who, What, Why, When, Where and How. Media experts argue that stories are not complete if all the 5W&H are not answered.
Usually, a journalist needs to present the story starting from any of the most important 5W&H pillars and then complete the story account with other elements.
However, in news presentation ‘What’ factor has become stronger as news consumers are earger to know first what happened. This is a role the new media and internet have assumed – serving consumers with what happened quickly and fast. It will therefore be considered a stale news if traditional media play from the same view point of ‘What’ in news presentation in the face of internet.
In the advent of online media, the traditional media is projected to evolve strongly even with convergence but the style of news presentation in the face of internet must change offline as ‘what’ will now be relegated.
It will obviously be a stale news if an offline news medium usually a general interest newspaper will after several hours serve the same audience with same news from ‘What’ viewpoint. It is usually surprising to see the headlines of some general interest newspapers splash from ‘what perspectve’ on their front pages the same stories that broke the previous day or few hours ago. ‘What’ perspective in the introduction of the story will only be relevant in an exclusive story that could be from investigation or limited to the newspaper. This is where BusinessDay is outstanding as it offers its audience with exclusive business stories, especially on the front page which are unique and eccentric.
Recently, Media Business reported consensus among media analysts that traditional media that rely largely on event news coverage in the face of digital technology are likely to face further readership decline with its consequences on revenue.
This is evident as the new technology has not only seen the rise in citizen journalism, the concept of public participation in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing, and disseminating news and information but the online media have been quick in event breaking news. This means that literally they have become source of first hand news thereby relegating the traditional media copies to readers who want details.
Though traditional media websites remain credible source of confirming some of the stories on social media but media copies may increasingly become extraneous and belated if they continue to report yesterday’s story today in the newspapers especially from ‘What’ perspective.
It is said therefore that with the rise of new media, traditional media will however continue to retain their power and influence if they adopt convergence for news but more importantly concentrate on investigative and researched stories for the hard copies of newspapers while incorporating the developed and regular event stories in the online media websites.
Looking at the growing online media platforms in a chat with BusinessDay recently, Abasiama Idaresit believes that while online platform grows, traditional media should continue to innovate to align with media consumption habit of its audience.
Idaresit who believes that access to technology and the need for communication and information are the primary drivers of proliferation of Online media platforms however told BusinessDay that providing relevant content that resonates with the audience attract and retain users whether websites or hard copies and this in turn attracts advertisers looking to reach users. “Content is important and should be the focus”, he said.
According to him, the print industry will continue to survive by innovating and ensuring that technology adoption is part of its growth strategy as technology in today’s world is here to stay.
Fiyin Williams, a former manager with Sponge West Africa, a digital marketing platform said the proliferation of online media platforms will give rise to innovative thinking. “For newspapers to stay afloat, publishers and print media owners will have to change their business model and adapt to market realities. They will have to invest more in their online media channel and be more target specific for their offline media”, she said.
Daniel Obi