Editorial offices in the digital era are facing a lot of challenges. They have to renovate the business model, catch up with advances in technology, and approach and retain readers amid the pressure of social media.

To solve these questions, Le Quoc Minh, chair of the Vietnam Journalists’ Association and Editor-in-Chief of Nhan Dan (People) Newspaper, said: “Building digital editorial offices will change the face of the news industry completely."

Minh believes that the establishment of digital editorial offices will help press agencies renovate, keep abreast of the actual situation, and timely orient public opinions. Digital editorial offices also act as a premise for the mainstream press to maintain its role of guiding and controlling information in society.

Of the technologies to have a strong impact on journalism and mass media, Minh emphasized AI and blockchain. The technologies can be applied in managing digital newspaper offices, organizing the production of news, and distributing products.

Dr Tran Quang Dieu, director of the Center for IT Applications under the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics, sad in the current conditions, information reaches readers rather than readers looking for information. Unlike previously, readers nowadays tend to be choosier in accessing information. They want to access information via different channels and everywhere from reading news on tablet, smartphone, watching news on TV to listening to podcasts while driving a car. This requires technology convergence at press agencies.

Dieu went on to say that under the digital editorial office or converged newsroom model, reporters receive requests to collect information on sites via management software or directly from divisions or editorial boards and editors. The information collected by reporters will be transmitted to the data integration center for divisions and other reporters’ reuse.

On the sites, reporters can implement reportage and news. Meanwhile, the editorial board and editors take the responsibility of controlling the information before publishing in print or online newspapers.

The expert said that ‘convergence’ in this case means convergence in content, technology and media, which is different from bringing all divisions and reporters into one building or one workplace. On the basis of a digital editorial office, it is necessary to develop multi-platform, multi-service and multi-media news products.

New methods

Journalist Le Xuan Trung, deputy Editor in Chief of Tuoi Tre (Youth) Newspaper, said to generate new types of newspapers, many press agencies have reorganized their structure, following a converged editorial office model, from the convergence of resources to convergence of process, which can control content consistently.

The advantage of the model is that it can satisfy the requirements of multimedia production, especially e-newspapers. However, it increases the workload while the workforce cannot be enlarged because this will lead to a cost increase, and workers feel increased pressure.

To solve the problem, the most feasible solution is for press agencies to make the most of technology along with optimizing the apparatus, and changing operating and product publishing procedures. 

That is, the newsroom must be digitized to suit the goals and development strategies of the press agencies. If so, the converged newsroom will develop into a digital newsroom to ensure that available resources can be promoted but in a more effective manner.

While traditional newsrooms only produce one type of newspaper and rarely has interactions with readers, a converged editorial office has more types of news products and can interact with readers more quickly.  

According to Trung, a digital editorial office will need a digital content development center, digital content data module and user’s data module. Of these, the digital content development center will be the focal point that organizes the production of digital content, including text, images, graphics, audios and videos.

Data modules are where technology is applied to automatically store, classify, quote, exploit, and use data. The data is the digital resource of a press agency, and this needs to be stored, processed, exploited, used and traded in the most effective way.

As for the user data module, this is the unit that collects, stores, analyses and uses user data frequently. The data are very important and vital to press agencies in the digital era.

Trong Dat