The sooner we embrace the digital world of journalism, the better

lan Rusbridger, former Editor of The Guardian in an Interview to

Frontline

Digital World is Better for Journalist

• I think the digital world is better. In my experience of it, you can be a better journalist in the digital world. Or, you can see it as the danger of being left behind if you didn’t do it. And there’s so much to learn and there will be so much competition in the digital world .

Print is Wonderful But…

• Print is wonderful for some things. But the world we are in now is going to be very, very different, in which every aspect of life, not just media, is affected by digital. And it seems to me it’s inescapable. And so, to try and sort of cling on to this old world and pretend that somehow journalism is going to be exempt from this revolution seems to me not a wise way to think about the future.

Some Love Long and Some Wish Short

• There are some people who want very short bits of information. And then there are other people who want immense depths. Hence Media has to provide both in the same place for the two different types of readers .

It’s not print versus digital. It’s fast versus slow

• I think the only thing that’s important for journalists at the moment is to be open to different ideas. And to have confidence in text—the power of words in beautiful story telling will be eternal. There are other things that can be better told in a different form. And it would be disastrous to turn your back to digital and say that is all awful because I love text. Especially for younger generations. It may be true that younger generations will be much more visual and less text based. We can’t tell them that they’re wrong if we want to stay in business.

• words are sometimes the most efficient way of telling a story quickly or vividly.

• People are either blind to what’s going on in the digital world, or they don’t understand it, or they’re mourning a lost world

• To be able to take journalism and to be able to be the generation that invents journalism is wonderful.

• Mobile phones are tracking devices. They are microphones, they are listening devices. They are an unbelievable weapon of intrusion into our lives.

Words are sometimes the most efficient Way to Tell Stories

Journalism is for Public interest

• If the public interest is not at the centre of what you are doing, and the more you are chasing ratings and money or advertising, then we lose respect from the public. They may buy the paper because it’s interesting, but they’re losing respect for journalism itself.

Thanks

• We are grateful to Frontline for Publishing the Wonderful Conversation with

Alan Rusbridger, former Editor of The Guardian.

By SASHI KUMAR, Chairman, Media Development Foundation and Asian College of Journalism, Chennai.