The important role of professional journalism in the digital transformation trend

Amid the digital transformation trend in the era of the 4.0 industrial revolution and artificial intelligence (AI) technology today, the mainstream and professional press are facing many challenges and need to make efforts to position their importance to the public through honest news, associated with professionalism and professional ethics.

That was shared by Mr. Puy Kea, President of the Cambodian Journalists Club (CCJ) with VNA reporters in Phnom Penh.

According to the Chairman of CCJ, AI technology and digital transformation trends are topics that receive widespread attention from Cambodian press and professional reporters.

In the past two decades, the press in Cambodia has played an important role in transmitting information, one could say it had a monopoly. However, in recent years, digital technology and social media, associated with the trend of citizen journalism, have made significant progress.

The veteran Cambodian journalist explained that in the past, when the public wanted to access information, they had to wait for sources from professional reporters, but the current context is different.

Now that everyone has a smartphone and/or iPad to record events as they perceive them, meeting the public's need for information must ensure criteria such as speed, timeliness, accuracy and reliability.

In addition, the fact that the public has now changed its habits of accessing information is also creating great challenges for reporters.

“We know that journalism depends on commerce and the number of people who read, watch and listen to the news,” said the CCJ President. “Nowadays, anyone can make news, especially businesses, which reduces the income of professional journalists. That is really a big challenge for professional journalism at the present time.”

Not only that, according to Mr. Puy Kea, the emergence and popularity of AI technology and digital platforms have become a new challenge for professional journalism. Because people, who are not professional reporters, also know how to use AI and are capable of producing information as quickly as the press.

In that context, professional journalism must strive to affirm and reaffirm its importance to the public at home, regionally and internationally , to maintain trust in professional journalists, even though reporting is sometimes slower than citizen journalism and social media.

According to Mr. Puy Kea, when professional reporters report, their information is conveyed from every angle with a professional perspective, demonstrated through the choice of words, images, professional skills and professional ethics.

Before publishing each news or article, they have confirmed and verified it many times with many different sources, creating the honest information value of professional journalists. Regarding this, social networks or citizen journalism cannot do.

“On the other hand, social media users or citizen journalists often do not check or verify information much. They immediately broadcast what they consider to be news. That is a big problem for society that we call fake news.”

Regarding AI technology, the Chairman of CCJ said that this is an advanced technology of modern times and is constantly developing according to the trend of the times, helping human life become more and more leisurely in many fields, including journalism.

For professional reporters, AI applications are a great help, helping to write an article in just a few dozen minutes instead of hours, days, or weeks like before.

However, AI cannot fully support but requires users to have specialized knowledge and learn more to supplement and perfect those shortcomings.

“The weakness of AI is that it can only recognize what has happened in the past and cannot predict the future, which comes from the mechanism of collecting and synthesizing data about what has happened,” he said.

Returning to journalism, the head of CCJ believes that if reporters know how to use it properly, AI's ability to support is enormous, but on the contrary, this is also a double-edged sword. Besides, AI also creates a lot of fake news because anyone can do it, anyone can use it to produce fake stories, fake images, fake information...

In that context, journalist Puy Kea believes that this is an important time for the public to trust professional reporters. The public can see AI products, people have the right to access any form of information they want, but for official information, traditional or professional press, with a clear reporter name and specific media agency, is the truly reliable source.

He sent a message: "The public can watch and read news on social networks or other platforms, but please do not take that as a standard. It is necessary to refer to information from professional journalism."./.

(Vietnam+)

Source: https://www.vietnamplus.vn/vai-tro-quan-trong-cua-bao-chi-chuyen-nghiep-giua-xu-the-chuyen-doi-so-post1045655.vnp