International media consultant, co-founder of the Innovation Media Consulting Group and author of The golden age of journalismwith more than 50 years of experience advising newspapers all over the world. world
Juan Antonio Giner is an eminent figure in international journalism. A leading consultant and co-founder of Innovation Media Consulting GroupFor more than fifty years, he has been advising media all over the world and observing the evolution of the profession from the inside. During these decades he has seen almost everything. And, contrary to the majority and alarmist voices, he is very optimistic about the present and future of a sector that is going through a critical moment of transformation, but which continues to be essential.
That is the idea that stands out in The golden age of journalism (Libros de Vanguardia), a volume that compiles some of his most outstanding collaborations in the media from the 1970s to the present day - above all in La Vanguardiahis journalistic home in Spain-, and where he defends, against all odds, that there has never been a better time to report. PROA Comunicación spoke to him about the challenges of doing it well and, above all, in an economically sustainable way.
Mr Giner, is the media in crisis or living its golden age?
Well, journalism has always been in poor health. Every generation of journalists lives with the feeling that journalism is dying, that something else is being born that we don't know what it is. It is something that happened with radio, with television; and before that with other transmission systems. With pigeons, with horses in the 15th or 16th century. When it was necessary to communicate, for example, that Egypt had had a great wheat harvest, messengers rode on horseback to get the news to the grain markets in Flanders, because prices moved according to the information.
There have always been different means, instruments and ways of transmitting it. And these media have always been in constant evolution. One idea that seems to me to be key is that no medium has ever made the previous ones disappear. It has never happened. What has happened is that they complement each other. It is the iron law of information. The coexistence of media and platforms today is richer than ever. That is why I say that we are living in the golden age of journalism. Journalism is not propaganda, nor public relations, nor lies in disguise. It is something else. And never before have we had so many resources, so many platforms, so many audiences and so much facility for information to flow around the world.
What the alarm bells are saying is that what has never before been so easily spread is misinformation.
This is said because it is true, but it lacks some perspective, in my opinion. Look, I remember when I was a student in Barcelona we had a very interesting professor. A very intelligent guy, who had done his thesis on Albert Camus and who would lend us curious students the issue of Le Monde that he kept in his office whenever he could. It was extraordinary. Well, it was. There were days when he couldn't buy it because, well, it was the late sixties and you can imagine. So on those days we couldn't read it.
The first time I travelled to the United States, back in the 1970s, and got my hands on a copy of the New York Times, it was like touching an entelechy. By this I mean that disinformation spreads best where there is no access to information. And today we cannot say that this is the case. Today the landscape has changed. There is an overabundance of media, and the key is how we manage that abundance.
The paradigm shift that is often pointed to has more to do with media independence. There is a lot of talk about digitalisation, the decline of print, over-dependence on new platforms and their internal algorithms, or self-interested funding sources... Isn't this undermining the credibility of the media?
It's true what you say. Today, to some extent, newspapers do not fully control the gateway to their own content. That door is guarded by others. But I would qualify that. The paper is still read. What has changed is the way information is produced and distributed. And even today, the vast majority of content is still born in newsrooms, with journalists. Artificial intelligence, for example, what it does is to group, hierarchise, recombine. But it needs raw material. And that raw material is information, verified data, facts.
That remains the core of the craft. Journalists have been trained - rightly or wrongly - to distinguish truth from falsehood, rumour from fact, opinion from information. And when they do their job well, it is this acribia, this critical sense, that differentiates them from propagandists. Today, many newsrooms continue to carry out this work with enormous rigour. We must not be discouraged by the noise we hear so much about the crisis of the system. In any case, one thing is certain: good journalists are not enough. It is essential to have structures that support them. Solid newsrooms, credible brands, media that protect them and a brand, a reputation.
Aren't these media in crisis, and aren't they experiencing financial difficulties that ultimately have an impact on their reputation?
What we are experiencing is a change. We have to wait for things to settle down a bit more. Look, recently there was a generational handover at La Vanguardia. Javier Godó handed over the baton to his son Carlos, who will be the fifth generation at the helm of the newspaper. And in an interview he said precisely that the essence of the business has changed. Before, the newspaper lived off advertising and paper sales. Today, more than 40 % of the group's revenue comes from activities other than newspaper sales. They have created new companies to generate what in the Anglo-Saxon world are called new revenue streamsnew sources of income.
And that is what is saving the traditional brands. I remember a conversation with the managing director of Financial Timeswho told me how they organised exclusive events for premium subscribers: rallies with luxury cars, cruises with conferences on the Atlantic... Activities that, without appearing to be so, were highly profitable. It wasn't traditional advertising, it was intelligent relationship management with large advertisers. And those hybrid models are working very well. The world is constantly changing. And the challenge is always to adapt. If you want to keep reporting, you have to find ways to do it.
Does that mean that what is not profitable is journalism for its own sake, then?
The thing is that good journalism is expensive. A former BBC news director once said: "Facts are not sacred, facts are expensive. Opinions, on the other hand, are cheap". That sentence sums it all up. That's why there are so many talking heads, so many opinionators, so much noise. Seeking information, verifying it, contrasting it and explaining it clearly costs money, time and trained professionals. But if we don't do it, the vacuum will be filled by others, and we will lose not only quality, but also freedom.
That is why it is so important to give prestige to the profession. To dignify it from within. This is the formula for success. The former founder of Le Monde, Hubert Beuve-Méry, once said it very clearly: "We have to make indispensable newspapers that force our readers to buy them". In a talk I attended many years ago with Abe Rosenthal for journalism students at Columbia University, a student asked him what was the secret of the New York Times' success. The legendary editor replied: "A tomato soup can be augmented with more water or more tomatoes. The Times tradition has always been to add tomatoes".
What I mean by this is that, contrary to what many gurus often say, the public, the readers of the press, are not a dumb mass who only want to ingest rubbish. The public is sovereign, it is the main customer of any news media, and it is not stupid at all. They know how to appreciate rigorous, credible media that provide verified information and have earned their credibility. It is no coincidence that these are the media that consolidate its business. But for that, of course, you have to be willing to prioritise information over spectacle.
Have a long-range and focused vision. In other words, that is what Marvin Bower, the man really responsible for McKinsey's success, came to tell the consultancy's board of directors after listening to him argue for a whole day about the emoluments of the managing partners in each country, once he had retired. "Gentlemen," he told them, "at McKinsey directors should only talk about our clients and their problems, because if we can help them then we will be paid handsomely. We work with them and for them, not for ourselves and our pockets". In the end, quality pays. That is the right approach in any industry. And media is no exception.
Isn't there an epidemic of disbelief, so to speak, and isn't the discrediting of the media just another symptom of a greater evil, which is the inability of people to believe anything that comes to them from outside, due to the overabundance of content to which they are subjected at all times?
That you mention is a very worrying symptom, it is true. Today there is not only more information than ever before, but also more noise, more manipulation and more intoxication. But perhaps the most dangerous thing is that people may lose even the expectation that there is a shared truth. And without that expectation, journalism loses its meaning. What happens, I think, is that the disbelief you are talking about is neither absolute nor necessary. In fact, it is enough for a medium to do its work with rigour, thoroughness and excellence for it to stand out much more, due to the contrast it generates.
Basically, the formula has already been invented. It is not enough to repeat what others have said. It is necessary to build stories, to anticipate, to give context. And not fall into the vortex of the immediate click or volatile audiences. As García Márquez said: "It is not important to be the first, but to be the one who tells it best". That is the added value that any medium should pursue.
Is it possible to do good journalism without good journalists? Is it possible to retain good journalists without decent salaries?
No, of course not. Good journalists, like any other good and indispensable professional, must be well paid. They are the ones who sustain the business. In the Financial TimesFor example, young journalists go through an intensive three-month training programme before joining the newsroom. They don't write or publish anything during that time. They only receive lessons from veterans who teach them how to look for information, how to distinguish what is relevant, how to sift through it. In a book that compiled these lessons, the first sentence reads: "In the Financial Times We do two things: we provide information and we seek it out. Of the two, the second is the more important.
This is the key to journalism, and therefore to any news media that wants to be profitable. It must not only know how to tell the story, but above all, it must know how to find what it tells. And only true journalists know how to do that. What any media outlet should prioritise is quality, because that's what pays. I, for example, write a monthly column in La Vanguardia And even though I've been doing this for a lifetime, I have a journalist assigned to me who reviews my texts. He suggests changes to the headline, he tells me if I repeat an idea, he recommends shortening a paragraph. It's not censorship, it's editing. It is respect for the reader. And that, although it may seem obvious, cannot be lost.
However, it is the media themselves who have been denouncing for years that they cannot financially maintain that quality. That they have lost sources of funding. That people no longer pay for their content.
That's a feeling that has been there but is gradually changing. The big problem came in the first digital wave, when the preachers of "total free" set precedents that have been lethal for many news media. How is it that people don't pay for information? Don't you pay your hairdresser when he cuts your hair? What do people think the journalist who supplies them with information makes a living from? Of course, at the time, accustomed to advertising paying the lion's share of printing and circulation costs, managers fell into the trap. Advertising, however, has been shifting to other platforms and traditional media have suddenly been suffocated.
Today, as I say, the scenario is changing and the big newspapers, with the New York Times at the forefront, have accustomed readers to paying subscriptions that allow them to become profitable again on their own. In Spain it may take a little longer to see this because ours is not a society accustomed to subscriptions. But it is the only way. And to go down it, I will say it again, it is necessary to "make essential newspapers". For people to want to pay for your content, the fundamental thing is that your content is worth what it costs.
Are subscriptions enough to sustain the operation?
They are fundamental. Then, as I have already said, there is the intelligence that any manager must have in order to find resources. And the truth is that there are resources. What is often lacking is decisiveness. Not long ago, The Atlanticone of the most prestigious and oldest magazines in the United States, which quickly became a digital media reference, received a million-dollar injection from Laurene Powell Jobs, widow of Steve Jobs. It was not just a donation. It was a strategic bet on the public value of journalism. That is what we need. For those with the capacity to invest to understand that funding good journalism is not charity, but a democratic investment. The key, in the end, is not to give up. I have been involved in journalism for more than half a century. I have experienced censorship, precariousness, lack of freedom. And I have also seen how great newsrooms were built, how courageous media flourished, how a serious professional culture was consolidated.
I don't believe in inevitable decline, but neither do I believe that things are always guaranteed. Journalism is not immortal, democracies are not guaranteed, freedom does not fall from the sky. Everything must be preserved, paying whatever price is necessary, because it is worth it. And that work has to be done by the journalists themselves, by the media managers themselves, convincing investors to bet on a product that is not just another product, but something essential in any free society. If we do not invest in good journalism, we will pay dearly for it. And people cannot forget or disdain that.
This profession is not sustained by inspiration or vocation alone. It is sustained by people willing to give their all, by demanding readers, by means that do not give up their purpose. It is sustained by muscle and wallet, in short. With tomatoes, not water. Muscle means conviction, ethics, rigour, commitment to the reader, absolute dedication to the truth. But without resources, without funding, all that remains good intentions. If we don't add more tomatoes to the soup, if we don't recover respect for the facts and the dignity of the profession, then we will be in danger. But as long as there are journalists who seek the truth and readers willing to listen to it, journalism will remain indispensable.