UWI LiTTCon gives journalists forum to discuss pressures in online era

THE challenges of offering diverse, in-depth, people-oriented stories in the age of online journalism became a lively topic of discussion among a panel of journalists on day two of The UWI's online literary festival LiTTCon 2020 on Tuesday.

Pointing out the pressure to produce stories quickly, journalists lamented the increasing need to cover news stories by phone or on platforms such as zoom because of current covid19 restrictions, which prevent normal contact that journalism requires.

"How do we continue to cover the public – their lives, their pains and joys – and with what authenticity when we cover these stories with phone calls? How do we get to emotional truths while we are socially distancing,” asked MATT president Dr Sheila Rampersad in her presentation Investigative Journalism as Imaginative Inquiry.

Every participant harked back to the past when more diverse stories, in-depth interviews with multiple sources and face-to-face contact were expected of journalists.

“In the 80s Camini Marajh and Kathy Ann Waterman Latchoo – the latter now a high court judge – investigated stories in-depth,” said Rampersad. "Kathy Ann investigated lives and families and wrote compelling stories.

"Phone calls can’t replace face-to-face conversations.”

Rampersad spoke of her prison series that featured the lives of 17 inmates and pointed out the importance of giving different people in society a voice and making their stories known.

Columnist Ira Mathur offered another angle to the theme of diversity by delivering anecdotes about Express editor at large Keith Smith and Express editor Raoul Pantin, both deceased. She said as a television journalist at TV6, Pantin sent her to gay bars and poor areas, but also introduced her to Derek Walcott.

“He pointed out the need to capture all of Trinidad. He pointed out as journalists, we are to defend the weak, free speech and the beauty of this country. It is all-important.”

In her presentation, The Secret Life of the Day-to-Day, Newsday editor in chief Judy Raymond spoke about the difficulty journalists have in being accurate with the pressures of producing copy faster, which is an unfortunate pitfall linked to online, instant news stories.

“Professional journalism has to be produced more and more quickly. The faster you have to work, the more detail you lose. Good journalism isn’t just telling the public about an event happening. It’s about telling readers about the person it happened to or who did it,” said Raymond.

She said it is clear that newspaper readers want people stories. To support her point, Raymond spoke about a recent story the newspaper ran with a photojournalist writing about spending his day as a garbage collector. “It was one of our most popular stories,” said Raymond.

Newsday columnist Mark Lyndersay spoke about the need for more reporting on the arts. He stressed that quality reporting is needed there too.

Lasana Liburd, CEO and journalist of Wired 868.com said sports stories are not getting the attention or detail they once had. He said just looking at who is being put in charge of the Ministry of Sports feels like it is “not providing what is best, but providing what is left.”

All journalists on the panel stressed that these issues need to be addressed to improve the quality of the journalism product.