Ugyen Penjor, CEO, Kuensel
Bhutan Press Mirror- There is a huge concern among media managers, owners, and readers that traditional media has become irrelevant and that its days are numbered. Going by the numbers, there is a lot of truth in it. Circulation is nosediving, and traditional paper-based advertisements, once the bread of newspapers, are declining to the extent that it threatens the very survival.
The advent of new media—including social media—many surmise, is today’s ambiguous “video killed the radio star” concern or the mixed attitudes towards 21st-century inventions changing the media landscape.
It has.
Both newsmakers and advertisers today need not rely on traditional media to tell their stories. The options are plenty. There are no business entities or government agencies who do not have a website. The two critical needs for the media—information and advertising materials, in our case government notifications and announcements that make up the bulk of display advertisements—are shared not through newspapers but on their websites.
If the website has become outdated, social media provides a better option. X, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, etc., have opened up a massive opportunity for telling their own stories and promoting their products or services. Facebook, considered to be the most common platform in the country, for instance, has changed the way we communicate or disseminate information.
Important announcements of national significance are also made through social media, with media rushing to scan social media platforms for information and follow-up. The recent trend across all age groups is TikTok. If not for short news clips, the short video sharing app has entertainment value. Today, reporters, editors, and marketing officers rush to pick news and possible advertisements from Facebook.
In short, social media, by allowing news and information from across the web to be accessed in real time, has taken away readers or audiences. Many people rely on smartphones in the Hemchu to find out what is going on and what is trending.
What are we doing?
As social media dominates news consumption, traditional media outlets like newspapers are trying to reshape themselves to follow readers where they are. Once a domain of broadcast media, newspapers today are adopting multimedia formats to tell their stories. A positive trend is that, despite limited resources, newspaper contents are being converted into short videos to harness their reach. Some are hiring or partnering with content creators for user-generated content or leveraging AI tools to optimize distribution and expand visibility.
Nevertheless, newspaper contents can never compete with social media contents. It is also not the role of newspapers to compete, as social media contents are determined by what we call the lowest common denominator—unregulated or unverified content that is unhealthy for society.
Traditional media will still be relevant
Newspapers will remain relevant if we can differentiate ourselves. This can be achieved through journalism. When the internet came to Bhutan, many said that we need not need traditional media. Media leveraged the internet and has grown since. The same applies to social media.
Survival will largely hinge on the strengths of journalism while adapting to digital trends to provide options. Trust and accuracy are pillars of traditional media, which are largely lacking in social media. Social media is blamed—and rightly so—for the disinformation and misinformation campaigns it is engaged in.
We will remain relevant because we have editorial rigor, gatekeeping, or fact-checking processes. Besides, newspapers have a responsibility to their readers. They are accountable to the people, and by emphasizing accountability and depth, newspapers can reposition themselves as the most reliable sources of information.
Social media can never take up the responsibilities of legacy media. While social media fragments audiences, newspapers can strengthen trust by providing coverage of community issues, local governance, and grassroots stories to address the gaps left by shrinking newsrooms.
In a world where time is governed by social media, the traditional medium matters more than it did before. New media may have killed event-based news like accidents, sports, or natural disasters even without editorial checks, but journalism with society’s support could thrive. People turn to traditional media for verification, knowing what comes out on social media could be misinformation.
A classic case, even as this article was being written, was that the mainstream media jumped in to clear the misinformation created after the Indian government retaliated to the terrorist attack of April 22, where 26 tourists were killed in Pahalgam, Kashmir. As tension rises, fake news—including old footage from past or recent events outside the Indian subcontinent, shown as from Operation Sindoor—could lead to increased tensions.
As we saw, disinformation is often the first weapon deployed in times of conflict. Thanks to the speed of the internet and social media, false and misleading information reaches us faster and more persuasively today than ever before.
The Bhutanese media, small as it may be, will play an important role—particularly in the age of social media and disinformation. It should remain relevant because of its influence on the populace and its ability to nurture the national psyche. The new media has already had a notable impact on society, enough to warrant closer attention to the nature and extent of this influence.
The role of creating an informed public that can make informed decisions, giving voices to the voiceless, and the public service role of the media—to inform, educate, and entertain—will remain important. If new media has proven anything, it has created an option and an opportunity to redefine the relationship between publishers and consumers.
With good journalism, innovation, independence, and support from society, traditional media will always remain relevant.
