Africa-Press – Lesotho. With the theme “Journalism in the time of Coronavirus (COVID-19)”; how technology is changing the media landscape, Econet Telecom Lesotho (ETL) urged media houses to go digital especially during this
period of COVID-19, which has impacted many businesses. ETL Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Dennis Plaatjies said the devastating effect of COVID-19 on the media is apparent in a number of journalism jobs lost,
newspaper closure, shrinking revenues and huge cuts on the circulation figures. “If you want to see the impact of COVID-19 on media, you just have to count the
number of adverts in any newspaper,” he said. He added that they found the theme appropriate given the impact of COVID-19 on media industry. Plaatjies
further said the media has been facing challenges in the past two years. He noted that this has been a trend since social media platforms and aggregators
started using content from traditional media to generate huge revenues while the people and institutions that gather and produce the news are struggling to
remain in business or closing altogether. COVID-19 has therefore accelerated the demise of the traditional media and the media thus has to adapt quickly or
sink. “I shudder to think of a world in which there are no media institutions to inform the nation and help it make sense of what is happening. I do not doubt that an
independent, functional, profitable and stable media remains the most important aspect of our democracy” he said. He emphasized that as ETL, they have decided
to discuss this issue with media houses because digital transformation is one of their strategic pillars and they want to take their media partners with them
on this exciting journey. He said they want to empower their media partners with digital skills especially now when COVID-19 is making it difficult for
journalists to safely go out and gather the news. He indicated that the endeavor is to help the print media with digital solutions in the times when newspaper sales may be affected as customers become reluctant
to purchase them and they want them to create new and innovative sources of revenue. He said the ultimate goal is to have a thriving and vibrant media that
continues to inform the nation in a credible, independent and objective manner. He pointed out that they want to help save their media so that it can continue
to serve the nation. ETL General Manager Sales and Services Lebohang Ramaisa said inclusion into the digital economy starts with awareness and that is the role which they play and
are responsible for. He said media houses are the core information dissemination platforms and hastened to say this digitalization has not come without its challenges as there are some platforms that take advantage of
social media which emerged from digitalization and technology at large. “So we also need to align with this and see how we can adapt so that we are not left
behind,” he said. Ramaisa indicated that the ETL staff as they were assessing what might be the challenges that delayed adaptation to digitalization, they discovered that
connectivity is one of the major challenges that the government is regarded as the source of slow adaptation. He noted that one of their freshly product that
they are proud of is their Econet Fibre in some areas around Maseru. He said Econet is relevant because in today’s era, information dissemination is no
longer about texting, but there is also visual content, live streams content which Econet Fibre facilitates. The Post Newspaper Managing Director Shakeman Mugari said with any type of social
media platforms that journalists use to disseminate information, they must first learn the skills of journalism. He said journalists need to learn to investigate, they should learn to make interviews, to gather news, check facts
and present them in a proper way especially online where it is seen by numbers of people. “This will help you to give your readers credible, independent and well researched information,” he said.
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