Nairobi – The United Arab Emirates state news agency WAM, strategic partner of the Global Media Congress (GMC), launched the event’s annual White Paper on the trends, challenges and opportunities of the global media industry in Nairobi, Kenya.
The second edition of the GMC was organized by the ADNEC Group in Abu Dhabi, UAE, last November. This event gathered 24,000 experts and visitors over three days to address the most pressing issues facing the global media industry.
The launch event in Kenya convened media leaders, government officials, academics, influencers, and other figures from across the industry and beyond around the theme of “Decisive Leadership in an Increasingly Complex Media Landscape.”
The panel discussion featured Mohamed Jalal Alrayssi, Director-General of WAM (pictured above, on the mic); Ochieng Rapuro, Editor-in-Chief at the Standard Media Group; Kanika Saigal, Business Editor at the Africa Report; and Joseph Odindo, Senior Lecturer at the Aga Khan School of Media, University Graduate School of Media and Communication. The conversation was moderated by Davina Leonard, a Nairobi-based writer, actor, and film producer.
Advancing the core themes of the paper, i.e. changing audience behavior, the role of technology, sports and environmental journalism and more, the event convened a panel discussion focusing on the role of these subjects within the Kenyan and wider African media landscape.
The discussion attended to the most pressing issues facing the media in Kenya and beyond, with a particular focus on the challenges and opportunities presented by technology – in all its forms.
Joseph Odindo stressed the importance of digital literacy when training junior journalists, noting there is a need for university curricula review, to bring it up to date with new technologies. Much of the conversation centered on the role of artificial intelligence, with Ochieng Rapuro arguing that the training of AI tools is critical in their use in regional journalism.
His remarks were echoed by Alrayssi, who went further to make the case for protecting journalists in the process of incorporating new technologies, stressing the importance of global cooperation. “We have to work together internationally to enact laws and regulations to protect our copyrights as journalists.”
A feature of the Global Media Congress is the Media Future Labs, a series of frank and open roundtable debates led by those shaping the future of the media industry. The White Paper is a product of those discussions, addressing fundamental questions regarding the future of the media industry.
According to the WAM’s Director-General, the media industry is undergoing rapid changem which demands decisive leadership. “In this White Paper, we explore those decisions that media leaders need to make – like whether it be to incorporate AI into their operations or not – decisions which inevitably may have profound consequences. What is clear however, both from the panel today and the discussions at the Global Media Congress – is that the media is fundamentally hopeful about the future. Of course, there are challenges ahead, but it’s deeply encouraging to see how passionate media leaders are about crafting the sustainable media industry of the future, in Kenya and beyond,” he said.
The White Paper’s chapters
The first chapter of the paper is “AI in the Media: A Sea-Change or Another Wave in the Tide of Innovation?”, followed by “The Revival of Print Journalism?”, “A New Way of Understanding Audiences,” “Leveraging the Power of Women’s Sports on and off the Field,” “The Role of Technology in Driving Sports Audience Engagement,” “AI and Media Literacy: The New Frontiers of Disinformation,” “Environmental Journalism: Bridging the Divide Between Readers and Issues,” and “Data Journalism: A Powerful Tool.”
Translation by Guilherme Miranda