Journalism is a profession that lives in a continuous process of adaptation. A quality that requires him to rethink his profitability formulas that encompass both journalistic criteria and changing economic levers. This was one of the topics that Francisco de Vitoria University discussed at the first International Journalism Congress held last week. ‘The challenges of journalism in the age of disinformation’Bringing together representatives of the main broadcasting groups in Spain .

President of the Vocento Group, Ignatius Ybarrarecorded andTo be profitable, journalism must bet on “a good long-term model that requires a differentiation between businesses and publishers”.. The 16 titles of the group he chaired – 2 national and 14 regional – are an editorial director and a business director “going separately. Each reports to a responsible person, and these two lines never meet except for the CEO. This separation is important.”.

The strategy of Vocento Group, reminding the President, three axes: commitment to efficiency, diversification and – the trick – digital subscriptions aligned with advertising. Regarding the latter, he admitted:We misled our audience with ‘everything is free’». Vocento set its target Reaching 250,000 digital subscriptions by 2026.

exactly this Figure touching El PaísAccording to the executive chairman of PRISA Media. Carlos Nuñez “This is a very relevant figure, considering that this model was massively introduced two years ago,” he commented.

Nunez confessed The reader, accustomed to accessing free information on the Internet, “does not like to pay. With Spotify or Netflix, that started to change. In the past, everything was open and people got used to advertising.” The chief executive officer of Prisa Media said: In this commitment, “newspapers have come to an end” to the payment product. and “the difficulty is greater now because We also compete for readers’ spending capacity and time.. It’s a much more complex environment.”

A Prisa Media spokesperson said: One of the main goals of future journalists will be to ensure the “sustainability of democratic societies”.a challenge that requires “to distinguish between quality journalism and fake news”.

Faced with a position in favor of a balance between journalistic and commercial criteria, the editor-in-chief of Grupo El Debate, Alfonso Bullon de Mendoza defended it the newspaper he represents “does not have a commercial spirit because we perceive it as a gospel business” and explainsWe did not consider the paywall because we want the views of our newspaper and our columnists to have maximum impact”.

According to the chief executive, adaptability to new media, rigor and diversity are Europa Press’s core business pillars. Martin de Cabiedes of Assisi. A spokesperson for the news agency said Europa Press is “strongly committed to audio, audiovisual space, data management, infographics and podcasts”; in new profitable activities, such as regional, provincial and local coverage and organization of events, “very strong” in his opinion.

Threats to press freedom

Another hero of the convention was this: Julian QuirosABC director condemning “press freedom is in decline” and “85% of people have lived in banned countries for the past five years”. He warned that “more subtle weapons are beginning to be used, such as the deviant use of corporate advertising budgets or the issuance of audiovisual licenses.”

Quirós, journalists’we lost the monopoly of informative mediation” and “The internet has broken markets and paradigms fast”.