From TikTok to the neighborhood: journalism that seeks new methods to inform itself | Training | Economy | EUROtoday

There is one thing revealing in how three such completely different tasks—one about invisible neighborhoods, one other about classical music, and a digital journal already underway—find yourself telling the identical story: that of a journalism that seeks its place in an ecosystem in fixed transformation. That search took form on March 25 on the UNIR headquarters in Pozuelo de Alarcón (Madrid), the place seven college students from the Master in Advanced Digital Journalism Projects from UNIR and EL PAÍS introduced their initiatives earlier than a jury of pros.

“It is very good that so much content is made, but it is also necessary not to look the other way with realities that are there,” explains Melanie Rodríguez about Stigma District, his documentary video podcast venture targeted on dismantling prejudices about peripheral neighborhoods and socially stigmatized realities. The concept, nonetheless within the prototype section, is born from a really particular instinct: that the overabundance of stimuli not solely disperses consideration, but in addition leaves out sure tales. “I would like to take advantage of the loudspeaker of this profession to give visibility to those other lives that are not usually in the media spotlight,” he provides.

His proposal is to exit into the road with digicam in hand, but in addition to construct a relationship of belief with those that seem on display screen: “The influencer or the soccer player, it is wonderful that this content exists, but there are also other life stories that do not have the opportunity to be in the media spotlight or are even looked the other way because it bothers them that they exist,” he explains. No sensational stories or quick glances: the project is committed to closeness, time and a narrative that allows us to understand, not just consume. The format combines in-depth interviews with everyday scenes from the neighborhood, with the intention of constructing a more complex and less stereotyped story of those spaces.

Susana Castro operates in a completely different register, but with a similar diagnosis. Your project, Classic up to the minute, It starts from a seemingly simple question: why classical music fails to connect with new digital audiences. “It’s not that it’s not interesting, it’s just that it’s not where those audiences are,” he summarizes.

The answer he proposes is not to change the music, but to transform the way of telling it. “Probably because of those stereotypes I was talking about before, of seeing it as something elitist or full of technicalities, many people don’t approach classical music,” he points out. Their idea is to build a medium based on videos of less than a minute that combine curiosities, anniversaries and short stories about composers or performers with a visual and narrative language adapted to platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, YouTube or the web. All of this with a clear objective: to attract in the first seconds, contextualize just enough and generate enough interest so that the viewer wants to continue exploring that cultural universe.

This will be ‘Classic to the minute’, by Susana Castro

Ultimately, he explains, it is about returning music to its essence: not so much understanding it as feeling it, remembering that before context or erudition, what matters is the emotion it provokes. “We cannot lose rigor by making things closer,” he defends.

Beyond these projects still under construction, the program has also served to consolidate initiatives already underway. This is the case of the Mexican journalist Mauricio Merino, promoter of the digital magazine El Diluvio, who exemplifies this leap – increasingly frequent – ​​from consolidated trajectories towards his own models in the digital environment. “I misplaced my concern of the digital world. Today I converse that language, I do know and use the instruments to section audiences, measure them and make choices,” he summarizes.

A master’s degree to think, tell and launch digital journalism

This transition between ideas, prototypes and real projects is not coincidental: it is part of the focus of the Master in Advanced Digital Journalism Projects, a program online 12 months designed for those who want to design, launch or transform communication initiatives with a strategic perspective. More than teaching tools, the objective is to understand how a medium is built today from within: how it is told, who it is aimed at, and with what model it can be sustained.

In this process, students work with the languages ​​and formats that mark the present of the profession—from podcasts to videos, from newsletters to live content—and explore how to adapt them to new forms of consumption. They also incorporate key elements such as audience analysis, metrics or the use of artificial intelligence, always with an applied logic: develop your own project and take it, step by step, from the idea to something that can exist outside the classroom.

A journey by which lively professionals from PRISA Media and EL PAÍS take part, bringing the true logic of newsrooms and editorial decision-making to the classroom. Among them are journalists corresponding to Manuel Jabois, Pablo Ordaz, Mónica Ceberio, Kiko Llaneras, Andrea Rizzi and Patricia Peiró, who deal with of their periods the present challenges of the commerce from every day follow. The program is accomplished with internships within the group’s media corresponding to EL PAÍS, Cadena SER, AS, Caracol Radio, W Radio, ADN Radio, Podium Podcast, LOS40 or El HuffPost.