Agada, who is the chief executive officer, Private Media
Mart Limited, made his views known at the recently concluded electronic media
content and technology marketing event tagged ‘DISCOP 2011’ in Nairobi, Kenya.
The three-day DISCOP Africa event, which was launched in
2009, is a meeting-centric market bringing together international suppliers of
television content, with programming acquisitions executives representing
African broadcasters, pay-TV operators, media practitioners and alternative
content distribution platforms.
Presenting a paper entitled ‘Stretching the Boundaries of
Modern Newsgathering: The PR Newswire Model Approach’ Agada said, the changes
that has occurred in the process of newsgathering within the last one and a
half decades across the globe has changed the way people perceive contents,
especially news materials.
“Though the basic tenets of news states that it is what the
media gatekeeper say it is, with the editor concentrating mainly on certain
determinants or ingredients in measuring newsworthiness, changes recently
recorded in the role of business concerns in political and economic landscape
has altered the trend of newsgathering,” he said.
This, he said, has made it imperative for corporate
entities, mostly on the continent of Africa to maximize the publicity and media
access of their information to the larger audience by utilizing online PR newswire
service that target African media practitioners.
He cited the situation whereby European, Asian and American
business interests are utilizing PR newswire service to distribute news content
within their regions, Agada explained that if their African counterparts do not
tow the same line, they would continue to be at disadvantage in the global
information flow ratio.
He argued, this has been because news sources for the
journalist, which was formerly, restricted to the efforts of the individual
journalist through research, investigations, interviews, scoops, and media
briefings, conferences, has so far been enhanced by the importance and use of
PR Newswire service by corporate entities.
Further, he cited PR Newswire service as the ‘next step’
after the advent of conventional news agency services, Mr. Agada explained that
the rise in the use of PR newswire services, which started as far back as 1954,
could be related to the emergence of the New media using the internet and
mobile.
According to him, “PR Newswire Service is now a generic term
to describe new media formats, usually on the internet; hired by corporations,
public relations firms, governmental and non-governmental institutions to
deliver news and multimedia content to journalists, consumers and investors who
access the content via the Web, RSS, e-mail, satellite, equities terminals, and
mobile.”
While pointing out the overall influence of such agencies in
that genre in Europe and America, that has not only increased options of news
sources for journalists, but also increased the distribution of corporate news
on the internet, Mr. Agada lamented that African business concerns are not
adapting same PR Newswire services.
Remmy Nweke
ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D
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