Five challenges facing economic journalism in boosting productivity in Latin America

“The world escaped journalism. Now we have to reinvent it.” With this quote by Gabriel García Márquez, FNPI general director Jaime Abello Banfi highlighted one of the main challenges facing Latin America’s economic journalism over the coming years, namely, the capacity to renew its narrative to describe events regardless of how complex they may be, as well as to propose a new understanding of affairs to boost competitiveness in the region.

Abello kicked off the 2018 Seminar of Directors and Economic Editors: the Role of Productivity in Latin America. The event took place in Bogotá, Colombia on November 6 and 7, gathering a score of economic journalists specializing in Latin American affairs.

The seminar is organized by the New Ibero-American Journalism Foundation (FNPI) and CAF-Development Bank of Latin America. On the first day, participants discussed the factors affecting productivity in Latin America and the role of economic journalism in sparking critical and informative debate around long- and medium-term policies.

The need for a long-term information agenda

In his keynote speech, senior editor for The Economist Michael Reid urged media editors in attendance to concentrate more on topics pertaining to long- and medium-term policies, as opposed to focusing solely on circumstantial and short-term matters. Reid said that Latin America faces a future full of difficulties in terms of production, adding that media will play a major role in overcoming the challenges ahead.

Fighting populism

Reid also said that a boost in productivity would weaken the appeal of the growing populist movements throughout Latin America. “And part of the way to boost productivity is to lend more prevalence to the agenda,” he said.

“I know, the word ‘productivity’ is boring,” the editor of The Economist said. “That's one of the challenges: finding ways to explain crucial issues, such as tax and pension reforms, so that they are of interest to readers, and thus generate impact”, he added.

Finding positive discussions to address problems

Reid urged attendees to create an agenda focused not only on showing the issues affecting the economies of each country, but on providing solutions as well. For instance, a way of sparking a positive discussion around entrepreneurship is to identify success stories, helping readers understand how prosperous companies were able to conquer the market.

Overcoming polarization for objective coverage

The attending journalists agreed that talking about productivity can be complex for some audiences. Moreover, political polarization makes it hard to present information. One of the suggestions put forth during the debate was to resort to data in order to provide more unbiased coverage. Added to this strategy is partnering with organizations specializing in validating information,

as well as providing local data, as opposed to international information, as reference. That way, information acquires a new angle.

Adapting information to specific audiences

In addition to helping build more complex narratives, data may also aid in improved segmentation. Attendees proposed building different informative pieces depending on their intended target audiences. If a certain article is aimed at decision makers, for instance, a more technical language may be used. On the other hand, it is recommended to find ways to simplify abstract, more complex matters for a more general public to understand. To that end, the use of various formats is encouraged, such as videos and other multimedia.

It was also suggested to renew the sources of economic journalism pieces to diversify the discourse in media. In that sense, it is imperative to resort to specialized sources to contribute to the analysis.

About the 2018 Seminar of Directors and Economic Editors: the Role of Productivity in Latin America

The seminar was organized by the New Ibero-American Journalism Foundation (FNPI) and CAF-Development Bank of Latin America- and took place in Bogotá, Colombia on November 6 and 7, 2018. The event gathered a score of economic journalists specializing in Latin America and included participations by FNPI teachers Michael Reid and Gumersindo Lafuente.