Hispanic media journalist to speak at BBC

By: Jonathan Szydlo/BBC Managing EditorThe tides of change have been sweeping across the media landscape since the emergence of the Internet, but never has it been as prevalent in recent times as it is due to the rise of social media in conjunction with the economic downturn of recent years.

On Sept. 14, the School of Journalism and Mass Communication will be hosting Monica Lozano, CEO of impreMedia and member of the President Obama’s Job Council, in the Wolfe University Center Ballroom at the Biscayne Bay Campus.

Lozano’s lecture will focus on the current transformation that is taking place in the media landscape, especially within Hispanic media and the influence that it has had in the 21st century.

Being a third generation Hispanic journalist, Lozano is no stranger to the changes that Hispanic media has seen throughout the past century. With her grandfather, Ignalio Lozano, Sr., being the founder of La Prensa and La Opinion, the original Hispanic media outlets in the United States, and her father, Ignalio Lozano, Jr., later taking over La Opinion, Lozano was born and bred on the cusp of the Hispanic media wave that has swept through the country in the 20th century, and now into the 21st century.

Since taking up the position of managing editor for La Opinion in 1985, Lozano has witness the changes that have been taking over the media landscape as a whole.

“Transformation of media and the blurring of what have been the traditional differentiators by industry,” said Lozano. “Where you used to have broadcast media and print media, you now have, media companies understanding that they need to diversify across all of those platforms and becoming a fully integrated media company.”

Yet with the emergence of social media and citizen journalism it isn’t only the media organizations that are transforming but the shape of newsrooms that are experiencing the most drastic of changes.

“The changes in the newsroom are profound. We’ve gone from being focused on a production cycle where one day you gather, write, and edit content to be produced and distributed the next day,” explains Lozano. “That cycle is no longer competitive. Now, every member of the newsroom has to be retrained to be multimedia journalists.”

With these transformations taking place, it is necessary for institutions of higher learning to adapt their curriculums to better prepare students with the skill sets necessary for the industry that they looking to get into. This skills matching is one of the initiatives that Lozano, and the President’s Job Council are focusing on, but Lozano admits that this is something the academia is lagging behind in.
“[One] initiative is skills matching. Many of the institutions of higher learning have not matched their curriculum to the needs of employers, which is kind of hard to change because it requires all levels of education to adapt,” said Lozano. “I do see some progress in the development of journalism schools’ curriculums to be more responsive to the needs of media organizations. I don’t think that they’re there necessarily, but they’re heading in the right direction.”

With the other focus of the President’s Job Council being on innovation, Lozano stresses the need for students entering the work force to be adaptable and innovative, especially with the ever changing landscape in media.

“This much change in an organization requires not only people who have the skills and the training, but who are adaptable to the constant change. The sense of adaptability is absolutely essential today,” said Lozano. “You want people in the newsroom to be intuitive with the new media tools that are available today.”

However, at the end of the day, regardless of the changes in technology, Lozano emphasizes that the production of quality, and relevant, content is what will give media organizations the competitive advantage that is necessary to surviving the tide of change.