When we remember what was the main task of a newsroom 20 years ago and what it is now, we can realise where the future of journalism lies in the next ten or 50 years.
Today and in the future, professional journalism is and will not be just in the business of gathering and registering the news anymore, but mainly in the much more complex and challenging mission of certifying what is true and what isn't - or up to what point the society can trust a story that becomes trendy in social media.
Certification journalism will bring this profession to a level of importance never seen before. In the past, as curators of the community, journalists were responsible to a great extend for the social conversation. In the future, when the whole world is connected to Facebook or its successors, we can foresee that journalists will be the mediators of truth in this frenetic open square for all types of voices, from the common citizen to experts in manipulation, as we are start to witness in recent years.
In their endeavour as certifiers, professional journalists - defined as the ones who share common values of independence, technique and ethics in this long standing profession - will be more than gatekeepers. They will become full time fact checkers, not just for the political statements but even for the most ordinary news, like if it is true that a famous football player is being negotiated, or what lies behind the newest marketing initiative of that energy drink producer that is a factory of factoids to attract free and spontaneous media.
To keep relevant and recognised by the public, however, journalism must reinforce some concepts and turn them into a routine culture that will distance itself from the good old days when reporters and editors had the news monopoly. Those concepts were summarised in a paper released, by the World Editors Forum (WEF) after its board meeting in Cartagena, Colombia, last June, and represent what can be considered the "next level journalism".
These concepts are agnostic to any specific form or platform. Deep, dense, ultra specialised and high credible content should be distributed in any shape and at any moment, but always with its certificate of origin to attest that a story is not generated by a powerhouse of illusion or delusion. Journalists should provide a kind of ISO 9000 for reality, giving their stamp of credibility to the facts, not in a matter of days and weeks anymore, but in hours if not minutes. Speed and precision at the same time will oblige journalists to work like surgeons - fast and accurately - under tremendous pressure and facing hidden traps that are even more treacherous than today, with almost no room for mistakes. Most of the pressure will come from the public, anxious to know the truth behind a story that already resonates in social media, but also from those people, sincere or not, who don't conform to the fact that someone else is being paid to erode what they suppose was their definitive truth.
In this new world, the consumer of that surgery journalism could be compared to someone that, feeling sick, Googles his symptoms on the internet. Given the vast array of possibilities for any combination of symptoms, it is likely that the sick person will be confronted with imminent death. But nobody that looks for serious opinion about a serious condition will be satisfied with what they have fished in the internet. The obvious and logical movement is to make an appointment with a physician. If there is something really complex, than he should look for a specialist an so on.
The same process will happen in the news world. Someone can be contaminated by the perverse radiation of fake news they are exposed to. There are, and there will be more and more subtle, throves of charlatanism available in social media and in the internet. But if someone wants and needs quality information, not corroded by secondary interests, it is highly recommended that this person, as well as the society, look for information appropriate for consumption - i.e. professional and independent journalism. Of course, like in the physician anecdote, there are good and bad doctors, and hospitals that are centers of reference and others that deserved to be closed. To find the best journalists and brands to provide quality information will be similar to finding a good doctor and hospital. The public must, above all, trust the reputation of the professional or the vehicle he or she works for.
The media industry in being transformed radically by technology. But technology, for journalism, is a means and an amazing tool to reach new audiences, to uncover stories, to interact, to provide different ways of accessing information according to the convenience of the public and to enable diverse experiences of engaging with a story. The media industry, although deeply connected to technology, is not in the business of creating software. The core of professional journalism is the business of trust. This will be the most valuable asset in the future - for the economic system that can be devastated by false rumors, for governments and politicians that have the responsibility to avoid social chaos and preserve democracy and, naturally, for individuals and for the sake of civilized world.
Trust has become so indispensable because never before has the moral apocalypse being so close - not in the form of a nuclear code, but disguised as truth hidden in apocryphal posts and stories. In the next five, ten or 20 years the world will be challenged by an unexpected succession of threats generated by the spread of false information, either disseminated by robots or shared by well-intentioned and good citizens lacking enough media literacy to suspect what's true and what is not .
At the same time, social media bubbles, the echo chambers of infinite likes on the same kind of opinions, will continue its journey to the progressive radicalisation of behaviour and alienation of dissident thinking.
For this reason, if someday there is no professional and independent journalism, or if it be so weak that it becomes irrelevant, the world would be on the brink of a social and economic disaster. The antidote to the cataclysm is journalism, but even better journalism than today. Society still has to support the notion that good journalism doesn't come at a cheap price. Actually, to debunk rumours on a digital and permanent scale will demand more and more resources at a time that media companies will continue deeply affected by the diversion of money drawn to social media and its digital giants.
The irony is that the business model of the gigantic social media entrepreneurships depends on quality content - exactly what media companies provide. If and when both worlds engage in an harmonic an sustainable model that could create an environment to keep professional journalism alive and growing, the bad guys of false information will finally be out of town.
And a peaceful conversation, democracy and truth will have a chance to flourish again.
• Marcelo Rech is president of the World Editors Forum, and editorial vice president of RBS Group in Brazil.