NBC News Executive Vice President Janelle Rodriguez was the keynote speaker at the International Symposium on Online Journalism last week at the University of Texas, and shared her belief that the current state of journalism isn’t sustainable.
Rodriguez — who is in charge of NBC’s free NBC News Now platform — told attendees that a person’s wealth shouldn’t be the deciding factor in the journalism they consume.
“I don’t think we can live in a world where you have two tiers of information,” Rodriguez said. “People who can afford to pay, get access to quality information and journalism, and people who can’t afford to pay end up with junk information, misinformation, and low quality.”
With the advent of social media platforms, free streaming services, and on-demand video, Rodriguez said NBC News is cognizant of the fact that media consumption has changed.
“There are so many different ways to access news and information beyond the three networks, so it’s critical for us, and we’ve placed a high priority on making sure that we’re distributing that journalism everywhere that our audience is.
“We have a robust digital operation at NBCNews.com, but we had also launched six years ago, a digital-only program called Stay Tuned. It’s really focused on reaching younger viewers where they are, and that’s on Snapchat. From there, we launched our streaming network NBC News Now about four years ago, and we’ve seen just exponential growth.”
