MoJo Monopoly: Is mobile journalism taking over the industry?

Mobile Journalism, or MoJo, is quickly gaining speed within the journalism industry.

With mobile technologies ever improving, and the amount of people with access to a mobile phone constantly on the rise, it’s easy to see why more and more people are producing and consuming MoJo.

Marc Shaw said in a recent article for Shure: “The internet, smartphones, broadband wireless, live-streaming apps – new technologies have altered not just how people consume journalism, but also how it’s both gathered and packaged.”

“The internet has created a new way to reach vastly larger audiences while also simultaneously democratizing newsgathering: You no longer need a massive satellite truck with a huge TV crew to cover breaking news.”

More and more journalism courses are beginning to incorporate MoJo into their curriculums. On my own journalism master’s course at Manchester Metropolitan University, a large part of our learning has been dedicated to producing and editing content solely using a mobile phone.

On top of this, mainstream news outlets such as the BBC are beginning to offer MoJo training to their employees.

It’s not just online platforms where MoJo has a place, it’s TV, radio and print too.

Speaking to EJO, journalism lecturer Corinne Podger said: “Mobile journalism cuts through all these divisions because the device itself can create content for all these platforms”.

She believes that even more colleges and universities should be incorporating MoJo into their journalism courses.

Journalist and broadcaster Nick Garnett recently wrote an article titled ‘Mobile Journalism Is Dead’, in which he argues that it’s the term MoJo that has no place in today’s industry, not the practice: journalism today is mobile by its very nature.

“We don’t need the term MoJo anymore. The skillset still exists, the need for journalists to be mobile still exists… but it means nothing to anyone who’s started out in the world of journalism in the last five years or so.”

With this in mind, it begs the question of whether eventually all journalists will become (or will have the ability to be) mobile journalists, especially in an age when any citizen with a mobile phone can stream live news to the internet as it happens.

I spoke to Eleanor Mannion, a MoJo film-maker for Ireland’s national broadcaster RTÉ, for a better insight into what it means to be a mobile journalist today.

Mannion, who studied Multimedia Studies at Dublin University, said that MoJo was a natural progression for her career.

“It was something I easily embraced and has really changed the course of my career very much for the better.”

I asked Mannion whether she had ever worried that MoJo was a fad. Her response was: “Never.”

“Being part of something that evolves and adapts stops it from being just a fad.”

Eleanor Mannion in action (Photo courtesy of Eleanor Mannion)

Mannion believes that mobile journalists have a lot to offer to broadcasters and publishers: they are self-filming and self-editing, and they can find and document stories that otherwise wouldn’t get into the mainstream media.

But Mannion said that while MoJo was definitely an important part of the industry, she didn’t think it would necessarily take over.

“I don't think all journalists will necessarily become self-filming, self-editing mobile journalists. Different types of stories and journalism require different skills.  I do think we have to look at how we tell our stories for social [media] and for our younger audiences who are consuming their news through social channels and not through the more traditional mediums of television and radio.”

Whether or not MoJo is going to take over the industry, it’s certainly climbing the ladder, and it’s definitely here to stay.