Sheila García: the human side of being informed behind the screen

Current times have changed not only the idea of journalism but also the way it is developed. Every day it goes by, one more person gets bored of information given in the “old way”. One of the main challenges we, as journalists, have to face is to save our role in society, especially from the young sight, who sees journalists as cold manipulators, politicized, and unreliable.

Does people prefer to be informed by someone who inspires trust?

Last Thursday, we had the luck of being attended by Sheila García, director of es.decirdiario, a digital newspaper that uses Instagram as its main social site to reach its readers. In addition, she is the only person that carries out the project.

The interview became more and more interesting as it progressed, we talked about young public, disinformation and labels, and how to save the future of journalism.

“I didn´t expect this was going to grow like this in such little time” She says when we talk about the number of followers of es.decirdiario (215.000). “It started as a project for the University”.

Q: Why did you choose Instagram as your principal site to inform?

A: First of all, if I wanted my project to be totally different from the rest, I had to do something that not all the projects had. And that meant to focus exclusively on Instagram. I think Instagram is a powerful social network, especially for young people nowadays. My first objective was to reach young public.

Q: On Instagram´s biography you say es.decirdiario has preference for emotive and atypical information, why?

As we previously mentioned, this media is focused mainly on young people. One of the problems journalism is suffering nowadays is disinformation, fake news.

Q: One thing that calls the attention the most about es.decir is the featured folder “Bulos”. Do you think that despite your informative function as a digital newspaper, is there among your responsibilities the fact of fighting against disinformation? Try to help people not to believe everything they see without contrasting?

Q: Your vocation to journalism is obvious, but you know there are some differences between journalism and digital journalism, such as the news elaboration process. So, tell us a little bit how is a new for es.decir created?

A: I always leave work late, so I take my mobile phone, I design a front page with Canva, redact a text on Word and I try to adapt all this steps to a format that looks attractive, finally I post it. I cannot sit down in front of a laptop and spend hour designing carefully because sometimes I´m on the road and I see a notification from the car screen, so I have to stop in a fuel station, literally, and redacting the breaking news.

Her latest answer gave me the chance to ask a next question. It happens that usually, well-written information is not enough to catch the attention, especially from the youngest, which are the ones that label communication media as “manipulators” and “boring”. It´s clear that nowadays the way we inform ourselves has changed, so I asked Sheila which tricks does es.decir employs in order to appeal readers.

"Look, this is one of the most difficult questions, I don´t know what exactly does es.decir has. I mean, I think people know that it´s just one person behind the newspaper. I usually feel that people appreciate me because of the way I redact. I´m not able to read all the messages I received daily, and this is not the typical joke of the influencer, no, this is real."

Q: What is your advice for the future of journalism, regarding the panorama in which young people care less every time about the present? How can media avoid being labelled as “boring” and “manipulative”?

· Whole interview (Spanish video)

· Whole interview in podcast format (Spanish): https://archive.org/details/sheila-hernadez-mp-3