Dubai: The last session of the first day of the Arab Media Forum highlighted the importance of being adaptable and evolving with the times, as key for the news industry to survive.

‘What kind of news will we consume in the future?’ was the theme of a panel discussion which saw participation from Amanda Wills, former deputy executive editor at Mashable and currently with CNN; David Weiner, Editor at large at Digg.com, and Rishi Jaitly, vice-president for Media, Asia Pacific and the Middle East at Twitter.

“For me to tell you what will happen years 10 years from now would be a bit arrogant. But what I will say is that this question illustrates how important it is to be nimble as a publication,” Wills said.

She said that it is difficult when you are at a big organisation like CNN. However, she sees that they want to innovate and they know things are changing. For example, if many people are using Snapchat to find out what is happening right now, an organisation [wishing to engage with them] should get on Snapchat and give them what they need.

Wills said that she does not believe investigative journalism is going away. “Maybe we just need to rethink what it [investigative journalism and long form] means in this new era. It is not 2,000 words, maybe not and that is OK, maybe it’s words, videos or a combination of the two; maybe it is the use of graphics and illustrations — I do not know. But it is an exciting question to answer and as long as you willing to answer that question, you’ll be around in 10 years.”

Jaitly said, “Millennials want to see themselves in the news, in governance and in pop-culture in ways that are hard to explain. So the best news organisations of the future I think are going to figure out ways in which young people can see themselves in them.”

Speaking about the death of newspapers in the US and the cutbacks in the news industry, Weiner said with that happening, many of the people being laid off are senior journalists and field journalists who have great sources and experiences covering things like business and politics and know what is right and wrong, as they have been doing the job for 15-20 years.

“I believe there will be things that replace these and we are not going to be in the dark, but we would have lost a generation of people who can give context or add value to the news that cannot be replaced by with 26- or 27-year-olds who have never been outside,” Weiner said.