SPH Media Trust to double down on investments in tech and talent

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Tech and talent are the two main areas that SPH Media Trust (SMT) will heavily focus its investments on as it seeks to deliver quality, credible journalism, according to The Straits Times and The Business Times. Along with this, a fact-checking service will also be created to debunk fake news. On the commercial revenue front, SMT will still place significance on ads and subscriptions, chairman Khaw Boon Wan said, according to BT.

Moving forward, SMT seeks to become more customer-focused, data-driven and collaborative, in line with its transformation, BT added. Last September, Khaw said SMT plans to speed up BT's digital transformation and expand ST's resources in the newsroom, while at the same time doubling down on digital customer interface and customer experience to produce more engaging content for its digital audience. The New Paper has also ceased its print edition and pivoted to fully digital. At the same time, Lianhe Wanbao and Shin Min Daily News also officially merged on 26 December 2021.

To realise its ambitions on tech and talent, SMT will "invest heavily" to form an SPH Media Academy focusing on sharpening journalists' digital skills and multimedia capabilities, ST reported. It also plans to "invest aggressively" in tech to improve the user experience of its apps and websites to ensure newsrooms are able to publish content in a "timely and effective" manner, ST added.

During the recent media briefing, SMT's editor-in-chief for English, Malay, and Tamil Media Group, Warren Fernandez, said ST's deputy editor Paul Jacob will be the academy's dean. These investments, according to him, are crucial for SMT to achieve its goal of becoming a trusted sources of credible news as well as build trust among ethnic communities, and grow international reach, media reports said.

The academy will tie up with local and regional institutions including NTU, the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, and Civil Service College. There will also be partnerships with international media organisations such as the Reuters Institute of Journalism, Poynter Institute, and the Columbia University School of Journalism.

Meanwhile, SMT will be naming a new CEO "within the next two weeks", ST reported. Patrick Daniel, former deputy CEO and editor-in-chief at SPH, was appointed interim CEO last May. SMT was officially spun off as a not-for-profit entity last December after 97.55% of SPH's shareholders voted in favour of transferring its media business to a company limited by guarantee last September for a nominal sum of SG$1. Meanwhile, SPH also has two acquisition offers, one from consortium Cuscaden Peak and the other from Keppel Corporation.

Photo courtesy: 123RF

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