'A problem for the democratic functioning of society'

More editorials and opinion pieces about the changing nature of journalism. The two here focus on the structural problems being faced by the industry as a whole. Can they be overcome? Has the industry past a turning point where there's no turning back?

The winter of journalism's content
THE AUSTRALIAN
David McKnight and Penny O'Donnell | September 03, 2008

NEWSPAPERS in Australia and the world face difficult choices in the next decade. The dilemma can be expressed in a simple question: who will pay for quality journalism in the future? Until now the answer has been obvious. Advertising has subsidised journalism since the mass market press emerged at the end of the 19th century.

But the much-despised advertising is on the move. It's heading for the internet and with it is going one of the main props for journalists' salaries. In the language of economists, the business model for journalism is collapsing. But this is more than a problem for journalists or media owners; it is a problem for the democratic functioning of society.

Techno-optimists will tell you that the dinosaur newspaper industry simply will be replaced. The public will be informed by news on the internet, television and radio.

There are at least three problems with this bright forecast. First, newspapers are by far the main source of news as well as agenda setters compared with radio, TV and online, according to research for the Australian Broadcasting Authority in 2001 (now the Australian Communications and Media Authority). MORE


Loss of deepest diggers
Mark Day Blog | September 04, 2008 | 15 Comments

THE ructions at Fairfax Media have succeeded in putting the future of newspapers and journalism front and centre of debate about future trends in media. Commentary has focused mainly on Fairfax’s policies, its financial modelling and the perception that publishing is a business on a slippery slope.

Precious little has been said about how the industry’s structural problems may be overcome. Will it be by slashing and burning, reducing costs by sacking people in a spiralling game with no end? Or will it be by investing in new ways of doing things in the hope or expectation that they will deliver the profits required to grow?

Fairfax, driven by the cost-cutting experts it inherited from last year’s merger with Rural Press, has opted for the slash and burn model. Of the 550 people earmarked for the sack, about 180 will be journalists, with an expected 120 to go from the company’s flagship titles The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

Fairfax is not alone in going down this route. The big US papers, led by The New York Times, have been leading the way in recent years. MORE

Sydney tackles online media

New setup that I stumbled across on Facebook. First meeting of Media in the Pub is at Surry Hills on August 26. Let's hope it's a useful discussion about the future of journalism in Australia.

I find, personally anyway, that often these types of discussions focus on "oh, all you have online is stuff about Kylie etc" and don't focus on what can actually be done to save jobs. And of course how our industry is changing. Also big questions. But we can't ignore the internet, or change what's happening in the industry right? So why not work on the solutions, alternatives instead?

I reckon we still need those subs, eh?

I've attached David Marsh's comment on the Giles Coren rant. He does put a good point across that subs are more important nowadays in the digital age. What I wonder though is this - he mentions all these people who diss subs, including, might I add, colleagues in his own paper. No surprise there.

The thing is that if the people who hold the purse strings feel the same way, then the cuts are going to happen anyway right, whether or not the quality of the media product deteriotates or not.

What do you think?

Excoriating the coruscating Coren
Giles Coren's blistering rebuke to a hapless Times subeditor actually highlights what a vital role subs still play in the media

If only Giles Coren had given his email to a good subeditor before sending it, he might have got his point across effectively without revealing himself to be arrogant, petulant, pompous and, frankly, the last person you'd want to be stuck in a restaurant with.

As a sub by trade, it pains me to say it, but the foul-mouthed food critic was actually in the right: the hapless Times sub who removed a harmless sounding "a" from the last sentence of his column did subtly change the meaning and remove a joke (although one so obscure that it must be said Coren poses no immediate threat to the writers of, say, Peep Show).

What the email lacks is a sense of proportion. After ranting at length about his knowledge of Yiddish, laboriously explaining the aforementioned joke ("looking for a nosh has a secondary meaning of looking for a blowjob" – hilarious!), and comparing the sub to "a pissed Irish plasterer restoring a renaissance [sic] fresco and thinking jesus [sic] looks shit with a bear so plastering over it", our tortured artist turns his attention to metre: "Dumbest, deafest, shittest of all, you have removed the unstressed 'a' so that the stress that should have fallen on 'nosh' is lost, and my piece ends on an unstressed syllable." This, apparently, is "pre-GCSE scansion" (what kind of advanced academy of linguistics was Coren attending at 15?).

Then comes the eloquent clincher: "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck." Well, to be fair, it scans perfectly.

Putting to one side the thought that being a sub at the Times right now must be about as rewarding an occupation as trying to sell Mother's Day cards to a Canoe Wife's sons, I'm struck by the fact that Coren's onanistic outburst is the latest in a series of recent attacks on subeditors. MORE

Illustrators ... to broadcasters

One of my favourite illustrators that's now doing animations is Peter Nicholson of The Australian. You can check out his recent animations at The Australian's website or a full archive of all his work at his personal site.

The Sydney Morning Herald's illustrator Rocco Fazzari has ventured into claymation. I believe his first offering last year was one about Labor's Peter Garrett. I'm hunting around for his latest production ...

Sacred Facts blog

One of my favourite blogs on news media and its evolution is Richard Sambrook's blog "Sacred Facts".

Richard Sambrook the Director of the BBC's Global News division.

So is it all doom and gloom?

 I've been collecting bits and pieces here and there about online news media and traditional print and broadcast media, and how the integration between the two is or is not happening.

It's all secondhand stuff really, but I thought I'll collect them all together in one blog ...

So why "brave new world"? It has a negative connotation I suppose, because of Adolf Huxley's book. But does the advent of the internet necessarily mean the demise of journalism? Are we all focusing on the wrong issues? Does an online news website have to be "Kylie's Bum" journalism (as one newspaper colleague said) to be finanically viable (let alone successful)??