Today's presentation

After hearing Mitch's comments in class today about, "Who Will Pay For Journalism?", it really got me thinking. Not just in regards to the hilarious South Park clip he showed us but in regards to the media's future. He pointed out that no one really has the answers and no one really knows what will happen in the online world, especially in relation to funding journalism. Some of the possible solutions he pointed out were: subscriptions; good-willed donations; and advertising. Hybrid models seemed to be the most viable.

However, will it only be the major players, such as ninemsn, that thrive in this new media market? Will they become like the Woolworths of the online world, with a stronghold over consumers? Surely, alternative or niche markets will struggle to survive without mass support from the people because they will not have the required finances to be continually viable.

Or, like the clip we just watched from The Future of Journalism of Summit, will we, new journalists, have to run our own race, like our own personal business? Selling ourselves, our work and our news to the highest bidder. Is this a new thing? Or just an old thing with new media formats?

In the end, who will pay for journalism?

Australian media in 2012

Found this article over the weekend and thought it may be of interest to aspiring young journalists like ourselves. Matthew Ricketson from The Age newspaper talks about the face of journalism and the media in five years time.

"What this underscores is that traditional media companies ignore the power of the internet to transform the media at their peril. If they do, they risk repeating the error made by Sony. The powerhouse of the recorded music industry refused to forgo revenue from CD sales only to see a computer company, Apple, create a device (the iPod) that consumers took to like a cat to catnip."

Well put. Furthermore:

"By 2012, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the size of the internet market — and that includes revenue for internet service providers as well as advertising — will be $6.74 billion compared with the size of the newspaper market ($5.85 billion) and commercial free to air television ($4.17 billion)."

Interesting stats in an up-to-date piece written on August 20, 2008. To read more click here.

Who will pay for journalism?

"If advertising and journalism are forever linked we will not have a problem. However, I don't think it will be forever linked. All the trends are that the journalism and advertising are decoupling. So if advertising is no longer subsidising journalism, then what? Where will the money come from to pay journalists a decent, living wage?"

That is the million dollar question. I found this on a blog from the Public Journalism Network website. How will journalists be paid in an age of cyber-news? I then found one theory being tested: pay-per view journalism. This theory is outlined in Nicholas Carr's blog: Rough Type. He revealed that Steve Rubel from CNET is trialling the payment of bloggers based on the amount of page views they generate. Rubel is using this as a trial, which will probably take about a year, but Carr said it is "inevitable".

Carr continues by arguing that, "Online publishing breaks the old bundled-content model of print publishing". Furthermore, "Once content moves online, writers are no longer contributing to the overall value of a package - a newspaper or a magazine, say. Each of their stories becomes a discrete product." This is true. When you go online you can isolate a particular story. You do not have to open up to page 35 to read more. You go where you want to go. And page five does not necessarily follow on directly from page four. Consumers can flick from Stephanie Rice to Garfield and back to Iemma's power dilemma in an instant and in any particular order. This definitely breaks away from the traditional "package" and "bundle" model outlined by Carr. And it definitely highlights the need for pay-by-view journalism unless more advertising is directed online. Whether or not this is the best model, I am unsure, but at least it provides a way to fund journalism, at least online journalism, into the future.

Any thoughts?

Dream Team

If I hear the men's basketball from the USA team referred to as The Dream Team one more time I am going to absolutely lose it. Whether it is a commentater, the news reader or my mate down the street - there is sure to be kicking and screaming, bricks through windows and probably car alarms wailing in the background as sweat drips from my brow and my muscles twitch with anger.

The fact of the matter is this: the men's basketball team from the US of A currently competing at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games is not The Dream Team.

It's as simple as that. End of story. There ain't nothing more to it.

The Dream Team (pictured) was the US basketball team from the 1992 Barcelona Olympics with superstars like Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, Magic Johnson, Scottie Pippen and Michael Jordan.

Now, I'm not inferring that the 2008 team has not got big names, Lebron James and Kobe Bryant put that argument to rest immediately. But they are not part of The Dream Team.

Yet, idiotic people in the media keep calling them The Dream Team.

In Australia, it would be like calling Ricky Ponting's men of 2008 The Invincibles. The fact is, we all know The Invincibles were the Australian cricket team that toured England and remained undefeated in 1948. The Invincibles tag only refers to that particular team. It is the same for The Dream Team.

But as soon as an American basketball team takes the court, especially when the Boomers played them in the quarter finals last night (The Aussies were heavily defeated by 116-85), they get called The Dream Team.

However, according to Wikipedia, there have been some US basketball squads after the original Dream Team was assembled in 1992, that have been labelled as Dream Team II or the like. But it just ain't the same and at the end of the day - there is only one Dream Team.

Presentation

I delivered my seminar today and it went a little better than I expected. Everyone in the class had something to say at some point and although I made a couple of mistakes it seemed to go fairly smoothly.

But it was a survey of the class that I conducted early in my seminar that raised the most interesting information. To highlight the globalisation V localisation topic, I asked the people in my class whether or not they were on facebook. About 75% of the class raised their hands. I then asked the class whether or not they knew their next door neighbour. About 50% of the class raised their hands. While the difference in the response was not massive, and with the test not being the greatest, it still showcased the move of society, especially younger people to the globalised community, rather than the local community. The fact that more people were willing to share information to anyone across the world online, than to know the name of the person next door, signifies some sort of trend from the pre-Internet era.

Also, a quick show of hands revealed that most people in the 3-5pm Journalism class believe newspapers, especially local publications like the Maitland Mercury, will survive because of the publics thirst for local content.

Journalism in the global village

One of the first points that Rhonda Breit makes in her chapter "Journalism in the global village" (Tapsall and Varley, 2001) is one of the most poignant for the chapter. "The media revolution talked about in this book, has created an environment of uncertainty for journalists struggling to keep pace with changing technology and work practices." This uncertainty can be heard amidst Communications students of this very University as they struggle to come to grips with the industry they aspire to and its rapidly changing face.

And when I say rapid, I mean rapid. Take ABC online for example (I know I have referred to this website in earlier blogs but I think it best exemplifies the convergence of media). In 1995 the ABC established a multimedia unit. In 2000 it was called the New Media division. This changed to New Media and Digital Services the following year. Podcasts were then introduced in the lead up to Christmas, 2004. Less than two years on, the ABC were seen as the international leader of podcast programs with over 50 available online. In 2007, the New Media and Digital Services department was dissolved and divided up. A new Innovations area was created and they currently maintain the website and deal with any new media technologies. So, within 15 years, the advancement of technology has taken journalism to another place.

Has it tapped into the world of public journalism? If the DVD (watched in class the on August 13) produced by 1233 ABC Newcastle using the photographs of civilians documenting the 2007 June long weekend storms and floods around Newcastle and the Hunter is anything to go by - then the answer would be yes.

However, has this online era really given the people a voice?

"Technology has given the media a global audience and strategic alliances are giving the media power, but this has not created a global voice," according to Breit.

What Breit is most concerned about is the power of the giant Trans National Corporations (TNC's) such as, News Corp (Rupert Murdoch - pictured), Disney and Time Warner, and the influence they have over the media and society. Not only do they own most of it but they form alliances with second tier companies like Packer's Consolidated Media Holdings (CMH, which was previously PBL), to create greater concentrated pockets of power.

Breit quotes McChesney who claims these oligopolies to be "disastrous" because it decreases the diversity of media interests, standardises content and means deals are often struck to create an advantage without regard to the news agenda. An example of this is Chanel 7's coverage of the Beijing Olympic Games. Besides the poor quality of some of the presenters and the poor reception of Prime at my house (that's another issue all together), events are often showed that don't feature Australians and the swimming finals were televised during Australia's day time, which is when most people are at work. The one answer - money! "NBC (General Electric) paid the International Olympic Committee $844 million for the American broadcast rights for the Beijing Games. (http://sportsbiznews.blogspot.com/2008/08/2008-beijing-summer-olympics-burning.html).
NBC, part of the massive TNC General Electric, have the money and can do pretty well whatever they want. This is exactly what McChesney is talking about. Briet agrees, "Concentration of media ownership into the hands of a few TNC's is threatening the integrity of journalism".

But Nicholas Negroponte thinks TNC's will be short lived and the millions of channels available on the internet will "diffuse the power and give the global village a voice".

What do you think?

Moreover, the Internet boom, among other things, has created a relatively border less community. A border less global community at that. As Breit points out, this has a massive implication on local laws, such as defamation and privacy, which have previously covered particular countries or states. How do laws cover the Internet, and whose laws are adhered to? The two "social watchdogs" (the media and the judiciary), as Breit puts it, are at loggerheads and are seriously under threat. They are under mining each other.

But how do you regulate the Internet?

Breit claims, "No one global body has the power to impose change, so any steps to restore public confidence in these two institutions must take place in the individual nation states". Furthermore, global cooperation and collaboration would help but cyber-jurisdiction is a giant and murky world indeed. Ultimately, Breit exclaims that, "The journalist must do more" in a commercially driven world. She believes that the responsibility basically rests with the individual journalist. Not totally, but mostly. "Journalists must consent to a transparent system of accountability, supplemented by internationalised local laws that acknowledge the changing role of journalists". Breit concludes that a working relationship between the media and the judiciary is required.

My thoughts tend to mirror this view. TNC's will always be there and the growth of technology has only just begun. It is up to journalists to accept the change and adapt to this new global village. At the same time regulators need to be at least aware of these changes and to make appropriate and timely adjustments . To what extent I am not sure but reforms from the media and the judiciary are imperative in order to stay with the times and the technology.

Gold

I was doing some research for another class and came across this website. Now I love the work of Roy and HG but after analysing their interviewing techniques a little further I found myself admiring their work. Not only are they funny, but they are well researched, well organised, ask the tough questions, create rapport with their talent and perform well live. It really brings out another side to sport and media interviewing.

Why they weren't asked to be part of Chanel 7's coverage at the Beijing Olympics is beyond me. But it is Triple J's gain and if you get the chance before the games are over tune into 102.1 and listen to the Golden Ring Show from 4.30pm each day.

Beijing

One week into the games of the 29th Olympiad and I have barely seen a thing. And it has nothing to do with time constraints or lack of wanting. The reception for Prime at my house in Bolwarra (just outside Maitland) has been like watching a Chinese rice fight, speckled dust, or looking into a snow storm at Mount Perisher.

Subsequently, I have turned to Auntie and tuned into 1233 ABC Newcastle each day and night. In the car, on my walkman (yes, my faithful friend from the nineties was resurrected from the dark depths of my second drawer so I could listen to events around Callagahan), and when curled up in bed. And I am so glad I did. Not only has she saved me from Olympic exile on a scale much greater than Marion Jones, but the commentary, on the whole, and coverage has been well informed, entertaining and on the ball.

The radio is one thing but if you get the chance, checkout the coverage of Beijing on ABC online. It is simply unbelievable. Professional and precise with up to date stories, podcasts, pictures, profiles on athletes, videos, blogs, medal tallies, schedules, results, history and trivia. This is CONVERGANCE at its highest quality. An international leader. This is where journalism is in 2008 and the ABC have set the bar for the standard required. Absolutely exceptional. It certainly confirmed my belief about the excellent job that the ABC does, especially in relation to sport. It also reiterated my goal of, one day, being part of that ABC sports team.

Putting the public back into journalism

Angela Romano and Cratis Hippocrates outline several problems with today's reporting, public journalism, public journalism in practice and Australian initiatives like the Public Journalism Project undertaken by the Queensland University of Technology and University of Wollongong in 1998 ("Putting the public back into journalism", Tapsall and Varley, 2001). But it is their conclusion, which I want to focus on.

It is in their conclusion that Romano and Hipoocrates propose five keys to successful public journalism:

1. Establishing the agenda (What issues are important?)
2. Dedicating the resources (Training, time and column space)
3. Setting the timetable (Program for journalistic activities)
4. Obtaining feedback (Eg: letters to the editor and email)
5. Analysing the activities and outcomes Measuring the impact on public perceptions)

Now don't get me wrong, I think the idea of public journalism is a good idea and furthermore, this outline seems simple and makes perfect sense. However, what I struggle with is: time and resources. Public journalism may be possible in bigger media centres but not necessarily in rural news rooms where journalists are few, stories are many and time is stretched to capacity. If public journalism was to occur, it would need to be highly organised, not detract from the valuable, daily news service it provides the people already and somehow create a culture change where citizens would become more involved.

The Chaser

I just love their work. Check out the links below. Well worth a look.

• APEC: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdnAaQ0n5-8

• Macca's upsell: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SsFXQ0kmLs&feature=related

• Trojan horse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs3SfNANtig&feature=related

What do you think?

A return to practice: reclaiming journalism as public conversation

One of the first points made by Michael Meadows in his chapter, "A return to practice: reclaiming journalism as public conversation" (Tapsall and Varley, 2001), is, "With the expansion of communication and transport technologies, and the onset of the 'post-modern' age of information technology, journalism has been transformed into something else". Factors such as the internet, broadband, digital television, mobile phones, demanding deadlines, citizen journalists and faster transport options have all played a part in the transformation of journalism.

Meadows also makes note of another aspect of modern journalism, previously explored by Carey, "...public spaces were places where public opinion was formed, and the press that emerged at this time 'reflected and animated public conversation'. In contrast, modern journalism forms public opinion rather than reporting on it."

Do you agree with this stand point? Does modern journalism simply form, rather than report, public opinion in 2008?

But the most interesting part of Meadows reading was considering "journalism as a cultural practice and media as a cultural resource". Meadows quotes Italian journalist Antonio Gramsci who believes media to be the "most dynamic part" of the "ideological structure of society". Meadow adds, "The media and journalism are part of an array of institutions and practices that form culture." I tend to agree with this stand point.

Meadows continues by referring to Gramsci's notion of "good sense" and the Italians "ideal of journalism - integral journalism". This engages an active audience and satisfies the public, which "resonates with Carey's notion of journalism as a public conversation and, in turn, with Jay Rosen's idea of public, civic, or community journalism." In throy, this sounds like good practice, but how do we bring this into being?

Meadows also turns to the work of journalism educator, Adam, who states, "Journalism is a form of expression that is an invention" Furthermore, "...the more stories people read about crime, especially of events they can't control, the more likely they are inclined to think crime is out of control". Therefore, "Sources selected by journalists play a crucial role in giving rise to how society is imagined". This certainly highlights the power the media has upon society, which is quite scary in a way. But ultimately, predominately true.

Meadows then quotes the five principles of journalistic design, according to Adam:

1. news and news judgment
   
2. reporting or evidentiary method
3. linguistic technique
4. narrative technique
5. method of interpretation or meaning

It is a little deeper than the old inverted pyramid, and 5W and H theories, but I can see the merit in it. News and news judgment is what story you do, reporting method would be your sources, linguistics simply refers to the language and how it is used, how you tell the story comes under the banner of narrative, but I struggle to make sense of the method of interpretation or meaning.

Finally, Meadows concludes: "If journalists are intellectuals playing a critical role in applying a set of cultural practices in particular ways, then there seems much that could be achieved beyond the mundabe reporting of the everyday; beyond a routine reliance on institutional sources; beyond the shallow view that journalists merely 'reflect reality'; beyond a reliance on the flawed notion of the fourth estate and the limiting effects of objectivity and professionalism."

Is this something we should all be striving for? How realistic is Meadow's view?

Regional Journalism Conference

I accepted an invitation from Christina and secured a place (a free one at that) to the Regional Journalism Conference held at Customs House on Saturday. i was only able to attend the morning session but I was able to pick up quite a few useful hints. Firstly, ABC reporter Chris Masters (pictured) talked to us about story telling and his days as a reporter in Albury. It was also good to be surrounded by peers from other regional papers and to hear their stories, problems and issues. It was comforting to know that I was not on my own at the Maitland Mercury. There were other people out there, many much more experienced than I, in the same boat.

Ths issue of the the Internet, blogs and public journalism was also raised and one website in particular caught my attention. Check it out, the link is below.

http://www.ourpatch.com.au/

Also, if you are working in the media, or are looking for work in the media, make sure you visit the Media and Entertainment, Arts Alliance (MEAA) website (http://www.alliance.org.au), join the union and become a member of the Australian Journalists Association (AJA). Well worth doing.

Future of Journalism

After watching a bit about the Future of Journalism summit in class today, I found a related article that might be of interest to some of you, which can be found at: http://www.thefutureofjournalism.org.au/. I also discovered the importance of Jay Rosen (pictured) in this field. Enjoy.

Comfort or Curse?

"News is what someone, somewhere, wants concealed. Everything else is advertising." (Jervis, 1987 as cited by Sheridan Burns in Journalism, 2001, pp. 23)

This may be true to some level but it is an interesting way to start this chapter. Are journos the flames for social justice? To "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable?"Or has it moved away from this and is the media simply entertainment? Or should it be a balance between information and entertainment?

Personally, I draw the most inspiration for journalists and journalism from the anecdote about the writer, the actor and the musician, told at the end of Sheridan Burns' chapter:

• "Perhaps the answer lies in the convergance of their lives rather than the differences. What they had in common, all along, was a desire to engage the world, to touch people."
• "A journalist is someone who believes there are answers, and wants to find them."
• "All journalists seek in some way to touch an audience, to make some sense of what they discover in the world, and share the news."

All this makes sense and really does sound wonderful, but it is really the case? I hope deep down it is what lies at the heart of it all - the passionate fire that burns within.

Any thoughts?

What is a journalist?

As the face of journalism rapidly expands, changes and morphs into the online age of the 21st century, it raises many questions and issues both media producers and consumers. Suellen Tapsall and Carolyn Varley clearly point this out in Chapter 1 of "Journalism: Theory in Practice" (Tapsall and Varley, 2001, pp.3), "It used to be simple. If you wanted to know what was going on in the world, you picked up the paper, listened to the radio, or turned on the television." We all know that this is far from the case today.

Although these traditional media formats still exist and are still used by a broad audience, the internet has really changed the face of how media is produced and consumed. Firstly, consumption, and news is simply a click away. A world at the end of your fingertips and sitting right in front of your face. From nineMSN to google and everything in between, people of all ages who have access to the World Wide Web can access information at their leisure at what ever time they see fit. This information no longer has to come from the morning newspaper, John Laws or the 6pm news bulletin.

The production of news has also changed dramatically. Interviews are now podcast as well as broadcast, newspaper hacks blog and television footage makes You Tube. This has blurred the line between producer and consumer but Tapsall and Varely believe the essence of journalism remains: "Ultimately, the essence that distinguishes journalists from these other information brokers might be the commitment to the public good and the notion of responsibility beyond self and employer. The commitment will need to be balanced with a commitment to truthfulness, accuracy, and personal and professional integrity, and a realistic appreciation of the current dependence of journalists on the news organisations' bottom line."

Today, there is a convergance of journalistic skills across various technological advances but some of the qualities mentioned above must remain.

Do you think a journalist has these qualities today? Is it important to uphold these qualities? What other qualities should journalists possess?

Frontline 2

Here is another amusing snippet from the Frontline crew. This time - the wonderful world media continuity as well as live and pre-recorded interviews.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4I9GTVvyGs&feature=related

Enjoy!

Frontline

You may have already seen this in class, studied it in Year 12, or just been entertained along the way - Frontline. Absolute gold. If you haven't seen it, or you just want to refresh your memory, here is a link to a clip on You Tube. This one talks about Mike Moore and point scoring in an interview!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwfne1aYA3g&feature=related

Enjoy!