This chapter will explore the following areas in examining the current and future trends in Journalism in Australia
1.0 TRENDS IN THE JOURNALISM INDUSTRY
1.1 PRINT MEDIA TRENDS
1.2 THE SHIFT TO ONLINE MEDIA: In Australia and Hong Kong
1.3 TRENDS in MAINSTREAM MEDIA COMPANIES IN AUSTRALIA
1.4 INNOVATIVE MOVEMENTS WITH ONLINE MEDIA
1.5 The CURRENT STATE OF JOURNALISM and CORPORATE MEDIA
1.6 WHAT DO THESE TRENDS MEAN FOR JOURNALISTS?
1.7 JOB PROSPECTS
1.8 FUTURE TRENDS
2.0 REFERENCES
1.0 Trends in the Journalism Industry
The Journalism industry has certainly experienced some changes throughout its time and more so in the last few years following the emergence of the internet and the subsequent development of blogging, multi-media software and social networking sites. This has led most recently to the substantial changes to the operations of the traditional newsroom, the skills required by journalists and the use of social media tools to not only capture and distribute micro-news stories but to also utilized to market individual journalists and media companies in today’s changing landscape of journalism.
Current Trends in the Journalism Industry
- Newspaper sales are down
- Online media is growing exponentially
- Jobs in mainstream print media are down
- Opportunities to be entrepreneurial are up
- Technology is developing rapidly and multi-media skills are a must
And it all started way back then when news print media was “the spring of the knowledge”, as seen below in a poem from 1770. This was shown to us by Louise Connor, from the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) in her presentation at the Media Pass Day in May 2010.
The News-Paper
Tis truth (with deference to the college)
Newspapers are the spring of knowledge,
The general source through the nation,
Of every modern conversation.
What would this might people do,
If there, alas, were nothing new?
A newspaper is like a feast,
Some dish there is for every guest;
Some large, some small, some strong, some tender,
For every stomach, stout or slender.
Quebec Gazette, March 1770
Journalism dispelled through newspapers was once the prominent source of news information in society. And it is evident that times have changed dramatically since then. Some people still refer to print media as a feast -as mentioned in the poem (although this is mostly the large corporate owners) and more so people are referring to it as a famon (the readers). So what changes are occurring and where is journalism headed now…
1.1 PRINT MEDIA
There are undeniably changes to the readership levels to print media in Australia. There has been the incidence of decreased readership for some years, due to the emergence of the Internet and the fast growth of online media options for readers. Recently, as discussed in May 2010, http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-business/australian-newspapers-post-drop-in-sales-20100514-v2dc.html
“Australian newspapers post drop in sales
SARAH MALIK
May 14, 2010
Australian newspaper sales continue to fall and the industry body for major publishers lays the blame on a slower news year rather the inroads made into circulation by online news sites.
Sales of metropolitan and national newspapers fell by an average of three per cent in the March quarter compared with the same period a year ago, Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) data on Thursday showed.
Fairfax Media Ltd's The Australian Financial Review was the hardest hit, with the daily circulation of its Monday to Friday edition falling 8.6 per cent to 75,624 copies.”
As discussed in this article in The Australian LINK http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/small-dip-in-metro-paper-sales/story-e6frg996-1225797973630) by Sally Jackson in November 2009, there are continuing declining readership levels in metro paper sales in Australia, however, this is still considerably better than the US and the UK, but is this simply foreshadowing Australia’s future?
“THE Australian newspaper market showed a small decline in the three months to September with sales of national, metropolitan and regional Monday-to-Sunday titles down 1.5 per cent compared with the previous corresponding quarter.
Sales of Monday-to-Sunday metro newspapers decreased by 1.1 per cent and regional titles dropped 1.2 per cent.
Sunday metropolitan circulation was 2.5 per cent lower.
However, that continued to be the biggest day for newspaper sales, with 3.2 million Sunday papers sold every week.
On average, Australians are buying more than 20 million newspapers a week, according to figures released last night by the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
The audit report showed the Australian market was continuing to outperform the US and Britain, said Tony Hale, chief executive of industry body the Newspaper Works.
In the US, year-on-year weekday newspaper sales dropped by 10.6 per cent and Sunday sales by 7.5 per cent in the six months to September.”
Despite it being stated in the first report above, that the reductions in readership are a result of it being “a slower news year rather the inroads made into circulation by online news sites” it is difficult to even compare readership figures for print media with recent years due to changes in separating the figures of print and online editions, as seen in this article, in The Australian in February, 2010.
“THE Monday-to-Friday readership of The Australian averaged 446,000 in the year to December 2009, according to the latest Roy Morgan Research survey.
Readership of The Weekend Australian was 853,000.
Roy Morgan said the figures could not be compared with the previous year because of changes in the survey to differentiate reading of a newspaper's printed and online editions.
"We believe the figures we are now reporting are accurate estimates of hard-copy newspaper reading," a spokesperson said.
Average readership of the other national daily, Fairfax Media's The Australian Financial Review, was 263,000 on weekdays and 172,000 on Saturdays.
After a long dispute between publishers and Roy Morgan over its methodology for measuring readership, industry body The Newspaper Works is running a tender process to find an alternative metric.”
Thus, as can be seen in the statistics, newspapers are certainly not dead, although they may be a dying breed, as the levels of readership in print media have been declining steadily in recent years. And this and other factors have led some prominent media commentators to say:
“The survival of newspapers is by no means guaranteed. They still face big structural obstacles: it remains unclear, for example, whether the young will pay for news in any form.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2010/jun/14/newspapers-downturn
1.2 THE SHIFT TO ONLINE MEDIA: In Australia and Hong Kong
All of our interviewees from mainstream and independent media publications and media commentators concurred that the Internet is a big part of the future for journalism. This is largely due to the technological opportunities available and the fact that currently at least 20% costs go to printing. It is also evident that more and more people these days prefer to read their news online due to cost and convenience.
Ed Lee (ex South China Morning Post) stated his view about online journalism:
‘It’s important because the Internet is everything. More and more people are switching from traditional media platforms to the net. It only makes both editorial and business sense to have an online presence. How they do it is another story. Some establishments have greatly embraced this trend like the Washington Post and The Guardian. To look at Hong Kong, one big player is Next Media's Apple Daily. The English papers however, SCMP and the Standard, fall far below. In fact, the SCMP, which was, once lauded for its multimedia push, has now fired everyone from that department, including me.’ He then commented ‘I think media companies will try to blend both. But it's only a matter of time where newspapers and magazines will devote more time & effort to mobile, web and other online platforms where costs are lower.’
This demonstrates journalism is following technological trends as it is developing largely online content sites and most companies have applications available for IPhones and even more recently the IPad. Perhaps the next stage within each of the big journalism companies may be to hire a team who will take charge of phone journalism. This can be different to online and traditional media platforms as a wider audience will be able to be reached through developing specialised sites for phones. Special effects may be needed to stand out which differ from how the online journalism layout would be.
Billy Clarke, Asia City Publishing, states ‘the line between journalism and blogging will become a blur soon as anyone will have the capability to reach the same audience as a journalist would.’ Some people may get the news before actual journalists as they may record an event as it is happening on their iPhone and reach a large online audience with the documentation. Therefore it is important journalists are original, can pick out good stories and are passionate about what they write as they need to keep the audience interested at all times as it is a very competitive time.
By reviewing the comparison of opinions discussed in the 2006 Press Council’s State of News Print Media Report it is clear that the internet has and is having a large impact on print media companies and by looking at the changes that were predicted and the generational data of who the remaining readers actually are, readership may continue to decline:
Traditionalists believe that the Internet is no more likely to bring down newspapers than the advent of TV half a century ago. The special attributes of newspapers, their immediacy, involvement, credibility, creativity, consistency and flexibility of use will continue to ensure their longevity…Traditionalists are, however, being stalked by doubters, including most recently The Economist (August 2006) which is following the line that extinction of all or some of the papers in the UK is only a matter of time. It claims '…that newspapers are on the way out and that it is only a matter of time before there are closures with half the world's newspapers likely to close in the foreseeable future because 'business of selling words to readers and selling readers to advertisers, which has sustained their role in society, is falling apart…The data is threatening. Reading habits are changing. Some age groups are reading newspapers less. Circulation is threatened. Nearly half of those who read Australian metropolitan newspapers are over fifty. Successful responses to the ubiquitous Internet challenge are essential.
Admittedly this report is from 2006, as the more recent reports have to be purchased (and as I am a student and unpaid writer I cannot afford it!). Despite this, the positive elements of having this report to examine is that it offers a reflection on what the predicted trends were only four years ago and offers an opportunity to analyse what has happened since. In looking at Chapter 2 of the report on the top trends, it is interesting to note that the penetration of internet access in Australian homes was at 56 percent in the 2004-2005 period and the Press Council offered an analyse of how this effected the media companies at the time:
Newspaper companies are rapidly transforming into multi-media companies
Penetration of Internet access into Australian homes had reached 56 per cent (65 per cent of which was by broadband) by the end of the 2004/2005-year. Abundant indications that an increasing number of Australians were turning to Internet sources for information in real time have led major metropolitan newspapers, and some regional dailies, to establish parallel print and online editions. http://www.presscouncil.org.au/snpma/ch01.html
With reviewing the most recent statistics of Internet penetration in Australian homes,
The rate of household Internet access has quadrupled over the
past eight years, from 16% in 1998 to 64% in 2006–07
In connection with the above commentary, it is clear that the movements the print media companies were making in 2006 have only been exaggerated since then. The focus on the online content has changed dramatically, through ending the process of saving ‘breaking news’ for the morning print edition and instead ensuring that it is immediately published on the online site, in desperate efforts to ‘beat’ other media companies. More so this shift can be seen with the recent developments from The Australian and The Age being the first of Australian mainstream newspapers to introduce new and interactive applications to read news online via the latest portable device the iPad in early June 2010, as Mumbrella discusses. Is this the device that will save newspapers or does it simply indicate a more permanent shift to online news media as a whole? I am certain that the media companies owned by Murdoch will survive as companies, however, it is more the question of whether the quality of journalism will survive and whether this will remain to be printed in hard copies in the near future.
One of the pressing issues here, is that the large media companies in Australia did not capture the essence of the online environment early on and some are still struggling with its uses. There have been some changes seen in relation to how the online media is now managed by the large media organizations, as described below in the Press Council Report:
The race to be first to disseminate news has already led to sections of on-line newspaper sites devoted to breaking news. In the last 18 months metropolitan newspapers that had been updating their Internet sites as the day progressed, while reserving exclusives and scoops for the morning newspapers, have reviewed that policy. Newspapers such as The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald and the Herald Sun, are moving to the 24-hour newsroom, filing stories online as news breaks.http://www.presscouncil.org.au/snpma/ch01.html
It is certainly not the case currently that any media source would consider “reserving exclusives and scoops for the morning newspapers” anymore. With readership levels being down, competition is as fierce as ever and if a station or paper has a breaking news story they will publish it immediately on their website or in a news flash on television or via social media sites. With the use of current technologies, journalists will report live from a conference simply via a Tweet back to the newsroom, which will instantly be re-tweeted by the media organization and published instantly on their Twitter site. This story will then be further developed and published via their online site or in their print form, but sole consideration of the morning paper is mostly a thing of the past. And this is precisely where the print media is struggling. What can the print editions offer that are different to the online content? The emergence of more colored lift-out’s and specialized magazine style components on food, travel, the Arts and real-estate is a small solution to this, but as these magazines are now available as separate downloads on the new applications for IPads this is still not going to lead to increasing sales for print editions.
The concern for the media publications in 2006 was the emergence of blogging and the threat this was making to the credibility or the need for print media:
The growing availability of free-of-charge blogs (both news and opinion) on the Internet threaten the previous monopoly over authoritative news, and the informed questioning of government and privileged minorities essential to democracies, that newspapers uniquely offered. Even the historic richness and variety of their information sources is being challenged. More and more newspapers are responding by encouraging their regular journalists to publish blog pieces. Lack of credibility and doubts about authenticity is the chief drawback of self-motivated, unedited blogging, particularly anonymous blogging. Newspapers entering the field, insisting upon the normal requirements for authenticated material and appropriate ethics from their staff, expect, no doubt, that those features of their "brands" will eventually result in them becoming the sole, or at least preferred, choices of readers. http://www.presscouncil.org.au/snpma/ch01.htmlhttp://www.presscouncil.org.au/snpma/ch01.html
And in 2010, it is clear that this should still be a concern, although the major
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