Research Report on Journalism: CURRENT AND FUTURE TRENDS 2

CONT from Current and Future Trends 1

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.html

And in 2010, it is clear that this should still be a concern, although the major players have all of their prominent journalists blogging and have blogs attached to their online sites. This does lead to an individual’s personal readers to also follow the newspaper columns by this journalist, but it also means when the journalist leaves that media company the readers may follow. This occurred with the recent sacking of Catherine Deveny from The Age, when hundreds of her fans threatened to never read the paper again, as they only read it on Wednesdays to see her column. See http://journalism-research.blogspot.com/2010/05/comments-made-on-deveny-blog.html to view these comments.  The other implication of blogging is that it is now a paid profession and many freelance writers are making their own money from their blogs and websites, which means they no longer need an attachment to a mainstream media company. More on this can be read in our  ‘Types of Journalism’ section where we discuss the different avenues you can take in journalism and offer case studies and tips for how to make it happen’.

Crikey took the lead with the online media format and in addition to this showed that people will continue to pay for journalism, in print or online, it is of a high standard and independent of corporate agendas that are even more evident in the mainstream media sources in Australia and elsewhere. Scott Bridges from Crikey writes about the threat of blogging to the media empires and how these companies did not utilize online media effectively from the beginning. The consequences of this avoidance rather than an empowering use of online media capabilities are now being fully realized by the mainstream media companies, in their late attempts to shift to an innovative and uniquely online format for news.

‘Newspapers and bloggers: isn’t there room for everyone? – Crikey’

"But one day along comes this thing called The Internet, promising to democratise the flow of information, and something terrible begins to happen: the plebs grow bold and start to rise up, empowered by having their voice heard, unworried about profit or business models. If you were that media baron what would you do? Would you adapt or would you atrophy?

When this news and journalism environment started to change dramatically about a decade ago, newspaper media companies initially refused to change with it. They whacked their stories online, slapped a couple of ads up with them, and sat back waiting for the rivers of Internet gold to flow. But people don’t use the internet like they do traditional media forms, and most attempts by traditional players to adapt to this new form have been contrived and poorly executed. The failure to adapt a product to a market is bad business, but the petulant bitching and moaning from dinosaur media chiefs who want the world to stop moving so they don’t have to get off their arse and move with it is just bad form." Scott Bridges http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/07/02/newspapers-and-bloggers-isnt-there-room-for-everyone/

This is a great article on mainstream media in Australia and their response to the internet and the 'power' that was taken away from big business papers when 'ordinary people' started to blog and share their stories, opinions and actual news. So what trends can be seen with these companies in Australia?

1.3 TRENDS in MAINSTREAM MEDIA Companies in Australia

Louise Connor, VIC branch secretary, Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) has been involved in the research that has been conducted over the past two years. This is centered on the changes that have been occurring in journalism and the emergence of new media and the subsequent implications of decreasing revenue streams for print media. Louise raises the issues that have been mentioned above in Crikey and which are evident in examining the use of online media by the mainstream media organizations.

Louise states that current trends in the industry in Australia (with only 2 main corporations owning the majority of news sources) means there is decreasing opposition to publish diverse views that are not covered in the media mogul’s papers. The major players (not including the ABC) limit the voices that can be heard. This means that increasing the voices and funding for the ABC is vital in maintaining this large public broadcaster. The new environment is limited with the majority of editors at the mainstream papers not being up to date with the multi-media opportunities available now. Louise feels that the mainstream papers are not utilising effective advertising opportunities that should be organized differently for online media sources (if they are to offer an online news forum that is different from their print media formats). Louise admits that this issue will be solved over time, as the older editors retire or new multi-skilled people work their way up in these companies.

In relation to The Age and their ongoing reference to advertising opportunities through counting “the eyeballs” that are looking at their site, Louise highlights that this does not take into consideration that those viewers may not be anywhere near the local BMW dealership and may be reading the story from the other side of the world. Thus there are different advertising needs for effective online news media. As Louise states, “the fixation on eyeballs is irrelevant and they need to be more discerning in their material”. Such sites as The Guardian in the UK have managed to set up their online content in relation to the needs of their viewers and have changed it for their market and their chosen advertisers. As can been seen here http://www.guardian.co.uk/community with their community section which incorporates social media tools and forums. In addition, the TIME online magazine which has a huge market in Asia centers its advertising on global products that can be sourced all over the world. With only 40% of media being sourced from print media, Louise continues to discuss that a newsroom in today’s environment should be agnostic of platforms and news should be published in a variety of manners on different platforms. She believes the current situation in Australia is “unhealthy”. The issues raised with mass media ownership in Australia can be seen when the ABC was beginning to set up regional centers and being told by Fairfax that the regional hubs were their areas. Louise comments that the Fairfax monopoly needs to learn the lessons from their mistakes in ignoring the advances with new media. They need to be more proactive and offer quality journalism in those areas if they wish to retain their regional monopoly. The problems with current mainstream media sources is that they decide on their news stories on what will make money and not through ascertaining what the audience wants.  Louise’s advice to media organizations is to create newsrooms that effectively publish on a range of platforms, such as the NY Times  which has properly integrated their online material this involves offering a continuous flow of news throughout the day and not simply repeating the print media stories until the next paper is published. Louise believes that readers need to be more critical of stories in these forums and as it evolves the quality of journalism will increase once again. The other contributing factor to the lacking quality of online media from these companies is seen with the new centralized sub’s areas that he Herald Sun and many other organizations are moving to. Even in the UK’s Telegraph the sub’s department is located outside of the UK. This means that having specialist knowledge in journalism in currently being downgraded and resulting readership issues can be seen from this.

1.4 INNOVATIVE MOVEMENTS WITH ONLINE MEDIA

The opportunities available with online media have also led some organizations or individual groups of journalists to create innovative, multi-media websites that cover news in a new manner. Louise Connor lists below some innovative uses of this technology by international media players in comparison to what has not been seen largely in the mainstream media companies in Australia thus far:

Spot.Us is a nonprofit project of the "Center for Media Change" and funded by various groups like the Knight Foundation.

“We are an open source project to pioneer ‘community powered reporting.’ Through Spot.Us the public can commission and participate with journalists to do reporting on important and perhaps overlooked topics. Contributions are tax deductible and we partner with news organizations to distribute content under appropriate licenses. On some occasions we can even pay back the original contributors.”  This is a useful resource for journalists who wish to write informative and community minded articles, which are not consistently commissioned by mass media publications.

http://www.everyblock.com/

This site created by Adrian Holvaty (see his website) http://www.holovaty.com/is a very innovative media site that provides news stories in people’s local areas. It works by typing in your zip code (US based site) and offers your published news stories from your area, real estate listings, business reviews, crime reports and photo’s.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/

This site was set up by a group of journalists who were locked out of a mainstream paper in Las Vegas and decided to set up their own multi-media website instead. It has since won a Pulitzer Prize and contains news stories, videos, graphics and local and national quality news stories in their interactive site that successfully incorporates social media networking tools.

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2009/s2565007.htm

This Four Corners story won the Walkley for best sports reporting in 2009. This website includes social media tools effectively and offers numerous multi-media elements such as video on demand (ABC’s iview), maps, slide shows, reports, transcripts and ‘have your say’ forums.  This displays the difference in the acceptance and the subsequent innovative use of online media by the ABC, which displays its status as the industry leader online news media in Australia.

1.5 The CURRENT STATE OF JOURNALISM and CORPORATE MEDIA

The current state of journalism or ‘churnalism’ as Nick Davies labels it, can be reviewed in his book ‘Flat Earth News’ and his interview on the 7.30 Report http://journalism-research.blogspot.com/2010/06/730-report-abc.html where he states that he “found that the business of truth had been slowly subverted by the mass production of ignorance.” And as Mary Riddell http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/feb/03/societyreviews,

“Davies unmuzzled deplores the rise of 'churnalism'; the quick-turnover dross peddled by hacks less scrupulous or fortunate than him. Costs are being cut and standards eroded by greedy proprietors. Hidden persuaders are manipulating truth. At its worst, the modern newsroom is a place of bungs and bribes, whose occupants forage illicitly for scoops in databases and dustbins. Newspapers hold others to account while hushing up their own unsavory methods. Self-regulation does not always offer fair (or any) redress to citizens who have had lies written about them. Stories are often pompous, biased or plain wrong. Some close scrutiny is not only legitimate: it is overdue.”

In addition to these remarks, Catherine Deveny describes what she observes as the current issues with corporate media in Australia:

“Corporate maggots are running a fear campaign at The Age” and there is a corporate and Catholic control of the newspaper.

Newspapers have vested interests in corporate enterprises – this affects everything they do and when they start loosing money the hidden agendas come out even more. “They are struggling with social networking tools, which have gone over their heads.”

Newspapers in Australia are currently run by issues with gender, class and relevance deprivation. “The state of newspapers is like watching a house you lived in go to ruins. Australian mainstream media is being run by middle aged, middle class, white men who are desperate to hold on to the power and continue their ‘prefect club’ in corporate Australia.”

“When the GFC hit, old media realized they were on their way out and the men at the top are lining their pockets with money while cutting jobs and the pay of the writers, who are being managed by a fear campaign.”

Mainstream media in print and TV is being run by the fictitious “mainstream audience”, which is the “imaginary nana in the sky that they blame their content decisions on”, the content produced for the LCD’s (Lowest Common Dominators = Hey Hey its Saturday viewers)

She states that her sacking from The Age, due to their stated reaction to her Twitter comments has had a positive impact on her and a negative impact on her colleagues; as writers are running scared at the moment in relation to Twitter – they don’t know what to write and how to write now, the freedom of speech is gone in this application which is used largely by comedians and writers. To read more about the implications of social media and further discussions on Catherine’s sacking from The Age, see our Social Media chapter.

Therefore, Deveny, the freelance writer, TV writer and social commentator and Nick Davies, a prominent investigative journalist state, both indicated that journalism in mainstream media publications is a changing landscape. This is being largely affected by the corporatisation of news sources, the shift to online media and the emergence of social media technology.

1.6 WHAT DO THESE TRENDS MEAN FOR JOURNALISTS?

It is clear newspapers are different commodities now. They have different deadlines (24 hr news cycles) and different types of owners (corporate not family owners) and editors. Redundancies are ongoing and as David Hastie from the Herald Sun commented at the Media Pass Student Day in May 2010, LINK http://www.walkleys.com/media-pass-student-days “if someone resigns now they do not get replaced, with the work being reshuffled around the remaining staff.” Currently the requirements for newly employed journalists ask for a lot because of the changes to the journalism jobs and the career path is much different now. The prevalence of cadetships is less than before and you should most likely finish university, and then work at a community newspaper before going to larger publications such as The Age. To see exactly what mainstream media publications are looking for now, check out our Tips and Tricks chapter and our Complete Interview Summaries, which includes lists of the skills required by these organizations. In general, journalists today are older and have more worldly experience before starting at large newspapers. You need to look at social networking sites and find your own stories. The Age, The ABC and Channel 7 all stated that they need people that are familiar with social media technology, which leads to a different style of stories, as there is a current push for younger audiences.

Catherine Deveny states that journalism was once a carefully crafted trade, however bloggers have changed this. Now you cannot write and not be ‘in it’ (particularly the comedic and social commentators who write). Journalists are so under the pump that they cannot even learn the craft like they used to in downtime as they are constantly racing for the next story or Australia’s great writers are going into spin (in political forums.)

As a result of these changing times and technological advances the modes of journalism are rapidly expanding and transforming. Stephen Quinn, Associate Professor of Journalism at Deakin University, Geelong and a Mojo discusses the emergence of mobile journalists (Mojo’s).  A Mojo is somebody who reports only using a mobile phone and it is currently very popular throughout SE Asia, USA, Canada and Europe. Stephen suggests that as the technology in the phone cameras is advanced, this will increase as a common form of journalism. Mojo  is a tool to publish videos online and across networking sites and for graduating students is aids the creation of an online portfolio which shows employers that you can film and publish video easily and effectively. This free software allows you to photograph, film and write up your story live from the scene and publish it instantaneously (with Wi-fi access) directly from your mobile phone.

As Sharon Green reports from the Media Pass Day in May 2010, 

“Gone are the days where a journalist can sit in an office and log stories. The future of news will mean that journalists need to be where the story is happening. Associate Professor Stephen Quinn has written a book on the practice of mobile journalism and a free copy can be downloaded online: http://www.kas.de/proj/home/pub/130/2/-/dokument_id-18599/

He also recommended the following websites for mobile journalists who want to engage in software options for reporting from a mobile phone:

http://www.vericorder.com/

http://qik.com/

http://www.soundslides.com/

The rise of social media also allows reporters to disseminate information quickly to an audience and will increasingly play a role in how we communicate news. Stephen Quinn is heavily involved in social media research and believes that having social media is a good way to build your brand and is a powerful way to do some self-promotion. He also emphasised the importance of having a blog that can double as a marketing tool and offer an online location for your portfolio. This makes it easy for prospective employers to visit one location on the web where they can get a clear idea on where you want to position yourself as a journalist. To view Stephen Quinn’s blog, visit: http://globalmojo.org/”

1.6.1 ARE MULTI-MEDIA SKILLS A MUST NOW?

 

In a reflective analysis of the 2006 State of News Print Media it was stated that, “Emerging trends have implications for journalists. In the future it probably will not be the sole role for journalists employed by newspaper companies to find stories and compose them into well-written reports that appear only in print. The same, or re-written or re-edited, content might be destined for the company's online site, for fee-based stored audio and video files available to a variety of text, audio and video devices, or even SMS mobile phones… will journalists have to become multi-skilled, able to appear in front of a camera and speak engagingly for audio files as well as seek out and write original stories for the newspaper? Will physical attraction become a key recruitment criterion?” http://www.presscouncil.org.au/snpma/ch01.html

 

The short answer is ‘yes’. It is certain that journalists today need multi-media skills in print, TV, film, photography, social media knowledge and both web-based and now phone-based and iPad based applications and software. More information on the current skills need for journalists can be found in our extensive Tips and Tricks section, which details what skills the industry heads are requesting from new graduates. To see what social media tools you need to utilize to create your online presence and gain employment can be seen in our  Social Media chapter. You can also see what the need for these multi-platformed skills means for job prospects and job conditions in our Job Prospects section, which is below.

1.7 JOB PROSPECTS

So what do all these changes mean for the type and number of jobs in journa

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