ideas: on media

Media 2.0 – what’s off the table

In ‘saving’ journalism, there’s a tendency to bet the house. ‘Everything must go.’ It’s time to start thinking about just what we’re trading away.

Let me declare something up front to soothe the digital deities – I’m no old-school, ink-stained journo afraid of the challenges of digital convergence. I’m 27. I consume almost all of my media online. I understand social networks. I think I have a good idea where media is going.

We SHOULD start with blank sheets of paper. We HAVE to stop simply putting newspaper content online and get smarter about harnessing the strengths of the web.

But there’s an extremist view emerging among the new media set that we can somehow do without the sort of journalism that has served as well for centuries. Much of it still works. Much of it is still worth fighting for.

Much has been written about what needs to change to secure journalism business models in the future. But what of the things that shouldn’t? What about a list of non-negotiables, the deal-breakers, the aspects of reporting that should be OFF the table in dealing in a new way of reporting?

1. JOURNALISTS, GENERALLY, SHOULD KEEP THEIR OPINIONS TO THEMSELVES

Traditional news reporting is a bit like democracy – deeply flawed, but the least-worst way we know how. And nothing about new technology and new business models can ever change the fundamentals. It is manual work; human, fallible. Computers can aggregate content but people, with all their inherent prejudices, must actually report, making judgements on what to cover and how to cover it. Objectivity is utopian, always has been. But that doesn’t mean you don’t strive for it.

There’s a sense of surrender about black-and-write reporting; a line of thinking that we should all simply wear our prejudices on our sleeves – the proliferation of blogging and demand on journalists for ‘analysis’ (the Trojan horse of opinion) is greying the reporting landscape further.

And yet, as the spin machine whirs wildly, as new online spaces become crowded with participants pushing their own barrows without the schooling of traditional journalism, the need for straight reporting from trusted sources is more important than ever. I don’t want to read a news article and have to constantly question its agenda; or deduce from the lengthy declaration of interests at the bottom of the article how that might have coloured the story.

Perhaps this is more deeply honest reporting rather than the faux-objectivity in traditional journalist. Perhaps. I tend to believe it only gives rise to the truth being much harder to come by.

2. MANY HANDS STILL MAKE LIGHT (AND BETTER) WORK

Big Media is crumbling. Which, as I’ve written in the past, will be almost entirely its own fault. But that doesn’t mean everything Big Media stands for is collateral damage we can readily sacrifice.

The structure of large-scale news organisations supports the sort of journalism that smaller, independent, online-based publications cannot. It subsidises reporting vital to society but perhaps not popular and profitable in itself. From hyper-local community reporting that may get lost, to the expensive and resource-intensive investigative journalism smaller organisations simply can’t afford to do. A large newsroom breeds deeper reporting; being across so many beats allows a newsroom to join the dots on a story individuals may miss.

There’s a perverse pleasure in watching the media barons lose their grip on the audience, but I firmly believe we lose something quite important if their model of large-scale collective reporting is lost. And there’s enough examples in the impact of downsizing these operations alone. Murdoch and his ilk must survive and flourish – at least until somebody else figures out how to do the same job.

3. REPORT ON SAUSAGE-MAKING FROM THE FACTORY

I had lunch recently with a former federal ministerial flack (who shall remain nameless, naturally). She exclaimed, in both surprise and relief, that so much of what happens in Canberra goes unreported. “Ministers fuck up ALL the time,” she said without a hint of irony. And almost all of it goes unreported.

The pack mentality of the press gallery is such that any semi-salacious commotion between and within political parties will grab the full and undivided attention of journalists, distracting them from the real and messy business of making law. Some have argued the press gallery is already redundant; Channel Nine last year tried to stitch up a deal to pull resources out of Canberra as a cost-cutting measure until Laurie Oakes moved his considerable weight against it, while News Limited CEO John Hartigan has threatened to pull his journalists out of Parliament House altogether because readers have lost interest.

That dozens of suites with well over 100 journalists covering such a large and important beat largely write the same story every day is an indictment on how media companies manage their coverage and how politicians obsessively control the message. But nobody should doubt how important political coverage from political offices is. Just imagine how many fuck-ups would go unreported when they all move out?

4. DON’T GIVE YOURSELF AWAY TOO CHEAPLY

And now we want to give it all away for free? The pay debate is the most divisive of all, mired in a fundamentalist view that nothing online should cost anyone any money.

What are we giving up? Well, revenue obviously, at a time when advertising alone has proven itself incapable of supporting large-scale reporting models online. But there’s something even more important than that – we’re giving up the sense of value. We’re saying what we do is not worth paying for. Much of it isn’t, let’s be honest. But continuing to put a price on content will expose that. It is the best measurement of what readers truly value and really want us to be doing. They WILL pay if the content is of sufficient value to them – that is not simply a belief but a proven model.

There is value in a commercial marketplace – it drives the business competition that drives the best journalism. That might be considered naïve in a marketplace that tabloid media still dominates. But the great advantage of the online space is the diversity of what’s on offer. Does Sydney’s Daily Telegraph with its mix of scandal and gossip stand up against a TMZ? Or will Sydneysiders seek out the content of the Sydney Morning Herald, perhaps, and original stories not replicated for free elsewhere?

Online journalism could be the great leveller. But if we don’t value our own work, we can’t expect anyone else to.

There’s four I’m not ready to give up. What else about old-school journalism is worth fighting for?

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