If you were told that your profession was dying, would you stay and fight, or get out quickly? Ebony Atherton explores Australia’s print journalism and the online revolution that is said to be the cause of its pending death, to find out if this diagnosis is true.
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| Source: Offbeat Comics. |
“Popular newspapers, the mass newspapers, are dying and will die. They have no future whatsoever. I’m sad to see newspapers go. I have worked on them for 40 years,” says Britain’s leading media commentator, Roy Greenslade.
This was Greenslade’s address to Australian media in May 2008. Pretty bleak considering it was for the Future of Journalism Summit Future of Journalism Summit.
While the United States and United Kingdom have witnessed steep declines in newspaper sales, according to recent Audit Bureau of Circulations data, Australian newspaper sales have only declined by 1 per cent per year over the last ten years.
Roger Fidler, in his book ‘Mediamorphosis: Understanding New Media’, outlines that proclamations about the death of newspapers are nothing new.
“This isn’t the first time the pundits have written obituaries for newspapers. In the fifties and sixties most of them were convinced that television would be the death of newspapers, in the seventies and early eighties it was videotex,” says Fidler.
This notion of newspapers as a dying breed has resulted in a freefall of share prices. The New York Times Company shares peaked in 2002 at $51.50, however are currently trading at a significantly lower $9.18. In Australia, Fairfax Media’s share prices have fallen from $4.99 in 2007 to $1.26 in March 2011.
Due to the decline in newspaper revenues and the rise and popularity of online news sites, there have been significant job cuts in the field of journalism, with Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) Federal Secretary, Christopher Warren, outlining that in 2008 more than 12, 000 journalists lost their jobs.
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| SMH journalist, Alexandra Smith. |
Alexandra Smith, political journalist for the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH), is one of the lucky ones.
Smith still loves reporting even though she has witnessed great changes in her eleven years in the field.
Having started out as a cadet in rural papers and loving the energy and passion of journalists in the newsroom literally chasing stories, Smith acknowledges the advantages of the advent of the Internet. However, she sees her profession as desk-based now instead of being “out and about talking to people”, which she believes is “a real shame and detrimental to the profession”.
“The Internet was in its infancy when I first began, so chasing stories was much more about hitting the phones and the streets, because we couldn’t simply Google something as part of our research. It meant checking facts was much harder and more time consuming. But as technology has advanced it has made most aspects of journalism much easier for reporters.”
Smith recognises the widespread staff cuts across the world in newspapers and says, “newsrooms are a shadow of their former selves”.
Although she agrees that newspapers are dying, she believes that newspapers still have a loyal following of people, who love the ritual of reading a paper over breakfast and will fight to save them.
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| ABC Radio presenter, Carol Duncan. |
Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) radio presenter, Carol Duncan, also believes in the death of newspapers, having not purchased one in over two years.
“I get the vast majority of my news from real-time media, Twitter in particular, and newspaper websites. That said, I do subscribe to one paid news site, Crikey, as I find they fill a void of news, information and critical comment that the other mainstream media leave out.”
EnigmaCorp Public Relations (PR) practitioner, Alana Nixon, who is constantly in contact with journalists, admits to also using online news websites more than newspapers.
While she admits, “it’s nice to pick up the paper to get away from the screen”, Nixon believes that magazines will die out sooner than newspapers.
“I think magazines are a dying field, particularly if it’s very celebrity driven. I mean if you follow a celebrity on Twitter you get this celebrity news instantaneously. Whereas, depending on the print cycle, you may not see that news in New Weekly or Who magazine for another week.”
With the closure of Australia’s oldest magazine, The Bulletin, whose circulation had declined by half, as well as New Woman and the more recent closures of Notebook and Ralph magazines, Nixon warns that young female magazines, Cleo and Cosmo, are likely to follow.
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| EnigmaCorp PR practitioner, Alana Nixon. |
The growing power and capacity of online news is undeniable. Access is quick, easy, current, and free.
The MEAA found in 2008 that 91 per cent of people surveyed would not pay for online news.
Media tycoon, Rupert Murdoch, intends to change this.
“Quality journalism is not cheap, and an industry that gives away its content is simply cannibalizing its ability to produce good reporting...We intend to charge for all our news websites,” says Murdoch.
However, SMH journalist, Alexandra Smith, highlights that several newspapers such as the New York Times and The Australian Financial Review have tried to charge for online content without success.
“I think the only model that will work in the short term would be businesses paying for premium news, such as more in-depth analysis and micro level news from their sector,” says Smith.
However, paying for content is not the only problem facing journalism.
In the age of digital convergence, news is now a 24/7 commodity.
With less funding and fewer reporters, investigative journalism is becoming obsolete as journalists face heavier workloads and constant online deadlines. Journalists are now expected to produce content across various platforms, including print and online.
“Journalists definitely face greater demands now. Most have a Facebook page and a Twitter account, and instead of having one daily deadline, they now have several deadlines because they have to update breaking stories on websites throughout the day, as well as writing tweets or blogs,” says Smith.
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| EnigmaCorp Communication Manager, Brett Lavaring |
Brett Lavaring, who has 20 years experience in broadcast journalism, has now joined the “dark side” and loves it.
As EnigmaCorp’s Public Relations Manager he agrees that journalists’ workloads have increased.
“ABC presenters are expected to blog about their show, twitter, and have a significant online presence. There is now an expectation for journalists to play in that medium daily,” says Lavaring.
ABC presenter, Carol Duncan, highlights the potential harm in this.
“I am online all day, on my PC, on my phone, in the studio. It is an area that needs to be carefully managed so that other areas don’t suffer,” Duncan says.
This ‘Inspector Gadget’ journalism sees some journalists repeating content across various platforms due to time constraints and lack of training. Rather than utilising the benefits of each medium, journalists practise ‘churnalism’, which author of ‘Flat Earth News’, Nick Davies, describes as the repackaging of content.
Anecdotal research has shown that journalists are speeding it up but spreading it thin, and releasing stories without proper fact checking, which reflects negatively on the profession.
The expansion of PR industries across the world, together with journalism staff cuts and increased work, has resulted in a global increase of PR-produced ‘news’.
Academic, Clara Zawawi, highlights in ‘Law and Ethics for Professional Communicators’ that "84 to 90 percent of news is sourced from media releases".
PR practitioner Alana Nixon concurs.
“A lot of the time what you write in media releases is what you see in the paper. Perhaps that’s due to heavier workloads for journalists that they simply follow the most obvious story and run with that. I don’t think there is the funding for investigative journalism.”
A colleague of Nixon, Jessie White, emphasises how online pressures are affecting print journalism due to increasing errors in writing.
“Sub editors are being cut out of the online process, proofing is appalling, headlines are becoming more literal and less creative,” says White.
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| EnigmaCorp PR practitioner, Jessie White |
The online forum places journalists under greater scrutiny as readers can cross-check facts, access other news sources with a click of a mouse and verify what they read and see.
The MEAA’s 2008 report, ‘Life in the Clickstream’, found that while 63 per cent of surveyed people believe that newspapers provide quality journalism, 64 per cent agreed that the quality of journalism has dwindled.
The report also found that the majority of journalists (70.8 per cent) reported an increase in workload, with approximately 40 per cent stating their work suffered due to this and increased hours.
For working journalist, Alexandra Smith, the online revolution has increased the tasks journalists are expected to complete, however she believes that ultimately technology has been beneficial to the profession because it has provided a vehicle to access greater information more readily.
Journalists are now using social media as a news source and a platform to establish contacts and locate sources.
“Facebook and Twitter can be invaluable resources. Facebook or MySpace is the first port of call for a journalist to track someone down if they have hit dead ends after trying all other avenues or if they are looking for a photograph of someone,” says Smith.
ABC presenter, Carol Duncan, says Twitter has completely changed how she does her job.
“I see story ideas on Twitter and sometimes people send interview ideas to me. The direct interaction gives people a sense that they can contact me personally, which is great.”
This rapid growth of social media and particularly blogs, has also given rise to citizen journalism.
Australia’s Indymedia network and South Korea’s OhmyNews International, whose slogan, "Every citizen is a reporter", are examples of the growing influence of citizen journalism, as these platforms accept and publish articles from thousands of citizen journalists.
However, citizen journalism raises questions of authenticity, fact checking and editorial balance, as now any individual can disseminate news, often without professional training.
This has the potential of mass misinformation.
Perhaps, their title is the key problem here. You would not call yourself a doctor or a pilot unless you had the qualifications. And you definitely wouldn’t try operating on someone or flying a plane without the proper training.
However, many members of society have no problem calling themselves journalists.
Perhaps a more fitting title would be citizen informants.
According to Brett Lavaring, citizen journalists provide a view.
“They are content suppliers. They are not journalists and never will be! They can provide the crucial picture and explain the scene, but they don’t have the skills to tell the story in a professional manner.”
SMH journalist, Alexandra Smith, acknowledges their value but ultimately agrees with Lavaring.
“On a basic level, citizen journalism has a great role in the profession because it enables reporters to access a wide range of information they would not be able to otherwise access. But there is more to reporting than that, and trained journalists are still needed to analyse and make sense of pieces of information.”
ABC presenter, Carol Duncan, agrees with these views and sees citizen journalism as complementary to professional journalism.
“Earlier this year the Reuters news agency ‘banned’ its journalists from breaking news on Twitter, which simply ensures their journalists won’t be the first with the news. In the future, news will be broken by the person standing next to the event with a Smartphone, taking photos, instantly disseminating them. However, it will still be the journalists who build on the stories.”
Duncan believes it is a great time to get involved in the profession, if journalists embrace the technology and advantages it offers.
While the power of the Internet cannot be denied, many academics, professional journalists and PR practitioners believe that the only survival strategy for struggling print journalism is if news organisations identify niche markets and offer less frequently published versions of newspapers and magazines for the hard news junkies.
Media commentator, Roy Greenslade, believes that Australia’s one quality national paper, The Australian and The Australian Financial Review, might remain alive due to their high-net worth readership which attracts advertisers.
PR practitioner, Jessie White, highlights that even with the number of electronic devices on the market now, such as iPhones, iPads, Kindles and Smartphones, people are still reading papers.
“I think the newspaper may become a fashion item like the LP, which has made a comeback after cassettes, CDs, mini disks, MP3 players and now multimedia players,” White says.
SMH reporter, Alexandra Smith, acknowledges that the profession of journalism will see huge changes in the next ten years, with technology and the slow death of newspapers changing the way journalists’ research and produce stories.
“It will become even more about immediacy and less about daily deadlines,” Smith says.
“There will be more comment and analysis and less straight hard news. Stories will be told using several media and there will be a greater involvement from readers, who will shape the direction news takes.”
Smith has a word of warning though.
“Newsrooms used to be energetic places full of passionate people excitedly chasing the big stories of the day. I think it is a shame that newspaper proprietors are spending less and less on staff. Ultimately technology will have a huge role in the profession but once you stop investing in journalists, you stop investing in quality journalism.”
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