Saturday Morning Musings - the Facebook imbroglio. What does it really mean?

I had to smile. I was lined up at the checkout when the nice lass in charge pointed out that someone was trying to talk to me. Deeply absorbed in my own thoughts, I was oblivious to this. 

We met outside for a chat. My friend reported a conversation at a local function where someone had remarked that a group that I was involved with had been reduced to a few malcontents! I had to laugh. True, by December last year the active membership had dropped to a very small number of increasingly ancient people. Since then we have restructured the committee and have created a Facebook support group with 113 members. That's not huge, but it's still good progress for two months.

I am reasonably expert in social media and use Facebook in particular as a platform to achieve specific objectives. The interconnected groups, pages that I am involved with give me a reach now over 10,000 people. That's not huge, my present interests are specialised in terms of both locality and content, but it's far more than I could reach through the conventional media even when papers were still being printed. 

All this means that I have a very particular interest in the current dispute with Facebook. However, that interest is affected by my local experiences since returning to Armidale. As a policy adviser I have have always argued that good policy depends upon movement between the macro, the overall objectives and principles, and the micro, 

I live in an electronic world as do most if not all of those making or advising on policy. That's an example of the macro. But what about those who do not? Here I have been surprised since returning to Armidale at the number of especially older Australians who do not. To illustrate.

The Armidale & District Historical Society has several hundred members. Around half do not have email. In the history course I have been running a small but significant proportion do not have email or internet access. A much bigger proportion do not access Facebook. In many cases, this is a matter of choice not money. However, there are also large groups of poorer Australians especially in regional areas who cannot afford the kit required.

The cessation of the print editions of many of the print edition of papers including free papers such as the Armidale Express Extra has effectively cut these people out of the news system outside TV and radio. I see the practical effects because I appeal to an older demographic. I have lost count of the number of people who have said to me that they miss my columns, while the direct feedback that I used to get after individual columns has largely vanished. When I say to people that the columns are generally still on-line, they respond that they don't use the internet or, if they do, they are not prepared to subscribe to the on-line paper or if they do that they either don't bother or can't find the columns. A problem here is that the columns that once appeared for free every Wednesday, a known, now appear at different dates and are tagged in different ways.

A broader problem lies in the growing dependence of on-line for processing without proper alternatives. There was a simple practical example during the week. Access to a particular facility requires on-line application. You also need to do a covid checklist that can only be done on-line. This blocked out an older Australian working on a specific project. There is apparently no provision under current rules to accommodate someone who does not have internet access or skills. I think that we can do something about this, but it is an example of a problem.  

I mention all this because it explains my somewhat complicated reactions to the current dispute between Facebook and the Australian Government.

Following Facebook's blocking decision., all the Australian Community Media (ACM) mastheads carried this type of message:  Facebook news ban prompts ACM to ask Australians to delete the app. The message was reinforced via my email feeds from ACM itself and from some of individual newspapers. I had a very dusty reaction indeed, 

I would be the first to admit that Facebook has overplayed its hand. Far to many people have received message such as the above. Far to many non-news sites were blocked.  There was no discrimination between smaller independent local news sites such as the Clarence Valley Independent. their Facebook site now shows this message, and the bigger chains. Mr Zuckerberg is playing a big end of town game, but so is ACM and indeed the Federal Government itself.     

I am not a typical news consumer. If I were asked if I use Facebook to access news I would answer yes, but its not accessing news in the conventional sense.

 I use multiple media sources (radio, TV, media web sites, twitter, blogs among others) to access news. So far as Facebook is concerned, I do follow feeds from multiple media organisations, but with rare exceptions they simply indicate to me what is being covered. Exceptions include some of the immediate on-line TV coverage and small independents such as the Clarence Valley Independent where I have used Facebook as my main entry point. Now I have simply bookmarked its home page and will go direct so long as the current trouble lasts. For most of the newspaper feeds and especially ACM I do not click through because it immediately brings me up against a paywall. 

Where Facebook does come into its own as a news source lies in particular types of news where media coverage is often slow, non-existent or only to be found behind paywalls. This includes feeds from particular institutions where I have an interest and from local organisations and groups. Here the Facebook platform is actually filling a gap left open, even created, by the traditional media as their coverage becomes more restricted. But "news" in a conventional sense is peripheral to the main ways people such as me use Facebook.

One test of a policy is to ask what will happen if it's implemented. At a purely micro level ,I would not expect it to have a  significant effect on the news that I can access. Yes, some of the bigger media groups may receive some funds that will allow them to expand journalism, but I struggle to see how this can have other than a marginal effect. 

Feel free to correct me!   

Postscript

I have wandered a little in this post. Google raises somewhat different issues, but in both cases control over advertising is the underlying critical issue. I think that this is also being addressed by another ACCC inquiry, but it's complicated making for slow progress.  

Differences in interview techniques - Geraldine Doogue V Fran Kelly

 

I spend a fair bit of time listening to radio. One of my all time favourite programs is the ABC's Saturday Extra, hosted by Geraldine Doogue. I always learn something new.

Thinking about this, it's partly a question of topic and guest selection, partly a matter of interview style.

Unlike, say, the ABC's Fran Kelly who uses closed questions in which she states an opinion and then demands that the interviewee agree with it, Geraldine uses more open questions. While she expresses opinions, her questions are more open, more inviting a dialogue. 

I have been listening to Fran for a long time and am fond of her, but do wish that she would change her approach. I accept that there are format differences between the programs including less time that impose additional constraints on Fran. But too often I find myself saying shut-up Fran. You are standing between your guest and me. I know what you believe, I want to find out about your guest's views. And if you want to pin your guest down, you need to change your question format. At the moment, your encourage set piece responses that allow the guest to simply sit on and hold a standard line independent of the question. 

   

Moving to Armidale - reflections on the changing media landscape

Each change in life situation brings shifts in perspective. This shift to Armidale is no exception. This short post reflects on one element, the changing media landscape, something I have written on before.

It will be no secret that I am a news junky. At first, I did not have an internet connection, so for several weeks I relied on the mobile for my news. Even now, I still use the mobile to check the news because I can do so in the kitchen while sitting in the sun.

Some of my friends argue that we don't need the NBN because of the increasing power of mobile coverage. To me, using the mobile to access news is like an addict being promised a hit and then served a placebo! Part of the problem is structural: stories are designed to fit the small screen, reducing content and making it more difficult to scan to quickly to identify content of interest. Part of the problem is the general decline in content across the media in general.

Whatever the reason, I find that I can scan five main media outlets (BBC, ABC, Al Jazeera, the Guardian and the Conversation) in ten minutes. I also scan the Canberra Times, the Sydney Morning Herald, Newcastle Herald, Glen Innes Examiner, Northern Daily Leader and the Armidale Express mainly to see what's there that I might want to visit. I don't actually visit because of fire wall limitations that limit the number of visits. If I see something that I think that is important I will visit later withing my ration.

When I do have the main computer fired up I will sometimes look at a broader spread. I don't look at the Australian because there is no point given their firewalls. Actually that's a problem. Because I don't read the Australian (I do buy it sometimes) or watch Sky News (I do have local access to the second via free to air tv) there is an entire significant segment of Australian discourse that escapes me. I guess that my justification here is that twitter gives me a heads-up on what those outlets and their readers think.

Both Sydney and, more broadly, NSW politics have suddenly become remote. I pick up a little from the ABC, a little from my scans of the Sydney Morning Herald story headlines, a little from friends, but after just three months away it all seems a bit abstract. Mind you, the on-line version of the SMH at least actually doesn't have a lot of Sydney or even NSW stories preferring broader coverage unless there is a scandal. There is nothing wrong with that, it's a matter of market perception, but if I want to read about Prince Andrew I have rather a lot of choice. If I want to learn what's happening across Sydney, I won't find it in the SMH.

Something similar has been happening in the local and regional media. Looking at today's Glen Innes Examiner website, there are very few local stories, although there are a number of regional stories drawn from other mastheads. Most of these I have seen. There is also a lot of stuff on non-Glen or even regional issues. The restructured website makes it harder to find things. If you go across all the Australian Community Web sites and dig down into some of the category headings you will find old stuff and constant repeats.

 I have to do a proper statistical analysis on this. I will do that on the New England blog. For the moment, I am just reporting a perception.

All the papers have become so thin. I have felt for a while and have written about my perception that the papers have lost sight of their markets and especially the segments in their markets.

Just before I moved to Armidale I went down to Canberra. There I read the print edition of the Canberra Times for the first time in several years. I was a bit appalled. I had been following the Canberra Times website, it was actually my first go-too outlet. This had built up a large following because it had no pay walls and included a range of stories local and drawn from other Fairfax papers. 

When Fairfax introduced paywalls on the Canberra Times website, I suggested that this would destroy the paper's on-line presence. I think that it did. Since Fairfax sold the paper to ACM, I think that it has deteriorated further.

I need to stop here for I am running out of time and this is meant to be a brief post. Still, these are issues that I suspect that I will be coming back too.

Saturday Morning Musings - Return of Print

On the way home from lunch, I bought a copy of the Australian. I was barely a quarter of the way through before I left the bus.

Each morning I scan the news across across half a dozen outlets. I can do that in half an hour. I have decided to start buying print papers again.

At Christmas, I went book shopping as I do. My main bookshop was totally crowded. In that shopping center another bookshop has opened. At Eastgardens Pagewood a bookshop has opened. It's not very good, but it's the first for several years.

Globally and in Australia, Buzzfeed is retrenching staff.  In Northern NSW,  Fairfax Regional Media has introduced pay walls on main papers allowing you to access just three stories a month. I am not paid for my history columns, but I did have access to the e-edition of the paper. Then the paper began running my stories in the on-line edition, usually appearing well before the Wednesday Express Extra, the print version for my columns and often on the on-line front page. Then as part of the changes, I lost access to the e-edition and could not access my stories on-line

The limit is three on story access is three. I publish four and also want to check what I have published so I am rather stuffed. I complained to my editor, but there appears to be nothing he can do. He cannot even give me personal on-line access even though a subscription was part of the original deal. He also said that out-of -towners who wanted to read the columns would be okay because they could access three columns without charge.

This view suffers from two problems. Out-of-towners like to read more than three stories when they visit and, in any case, they can't read all my stories because there are more than three in a month. So I can't really promote the columns in the paper. That has to wait until they are on-line on my history blog.

Perhaps the most important problem in all this is the Fairfax pay rule has turned much of Northern NSW, my broader New England, into a news' black-hole so far as those living outside New England are concerned. Note that the News' papers brought from APN also have pay walls.We have an entire area of Australia that has largely become a news black-hole not just for those living outside the area but also for those within who live outside or are interested in more than their immediate area. And that's most.

I will return to this issue later. For the moment, I want to come back to my headline.

The question of on-line v print is not an either or, but one of balance and promotion. In this mix, print is coming back. let me give an example. D E Stevenson's books appeal to a niche. When we just had print, they dropped out of publication. Now, most are back in e-editions that can justify small runs. But as e-publishing has grown, so has print publishing for those who like the physical product. The totality of e and print means that almost all of her books are, once again, available to readers.

     

The story behind that 1976 Queanbeyan $100,000 Yowie reward

It was a FB comment from eldest that alerted me. Suddenly I found myself staring at myself in an ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) repeat of a  1976 This Day Tonight program on the search for a Yowie. For the benefit of those outside Australia, a Yowie is the Australian equivalent of a Yeti.

This was the most successful publicity stunt I have ever been involved in by many country miles. It began simply and innocently enough.  I was chair of the Queanbeyan Festival. With the festival coming up, we were looking for ways of attracting publicity.

The Queanbeyan Age had just carried a story on Rex Gilroy's search for the the Yowie. "Why don't we offer  a reward for the capture of a Yowie" someone suggested? "That should grab some attention.".

We needed  attention. Queanbeyan lies just across the NSW border from the ACT. In many ways we were a poor neighbour. Struggletown the ABC's Four Corners program had called us a few years' before. We had renamed ourselves Supercity - you have left the ACT, welcome to reality, some of our festival signs said - but it was a struggle getting Canberra people to be aware and actually come to Queanbeyan events.

The idea grabbed. "Let's offer a million dollar reward!" I was cautious. Nobody would believe that we could pay that amount of money. We needed a sum large enough to grab attention, but small enough that people might just believe it to be credible. In the end, we settled on $100,000.

Rob Wall, our secretary, and I drafted the press release. Since Monday was often a soft news day, we decided to release the story on Sunday night to try to capture Monday attention. With the release printed off,  we drove into Canberra to distribute it to the press boxes at what is now Old Parliament House.We couldn't do this now. But then there was no rigid security, while I knew the place well because of my community, work and political involvements. All you had to do was to walk in looking as though you knew what you were doing and the attendants would ignore you.

Monday morning all hell broke loose. Rob rang me early in a bit of a panic to say that it was all over Canberra talk back radio AND that someone had rung in saying that they had captured a Yowie and wanted to know how to claim the reward! I hastily dressed and headed to work. By 10 it was clear that we had a major story with both ABC and commercial TV flying crews in from Sydney.

ABC interviewed me outside the Treasury at lunchtime. I asked them not to identify my department since this was a community matter. Silly boy. They did not name my department, I was a called Canberra public servant, but the camera pans made Treasury clear.

It was very important that I not laugh. They knew that it was a stunt, I had no idea what other material they might have, but I needed to appear reasonably serious,. At the end of the interview, the reporter said that's the end but we just want to get a few camera shots. While the camera rolled an ABC crewman jumped up and down off screen waving his arms and making faces to try to break me up. I adopted a passive face staring straight at the camera.

Back to work, I fielded more radio talk back calls. Fortunately, I had my own office. I remember the tea lady coming in when I was chatting over Toowoomba radio. She looked at me strangely. I just gave her a token and pointed at my desk while I talked. At 6.30 back at Parliament House I did my last interview for Radio Australia.

Tuesday it was all over, the story was dead. That Monday remains one of the strangest days in my experience. Still, we did get our publicity!    

Sunday Essay - Can the New England media survive? Yes, but only if it changes

The visit to Armidale gave me another chance to catch up on media changes, especially in my little local pond. I have written quite a bit about the changing media landscape. Think of this post as a further catch-up, one focused especially but not exclusively on the regional press.

We can summarise some of the changes in this way:

• A progressive reduction in content in the print editions. 
• An increased focus on the on-line editions
• Increased use of content across mastheads
• Increased use of podcasts and videos
• Fewer long pieces, more short pieces, to fit the internet format.. 

Some of these changes are actually very good:

• The use of audiovisual material including live broadcasts. The New Zealand Herald is a leader in this area, but all the New England press is doing it too. This means that the papers compete with TV in particular. 
• While the increased use of shared content reduces the original content, it does allow the appointment of specialist reporters linked to one paper but providing content to several. The very recent appointment of  Nicholas.Fuller as the arts and culture reporter for the Armidale Express is an example. This is a completely new role. 

I am very conscious of all these changes, partly because I am a columnist with the Express, partly because I follow so many media outlets.

Let's start our discussion with the print editions of the papers. Under the traditional business model, the number of  pages is directly related to the volume of advertising. As advertising shrinks, so do the pages including news content. As the news content reduces with reduced paper size, the incentive to buy the paper falls. "I don't buy the Express" has been a popular if increasing call for a long time; "there is nothing in it." As print circulation declines, the scope for advertising supplements that used to be so profitable for the Rural Press group also declines.

Circulation declines are associated with reduced distribution. The paper becomes less available. It is many years since I saw a copy in the motels I stay in when visiting Armidale. The Express experience is not unique. The Melbourne Age, for example, has become very thin.

My column is included in the Express Extra published on a Wednesday with a claimed circulation of 18,000. It is delivered through Armidale and Uralla and inserted into the paid papers in Walcha and Guyra. "The content", Fairfax suggests, "is a mixture of hard and soft news stories, mostly feature style stories which don’t date, and interesting columnists." We columnists are indeed interesting! Actually, we are not bad.

Walking around Armidale, I haven't checked Uralla, the Extra appears to have become less readily available. Again, I haven't seen it in the motels.There does not appear to be a strong distribution focus even though it's free.

I know that people do still read the Express and especially the Extra.My columns appeal to a particular demographic, older locals. The 45 or so locals that I drew to my last talk all read the print edition of the Extra. That's why they came. They do not read the on-line edition.

And yet in terms of penetration, the Express is not pulling in the way it did.

There is an interesting test here. I have been writing for the paper for many years, week in, week out. Yet when I book into accommodation in Armidale nobody knows who I am! There is no name recognition. When I say that I write the column, I find that no-one reads the paper. I must admit to a mild feeling of pique!

While the decline in the circulation of print editions is a common pattern, it's not universal. The decline for some papers is slower, while a small number are actually increasing circulation. Those who are doing better have a clear focus on their market and on circulation. They have not given up!

Under former editors, my columns were not on-line. I was mildly miffed and asked the previous editor Lydia Roberts about that. She explained that she was concerned that if it was on-line it might affect the circulation of the Extra.That was flattering, of course, but also reflected the fact that a small number of people do actually collect the Extra just to read my column.

Editors change and my columns are now on-line. My print deadline is the Thursday for publication the following Wednesday. In fact, depending on available content, it now sometimes appears in the on-line edition of the paper on the Friday. Further, and again depending on available content, it may also be run in the on-line editions of other Fairfax Northern Tablelands papers and, it appears, other sometimes surprising mastheads as well. Sometimes it appears in those papers on-line but only the Extra print edition so far as the Express is concerned.  I do not object to this, but it raises a key question about marketing targeting.

I said earlier that I follow multiple media outlets. This includes all the Fairfax papers on the Tablelands as well as other papers such as the metro media. I have become very conscious of the extent to which they run common content and then tell me via twitter. At least two issues arise:

• For the life of me, I can't see why they should uncritically run other other Fairfax press stuff such as the Canberra Times pieces on the shift of APVMA to Armidale that actually work against the area they  serve. Note I said uncritically. I really mean without thought. 
• The commonality at least of on-line content blurs the distinctive nature of each paper. I think the papers (and this includes the metros) have lost sight of their market places and the communities they serve. They have lost the ability to differentiate. 

Let me try to illustrate. My focus is on the local press and especially the Express as a case study.

The first market served is those that live in the paper's catchment area. There are three channels here.

The first is the print edition. I have already indicated that I feel that the papers have lost sight of this channel. There is a real issue here that I have alluded to for papers serving an older demographic who are the most dedicated followers but who do not read on-line. One correspondent who was organising an event that spanned areas, put the problem this way. The only way I can get to older people interested in this event (a major family reunion) is through the print papers, but it's hard to get the papers to run stories. The apparent problem is that as the print editions shrink in size the amount of content that can be carried shrinks too, creating a rationing effect.    

The second channel is the e-editions, the subscriptions to the on-line version of the print paper in pdf  form. I get the Express in this form and it doesn't always work very well. .That is partly because I have an old box that doesn't always load. But it's also that I find the print edition more satisfying. In terms of the local market, each subscription to the e-edition substitutes for a print sale. However, the advertisements still reach the same audience. .

The third channel, really channels, is the paper websites and associated social media presences. This is the area of most dramatic change, but one where the papers have yet to work out how to monetise properly in part because of lack of clarity over audience and role. .

The main changes can be summarised this way:

• With exceptions such as the Northern Daily Leader,  the print papers are generally bi weekly or weekly. However, in their internet editions many have effectively moved towards daily publications with constant updating of the websites.  
• The sharing of content between websites is part of this. The structure of the websites now mimics the bigger papers, but for people like me who monitor a number of the papers the shared content is very obvious
• The websites now carry more varied content including podcasts, video material and live broadcasts, material that cannot be provided through the print editions
• In addition the websites, the papers also have Twtter, Facebook and, although this is poorly developed, YouTube channels. Again using the Armidale Express as an example, it has 2,417 followers on Twitters 8,246 followers on Facebook. 
• It also has multipliers, reporters and columnists who have their own handles and sometimes Facebook pages. For example, in my case I post links to my columns on Twitter (264 followers), my public Facebook page (118 followers) and the Armidale Families Past and Present Facebook group (2060 members). Some of those tweets, posts get shared. 
• The multiplier effects are quite considerable, Allowing for duplication between groups through shared membership, my rough estimate is that I reach at least 2,000 people each week who would not otherwise see the column. That's well over 10% of the print edition of the Armidale Express Extra. Not all read the column, but I think a fair number do.    .     . 

I now want to introduce a new variable, newspaper structure. When Rural Press took over the Tablelands and Slopes media, it broke up the previous linkages between local newspapers. It's solution to maiximising broader reach was via advertising supplements and multi-paper publications such as the extras. When Fairfax merged with Rural Press, it atomised the individual papers, reducing them to local markets. The broader unity was lost. Now economics dictates shared resources. Suddenly, the various Northern Tablelands/Slopes papers are again a broader entity, more so in fact. This opens new commercial possibilities that have yet to be realised. However, those possibilities can only be realised if they focus more on their markets, channels and advertisers.  .    .

Dealing with markets first.

The first market place is obviously the local, the traditional marketplace. However, each paper has a broader audience, those connected with the community who live beyond. Let me take the Armidale Express again as an example.For every person living in Armidale, there are at least five ex-Armidale people living elsewhere who are interested in the city. Some might be paid to subscribe to the print or e-edition. More would, in fact do, access a web site. They represent a largely untouched market.

Now for channels. Each channel is a marketplace in its own right. It needs a differentiated approach to determine just what the commercial value is. I don't think that happens at present.

There also needs to be a targeted approach to advertisers based around audience and channel. For example, if you are a local chain store, you really need the print edition. That is not necessarily true if you are a government agency who wants to get across a general information message. However, you might want to run or be persuaded to run an advertisement across a number of local mastheads in print and on-line or even just on-line. How might you do this?

Because each paper has its own market, because there is a regional market as well, there needs to be an integrated sales and marketing strategy. This seems to be impossible because so much is centralised across Fairfax, across Australian Community Media as a central platform. There is limited local or regional. . .

I am out of the time that I can spend on this post and will come back to this area later. Meantime, a small test for you. Say you want to run a small add on the Armidale Express on the web site about the 150th celebration of something. You can reach the local audience via the paper, but want to get to the broader expat audience. How might you do this?

Or say you are a Government agency who would like to run an ad on consultation for a regional development plan. You will put an ad in the print edition plus a story, but you want to run an ad on-line on six web sites. How might you do this? Note, by the way, that there appear to be no Government ads at all on the on-line sites.

I will extend this discussion later. For the moment, I leave you with the challenges.

Postscript

Earlier this year, the Sydney Morning Herald introduced a new website.This has now extended to the Canberra Times.  Grant Newton in Welcome to The Canberra Times' new website provides the rationale for the changes.

I didn't like the SMH changes, but didn't know whether or not I was just being old-fashioned. I found the new website a bit clunky, slowing down my ability to find what I liked. My use of the site has dropped by more than half. The initial comments to the changes on the CT web site suggest that I am not alone. Because the changes are partially geared to mobile readers, I checked on my mobile. I'm not sure that it's an improvement.

My biggest problem is that I cannot see how they will monetise the sites beyond following down the paywall route.  A second problem is that a staff response in comments on the CT story suggests that they are going to roll them out out to all the Fairfax sites. If this is done as a universal without local and regional commercial models in place, then I think that it will destroy the chances of commercial viability for the New England media.  

Postscript 2 8 May 2018

Now that we have had a bit of experience with new SMH website, I realised that while I still visit to some degree, I no longer read it properly. It's too much like hard work, takes me too long to identify what I am interested in, there is too much visual crap. I am just one person and not a member of the demographic they are aiming for. Would be interested to know what other people think.

The Canberra Times, ACT Chief Minister Barr and freedom of the press

Real flutter in the Canberra dovecotes this week as the ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr and the Canberra Times exchanged blows.

The kerfuffle began with the leaking to the Canberra Times of a recording of remarks made by Mr Barr to communication companies attending a "meet the buyer" event held at the ACT parliament. This led to a story from the Canberra Times' Kirsten Lawson 'I hate journalists and I'm over the mainstream media': ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr

Mr Barr's reported opening remarks set the tone:

Mr Barr began .... with some "frank statements that may or not shock some people in the room". "I hate journalists. I'm over dealing with the mainstream media as a form of communication with the people of Canberra. What passes for a daily newspaper in this city is a joke and it will be only a matter of years before it closes down," he said.

He then went on to outline his objective:.

The government wanted to hear directly from Canberrans and communicate directly back to them, "not through the filter of journalists, and particularly through the filter of print journalists, which is a dying industry",  

Noting that the circulation of the print edition of the Canberra Times had dropped below 15,000, Mr Barr suggested that most Canberrans did not consume traditional media, in part because half of Canberra's population was under 34.

"We need to completely overhaul the way we communicate as a government and that's exactly what we're doing," he told the communications specialists. "My challenge to everyone in this room is to be at the cutting edge of communication, to put up contentious, risky and interesting ideas about how we can communicate ...

Mr Barr told the group he had been "blunt and frank" in delivering the same message to "everyone within the communications area of government".

The Canberra Times was not impressed, editorialising Barr's hatred of media is driving a dangerous message. This view was picked up by other papers. For his part, the Chief Minister subsequently issued a statement reiterating his views. As reported by the Guardian:

Barr later issued a statement, saying the traditional media no longer engages with the diverse community in Canberra, and that his government was exploring new ways to reach the public directly. 

He said he cancelled his subscription to the Canberra Times because it was too conservative. Barr subscribes to two non-Canberran news sources, Crikey and the Saturday Paper. 

“In relation to other print media available in Canberra, I find the Australian to be very right wing and favour the conservative side of politics,” Barr said. “The same can be said for commercial talk back radio. I would not be alone in reaching that conclusion.”

I have not always been a fan of Canberra Times reporting cf  Canberra Times sleazes over Armidale and APVMA. However, I think that the paper generally does a pretty fair job (the editorial linked above contains some examples), resulting in a sometimes tetchy relationship with the Chief Minister. However, the whole matter raises some broader issues worthy of comment.

It seems to me that Mr Barr is confused about the differences in role between Government communications and that of the media.

Government communications is concerned with gaining information from the public and with informing the public about policies and procedures. Traditionally, a distinction has been made between official and political communications, although I accept that this has become increasingly blurred.

The media's role is to investigate and report freely and fairly independent of Government. This role too has has become been blurred to some extent by the greater weight placed on opinion and commentary mixed together in the news columns, breaching the separation that previously existed between reporting and editorial,. but it remains important.Governments understandably find this sometimes uncomfortable. The rise of PR and the proliferation of Government communications people is an attempt to manage the reporting cycle and to find new ways of getting messages out, of influencing as compared to informing.

I don't have a problem with Governments seeking to find new ways to communicate, although I do not like the way that political communication has become so embedded in official communication. However, I do have a problem with the idea that the media should be effectively replaced, supplanted, by Government communications. That strikes me as profoundly undemocratic, a point picked up in reporting on Mr Barr's remarks.

The argument that a diminishing number of people are reached by the main stream media is an important one in considering official communications strategies, although I'm not convinced by the specific argument that younger people do not consume main stream media or, perhaps more precisely, that a diminishing proportion do. Yes, the media environment has become more complex in our internet social media focused world, but if you sit on a train and watch what people are scrolling through you will see younger people checking their news feeds. It's the form of consumption that has changed.

At a purely personal level, my daughters actually actually consume a greater variety of main stream media and in more countries than would have been the case in the past, but spend less time on single outlets than previously. Therein lies the rub for both news companies who want advertising and Governments.who wish to communicate. In all this, the mainstream media in its varying forms remains the best way of reaching a broader audience and will do so for the immediate future. In the longer term, none of us can know what the landscape will look like.

As a final comment, and as Mr Trump has found, attempts to by-pass the main stream media imposes its own costs in terms of greater scrutiny by the excluded outlets. That would certainly be the end result here if Mr Barr proceeded with his apparent desire to exclude the Canberra Times or other main stream media outlets. Love them or hate them, Mr Barr has to live with them.  

Update 17 March 2018

In comments, we have been discussing what the readership figures actually mean. I wonder if there is an expert out there who can tell us.

Meanwhile, the Canberra Times Jack Waterford has responded to the whole kerfuffle (All media critical to effective government, whether Andrew Barr likes it or not) while the Chief Minister has sought to clarify his position ( 'Wasn't a nice thing to say': Andrew Barr apologises for saying he hates journalists).  

Saturday Morning Musings - remembering Mark Colvin, the future of the Australian media

ABC's Mark Colvin's death has affected many people including me. His voice, his intelligence, have been part of my life for many years. You will find some details on his life here and here. . He was one of those people who gave the ABC its  credibility.

During the week I was approached by the Melbourne Press Club. They wanted a photo of someone for their Australian Media Hall of Fame and the best photo they could find was one from me.

I couldn't help them. While I could give provenance, the photo simply wasn't of the resolution required. The best I could do was to provide them with some leads on possible sources that might have photos. Finding specific photos on the internet has become a huge problem. Its partly the sheer increase in volume, but its also due to loss of sites over time, to changes in search algorithms, to changing treatment of photos.

Its very frustrating when you have seen a photo before but can no longer find it no matter how hard you search. I'ts also frustrating, especially for someone interested in Australian history, when entire series vanish. Bottom line. If you see a photo that is important, save it with details. You may never see it again.

Meantime, media change continued. In April came the latest round of the never-ending Fairfax restructuring followed by the opportunistic TPG proposal. Then came the opening of the New York Time's Australian front, adding to the proliferation of centre, left of centre online mastheads.  

Roy Morgan released the results of the print readership for major newspapers in the twelve months to end March 2017 showing further declines in readership of the main Fairfax newspapers except for the Financial Review.The Australian also recorded an increase in its readership during the week, with a decline at the weekend.

From time to time I have complained about what I see as weaknesses in Fairfax's strategic directions. Like many, I am worried about the decline in journalism, in the scope for in-depth coverage, in basic reporting.

Mark Colvin was a reporter, now an under-valued breed. I wonder whether the future development of the Australian Media Hall of Fame will simply document the end of reporting? I don't think that it need be this way, although I struggle to articulate a proper alternative. I just think that Fairfax is perhaps a case study in what not to do!   

Saturday Morning Musings - declaring separation from Granny Herald

It is with regret that I report that the Sydney Morning Herald and I have separated. It's been a long and sometimes troubled relationship.

As a young person, I sometimes disliked the paper because of its constant parochial and pro-Sydney stance, its opposition to things that I considered to be important. There was quite a long period when I rejected Granny for that upstart on the block, the Australian. Indeed, I became quite addicted to that paper. But, in the end, I came back to Granny (the SMH has been long known as Granny), if still with a bit on the side. Yes, I know that I am inconstant, but I couldn't help myself.

When the Australian went behind the firewalls, I was saddened. I don't know why the Australian web site still ranks so high. There is nothing important there to read that isn't subscriber only. I stopped reading, although very recently I have again started buying the print edition of the paper from time to time because I want an alternative view.

That left me with the Sydney Morning Herald as my main news source. I had come home to Granny. Then Granny began rationing my access to 30 visits a month. That was annoying, but I could just manage by also checking the other Fairfax papers, the Age and Canberra Times. The Age was once known as the thunderer and was, for a period, Australia's most influential newspaper. Now, except for Victorian news, it's sadly diminished in both print and on-line editions. The Canberra Times, so far at least, is still a real paper.

Recently, the Sydney Morning Herald reader tracking system seems to have gone a little crazy. I have been on or just under my thirty stories and so struggle for access. I can still access Granny on my mobile, but that has its own problems.

I am a news junky.  I am also a very fast reader. In a forty minute train trip I can read all my main news sources - there are a number of them. That made me realise just how little content there is. Yes, I had been aware of that, but it made me realise just how severe the problem had become. It was like a quick grope in the corner, fundamentally unsatisfying.

There is another problem too. I work reasonably long hours and then I have travel times on the top. My travel time was what I called my train reading time, time to read new things. Then I joined everybody else and started looking at the screen. Now I had lost my reading time. As I said, like a quick grope in the corner, fundamentally dissatisfying.

Well, sometimes it comes time to draw the line, to separate. I am that point. Granny and I have parted company. Maybe I will come back. I still check, but for now I am treating Granny like an index.

I check in but don't click though. I identify stories that may be worth following up from other sources. Later, when I can access again (should that happen), I will click through on those diminishing number of stories where Granny has unique content.

For the moment, it's still a separation rather than a divorce. But here is the deal, Granny. If you ease your restrictions, I will actually read those ads and promos that you keep including in your on-line stories.

You are selling that space based on general reader metrics. But for how long can you keep on doing that when you keep blocking readers from actually seeing the ads?
   

 

Blogs, aquifers and basic instincts

Good morning, Welcome to Thursday 18 June 2015.

In a comment on Randy McDonald's A Bit more Detail, ianmoore3000 wrote:

I have become quite bad at reading other people’s blogs.Which is bad as I know that part of the internet’s magic is that no one reads your blog if you don’t read anyone else’s.

Ian is right of, of course. It happens to me too. So in that previous paragraph, I have given you links to two blogs, Randy's (always worth a check) plus Ian's World War 1 Live, also worth a check.

Staying with blogging, Evan pointed me to this link on blogging: How To Find Where Your Potential Readers Hang Out. Several people have recently asked me what is involved in establishing/growing a blog. I know after all this time, but just don't focus on it very much. Perhaps a consolidation post along the lines "So you want to become a blogger?"

 In a piece originally from the Washington Post (attributed), the Canberra Times reports New NASA data shows how the world is running out of water. That heading is not quite true. The piece is actually about the way we appear to be depleting some of the world's largest underground aquifers. I have been wondering about that, for the depleting aquifers are in very sensitive areas.

The world's most stressed aquifer — defined as suffering rapid depletion with little or no sign of recharging — was the Arabian Aquifer, a water source used by more than 60 million people. That was followed by the Indus Basin in India and Pakistan, then the Murzuk-Djado Basin in Libya and Niger.

California's current water problems have been widely reported, attracting attention because the area is so populated, wealthy and media centric. California (and the US) has the wealth to resolve the problem. Not so sure about Africa.

Finally, the Canberra Times has a piece that came from Bloomburgs - Don't dismiss Greece's baser instincts - that I want to come back to later.

Have you noticed, by the way, how often I now refer to the Canberra Times? I have actually become quite addicted to it. Fairfax Media has been trumpeting the rise of the Canberra Times web site as one of its successes and indeed it is. But the reason I started going to the Canberra Times is that it carries major stories from other Fairfax .papers that I cannot easily access because of the pay restriction.

As an analyst, it is not unusual for me to, say, hit the Sydney Morning Herald stories eight or nine times in a single day. I always link to those stories I select, but I very quickly run up against the 30 story maximum month intake before the pay wall comes in.

No doubt Fairfax will change this. But, for the moment, the Canberra Times is my major national newspaper and all by historical accident. It's still counted as a Fairfax regional paper dating back to Rural Press.

Postscript

Interesting piece on the impact of water shortages in India. I'm not able to judge its accuracy.

Bridget Griffen-Foley and A Companion to the Australian Media

Browsing in Dymocks, I purchased A Companion to the Australian Media. I knew the book was out, indeed had the opportunity to buy an early copy, but simply hadn't got my act together before this.

Edited by Professor Bridget Griffen-Foley, Professor in Media at Macquarie University, the book contains 497 short articles written by 298 authors (415,000 words in all) on various aspects of the Australian media, past and present.

I am one of the authors with a short piece (500 words) on the Vincent newspaper family. With two chapters in Came to New England published earlier in 2014, that gives me three pieces in two books as my 2014 output in this form.

Reading the Companion made me realise what a mammoth task Professor Griffen-Foley faced in coordinating so many authors across so many topics. I suspect that it has consumed a considerable portion of her life over the last four or so years.  I was trying to remember when she first approached me to write a piece. It must be close to four year's ago.

It is a good book, but also a slightly frustrating one from my perspective. The two are the opposite sides of the same coin. It is a good book because of the breadth of coverage. However, that breadth also means that the book is weak in some areas that I am especially interested in. Out of a vast canvas, Bridget had to select what might be covered. Inevitably, some of the things that I am interested in could not be included.

I guess that's part of the value of my own work Beneath the broad national coverage of Companion lies detail that varies across space and time. As you look at this, patterns shift, new patterns form. Then, suddenly, the top down view shifts as new information is provided that alters perspectives.

My congratulations to Bridget and those that supported her on a job well done.       

ABC cuts and the progressive reduction in the capacity of the Australian media to reflect us back to ourselves

The cuts to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) budget had been well foreshadowed. And, yes, whichever way you cut it, it is another broken promise. The reactions on both sides have been very stereotyped.  In this short post, I want to come at the issue another way, one that reflects my own biases

Background

This is the web site for Australia's Channel Nine news, this for Channel 7, this for Channel 10. Now compare it with ABC TV or, for the sake of completeness, SBS news.

This is the web site for NBN TV news, this for Prime TV. I have deliberately selected these TV stations because they still have local and regional news.

Prime local news has declined as the network spread, while its regional news has always been fairly narrow. The third Northern NSW TV network, Northern Rivers TV, also had local news, but this vanished after it became absorbed into the Ten network.

Regional TV is an area where the commercial networks were, still are, much better than the ABC. You see, ABC is state/metro based and has no local or regional TV coverage at all except, I suppose, where the state or territory entity is is so small that the coverage is by definition local.

ABC radio is quite different. This is the ABC Kimberley site, this the New England North West site. ABC radio is the main source of news and events at regional level outside the still very important if struggling local newspapers. Those papers themselves have an increasingly localised focus.

This is the web site of the Fairfax owned Armidale Express; I write the Express's history column. The site format is the same for all Fairfax regional papers. The regional referred to there is not regional in the old sense, but regional in the sense of feed from other Fairfax papers in regional (ie non-metro) Australia.  

If we now turn to special interest broadcasting, ABC radio is the medium par excellence when it comes to country or regional Australia with programs like the now to be closed Bush Telegraph.

Discussion

We all have our own biases and perceptions. I would argue, for example, that the earlier decision to close the ABC's international service was an own goal of monumental  proportions. In similar vein, faced with cuts the ABC is choosing what to cut with varying responses depending on your perceptions of the value of those things being cut or, alternatively, being saved or even extended. The Australian Financial Review, for example, mounted a swinging attack on the ABC's decision to extend digital coverage.

In all the changes that have taken place in the media, the ABC cuts and consequent re-orientation are just the latest, the things that I have most noticed are a gradual impoverishment at two levels.

One is simply access to news and information. Yes, I am a news junkey, but I think that it's still true. The second and the one that I am most interested in, is the progressive reduction in the capacity of the Australian media to reflect us back to ourselves in all our local diversity.

 The Financial Review argued that the proliferation of on-line sites meant that there was no justification for the ABC to move further into the digital space. That may be true, depending on the way that the arguments are phrased. But I operate in the digital space the paper is talking about.

I created two regional specific New England blogs in part because I was interested in the area in question, in part because there was very little coordinated coverage of the broader area I was interested in. Then I realised that my blogs had become in part journals of record because there was no longer any, I mean any, media source that you might go to for this stuff.

Now here there is a problem. I am a single person with broad interests. How do I find the time for my self-identified journal of record role?  Clearly there is demand; the stats show that, but I struggle to maintain the blogs.

This brings me to the simple take-home message from this post. The decision by the Government to cut funding, the subsequent response by ABC management, further reduces coverage in areas (geographic and subject) that I am interested in. There is no point me arguing about the cuts, for or against, because that won't actually affect what has become a firmly established trend.

If I want to do anything, I am going to have to do it myself, using the platforms I have. Whether that makes sense I leave it to others to judge. For the moment, I'm just thinking about responses.

The Peter Greste case

There is a real sense of outrage in Australia over the sentencing of Peter Greste and his Al Jazeera colleagues. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop had this to say:

"The Australian government is shocked at the verdict in the Peter Greste case. We are deeply dismayed by the fact that a sentence as been imposed. We are appalled by the severity of it.

"It is hard to credit that court in this case could have reached this conclusion.

"The Australian government simply can not understand it based on the evidence presented in this case.

"Peter Greste is a respected Australian journalist, he was not there to support the Muslim brotherhood

"We respect the outcome of the recent elections in Egypt and will now initiate contact at the highest levels in the new Egyptian government to see whether we can gain some kind of intervention from the new government.

"I have spoken at length with Peter Greste’s parents. They are considering their legal options, including appeal options.

"We do not know how long an appeal process will take, but in the meantime, we will provide whatever consular assistance we can.

"We understand there have been some very difficult times and there has been a great deal of turmoil in Egypt. But this kind of verdict does nothing for Egypt’s claim to be transitioning to democracy.

"The Australia government urges Egypt to reflect on what message is being sent to the world.

"We are deeply concerned that this verdict is part of a broader attempt to muzzle the press freedom that upholds democracies around the world.

"I can not think what more we could have done. I am bitterly disappointed by the outcome."

Foreign Minister Bishops’ remarks were supported by all sections of Australian politics.

In other reported reaction, the Netherlands and the UK said they would summon the Egyptian ambassador over the sentencing. The Dutch foreign ministry said that the "minimum requirements for a fair trial were not met".

"I am appalled by the guilty verdicts handed down today against Egyptian and international journalists in Egypt," the UK foreign secretary, William Hague, said in a statement.

"I am particularly concerned by unacceptable procedural shortcomings during the trial process, including that key prosecution evidence was not made available to the defence team."

The Canadian ambassador David Drake, who attended the session for Fahmy, an Egyptian-Canadian, said there were many questions over the verdict.

"We are very disappointed," he said. "We are digesting this ... We don't understand this particular verdict.''

As you might expect, the twitter feeds ran hot with reactions from fellow reporters when the news first came out -  #petergreste and #freeajstaff provide examples. As one twitterer observed with a particularly Australian take, even kangaroos would be embarrassed by this result. The BBC provides an analysis of the hash tag traffic to this point.

The Egyptian Government has attempted to defend the decision:

“Egypt has strongly rejected foreign criticism of its judicial system and interference in its affairs after a court decision to sentence three al Jazeera journalists to seven years or more in jail raised an international outcry.

"The Egyptian foreign ministry strongly rejects any comment from a foreign party that casts doubt on the independence of the Egyptian judiciary and the justice of its verdicts," the foreign ministry said in a statement.”

I suppose that one could argue that there have been other travesties in show trials here and elsewhere, as well as other oppression of the press; this is a much retweeted example: “Rastakhiz ‏@sedaye_iran I don't hear this much #FreeAJStaff outrage against #Iran regime which has made Iran into the biggest prison for journalists in the world.”  That said, it remains true when you strike at journalists in this way you are striking at the heart of an institution that we rely on the provide at least some protection against tyranny.

Sunday snippets – a crazy sporting day, a new Australian carbon date and the tyranny of 500 words

Yesterday was certainly a sporting day, with three Australian teams playing internationals in three sports in three countries! Crazy, really. It began in the morning Australian time with the world cup soccer match against Chile in Brazil. It was an exciting match in which Australia actually did better than expected, going down 3-1.

In the evening, Australia played France in the rugby, grinding out a 6-0 victory at the Docklands Stadium in Melbourne.  It wasn’t exciting rugby, too many kicks, while the application of the scrum rules seemed to slow the game down. The most exciting phase came right at the end when the French, threw everything at the Australian line in a desperate bid for a converted try to that give them a win.

Then at 11pm eastern time came the finals of the Hockey Women’s World in the Netherlands. While I knew that it was on, I hadn’t realised that it was going to be broadcast until kvd alerted me to the possibility.

The Dutch had cruised through the tournament, including an earlier 2-0 defeat of Australia during the qualifying rounds. The Orange showed their class from the start of the game, rattling the Australian side. This photo from the Official Hockey World Cup site shows Australian goal keeper Lynch in desperate defence. In bringing the Dutch player down, Lynch incurred a penalty that led to the first Dutch goal.  After that initial period when the Dutch scored twice, sound familiar?, the Australian side settled down and managed to hold the Orange girls.  Lynch played an absolute blinder of a match, helping keep the Australians in the game.

Changing tracks entirely, across in Western Australia preliminary dating results from an archeological dig at the Ganga Maya Cave in the Pilbara suggest that the site may have been first occupied more than 45,000 years ago and then used from time to time up until about 1,700 years ago. The site therefore joins other older first occupation sites:

• Devil’s Lair: Limestone cave south-west Western Australia – 41-46,000 years old
• Lake Mungo: Dry lake basin, Willandra Billabong Creek, western NSW 43,000
• Nauwalabila: Rock shelter Arnhem Land 200 kms East of Darwin – 40,000
• Malakunanja: Rock shelter 45 kms north of above, east of Darwin – 45,000

The long period of human occupation of the Australian continent spans massive climatic and sea level changes. My personal historical interest remains focussed on Northern New South Wales. There we know that about 5,000 years ago the area, like other parts of Australia, went through a period of technological change and population expansion that has come to be called intensification. But what happened before that? What happened during the cold mini-ice age?

The oldest confirmed nearby site that I am aware of is in Southern Queensland, dating from around 22,000 years ago. We simply don’t know what happened in Northern NSW, although it seems possible that human occupation (if it were there) ceased on the cold dry sub-glacial New England Tablelands. Part of my difficulty is that, to make reasonable guesses, you have to understand the likely pattern of the past climatic and sea-level change at local or regional level. If you know that, you can at least develop reasonable hypotheses, I don’t, not at level of detail required. Sigh.

Moving North, the Australian Government has released its Green Paper on the development of Northern Australia. Not unexpectedly, the Australian Conservation Foundation’s take on the whole thing is quite negative. I have yet to read the paper. 

Finally in these short  Sunday Snippets, interesting discussion on ABC Radio National on the changing length of news pieces, I can’t give you the link because I heard it in passing and don’t even remember the program, It appears that 500 words is now the desirable maximum. As it happens, the required maximum word length of my weekly history column is just that, 500 words, so my attention was caught.  

The point of the piece is that 500 words is not a lot in which to provide a full report. There is a very special discipline required in compressing detail to that length while keeping it interesting and factual. It requires careful selection of the words and facts to be included.

In my case, I can see the paper’s point. The column is there to interest, to attract readers to the Wednesday magazine section of the paper. The paper adds a photo and headline plus, depending on the story, another photo, featured quote or some other subheading. My column is generally the only content on the page, the support for the advertising; the actual space occupied varies depending on the advertising mix. The  subeditors rarely change my wording beyond sometimes compression. Their skills lie in presentation. Generally, not always, they do a pretty good job.

I hadn’t actually realised the extent to which my column supports a page until I came to write this piece, looking back over the last dozen columns or so. The same pattern holds for other featured columnists. The feedback I get on the columns from the paper itself and readers suggests that the column is reasonably popular, especially among older readers and longer term residents. You would expect that demographic, given the history focus.

The columns aren’t on the on-line. For that reason, I publish them on my history blog with a lag. You will find the 2014 series here. The blog version is far less pretty, in part because I don’t always have access to the same photos, in part because of layout constraints.

Returning to my main theme, I know from experience just how hard it is to compress a story to 500 words, especially when you have to write stories week in week out. So much is lost. I get around it to a degree by writing series, although that’s complicated because I know that many who might read simply won’t have read the previous piece or pieces. But in news reporting, 500 words on a topic is sometimes all you will get.

For a news junky like me, that’s very dissatisfying!     

Daniel Petre and the homogenisation of Fairfax

Tonight's short piece was triggered by a story in the Australian Financial Review suggesting that Daniel Petre may cease his connection with Fairfax over internal strategic disputes in the digital arena. For those who don't know him, Petrie is one of the most experienced people in Australia's digital sector.

One of the key disagreements cited was the decision to roll the regional mastheads into a combined Australian publishing operation. This, Petrie apparently argued, was a competitive error. I argued just the same thing at the time it happened. Those involved didn't understand market segmentation.

We are down track now and we can begin to see some of the effects.

One side effect, minor but annoying to me, is that I now have no single source for following through the various former Rural Press papers across Northern New South Wales. I have to spend more time. A more important effect is homogenisation. If you look at each regional site in isolation, they offer more. When you look at them together. you can see the commonalities.

At this level, they have lost something. Their use of Facebook, by contrast, is much better and has a local content.

Homogenisation is moat apparent with the metros. Fairfax has just introduced pay, so you only get so many page views before being locked out. Because I use the SMH so much, that happened to me. So I went searching. Then I found with certain key mastheads that I could get the same stories because they were all the same! The only thing that I couldn't find somehow were the very specific Sydney metro stories.

What we are talking about is actually brand destruction, the replacement of multiple mastheads appealing to different audiences by an increasingly common product. I don't think that's very sensible in commercial terms, nor is it necessary. Still, I suppose that it's easier to run.     

Saturday Morning Musings - China, Torbay and the future of Fairfax

Australian Prime Minister Gillard is on an official visit to China along with a gaggle of ministers, officials business people. Over at the Lowy Institute blog, Dirk van der Kley's Can Australia stand out from crowd in China? muses on the difficulty that Australia has in standing out in China. I agree with him about the importance of building relations in depth over time, but I do wonder a little about the question. Why should Australia want to stand out from the crowd in China? What might we gain?

These are genuine questions, for I struggle to see what we have to gain. I am also very uncomfortable at the tendency of Australian leaders to lecture others. 

I have continued to update Thank you Richard Torbay by posting links to news stories. Dear me, Kate McClymont's latest story, 'He could charm the knickers off a nun, 'makes Armidale sound like Sydney on Dumaresq Creek; Dumaresq Creek is the little stream that runs through Armidale.

I am not commenting further on developments here for the moment, although I can see the evolving pattern. However, one thing that has been interesting has been the way that the papers in the Fairfax group have been taking common content and then localising it. A second interesting thing has been the commonality in Fairfax paper web sites. This is not connected to the Torbay story, but is part of the overall Fairfax restructuring. It's partly a matter of common design, more that the web sites take and present feed from across the Fairfax network. One practical effect is to bulk up the smaller paper web sites, making them a source of broader news in the way the country dailies once were.

Rupert Murdoch has been in the country as part of the pre-launch of the new News Corp. The larger Fox Group will hold the other assets. In a strange way, we are seeing the rebirth of the old News before the huge US expansion. The Australian assets of the new News Corp are about 65 per cent of the total, while the virtues of the company are being pitched to Australian investors. Apparently, there is a fear that US investors will dump the new News Corp.

I will be interested to see how all this evolves. My gut reaction is that the new News Corp might actually do quite well because of the content it controls, including the Wall Street Journal. Despite all the travails of the print media, content is still important.

While Rupert was in town, Fairfax announced another restructuring. I am less confident about Fairfax than I am about the new News Corp. Unlike News, I can't see possible development paths. I suppose that my views on Fairfax are biased, I don't like what they have done to the regional press, but I'm also moderately bright and experienced. I don't think the value or imagination is there. It's all restructuring.

Well, the day is now underway and I must move on.    

The importance of the individual writer and blogger

In one of those give away phrases that shows where my thoughts are heading, on my public Facebook page I used the phrase "Media/News/Publishing" as the short tag before the more detailed description. In this context, the two pieces I wrote yesterday (Sniffyness abounds in New England - Joyce, Windsor, Torbay, Katter and McIntyre - and the Express has fun! and The political importance of New England - a primer) I had a useful reaction on twitter. four retweets  and two new followers. Of the retweets, one came from a NSW National Party MP, a second from the Sydney Branch of the Party, a third from a journalist.

Now in the broad scheme of things, that's tiny, but for my little empire its quite big. Nine of my followers are journalists, excluding fellow bloggers and writers. Just in purely New England terms, one new follower was Claire Coulton (@claire_coulton). Adam Marshall (@A_J_Marshall) was already following me, so I now have the two presently leading National Party candidates for the Northern Tablelands seat on my follower list.

I know that that all this sounds minor, and indeed New England is only one slice of the things that I write on, but it does keep me in touch. It is also part of my readership platform across all my outlets (print, blogs, Facebook and twitter). In all this, I am slowly learning to write for particular audiences and indeed particular readers. Its quite difficult at times and indeed not especially profitable. But its also part of the process by which we individual bloggers and writers more broadly can have an influence.

I have made the point before that our personal influence will always be limited, although sometimes each of us can have an impact. However, it's the collective influence based on interaction that is important. It's the value that each of us adds to the other.

I guess that's the point of my little boast, of my wish to share it with you. I suppose that I want all of you to keep writing (I have just been cleaning out my blog list and am conscious of burn-out among us), to explore your views. I also want you to continue contributing to others, to promoting stories and people that you consider to be important.

You don't have to agree with them, just that they have said something worthwhile or interesting. Give recognition, engage. Then you provide an alternative voice.

This post has gone in a different direction from that I intended. I had actually intended to segue into the changes at News and Fairfax. Still, perhaps it's no worse for that.   

Confusions over Minister Conroy's media changes

Since all hell has broken out in this country over Minister Conroy's proposed media changes, I went searching for official press release last night and then again this morning to find out what the fuss was all about. It wasn't there. Finally, it is up. I thought that I might print it in full to let you form your own views. Comments follow the release.

The Release

"Government response to Convergence Review and Finkelstein Inquiry

Minister for Broadband, Communications, and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, today announced reforms that will secure for the Australian public into the future a media sector that is fair, diverse, and produces more Australian content.

The reforms are the Government’s response to the Convergence Review and the Finkelstein Inquiry.

These reforms include:

• A press standards model which ensures strong self-regulation of the print and online news media.
• The introduction of a Public Interest Test to ensure diversity considerations are taken into account for nationally significant media mergers and acquisitions.
• Modernising the ABC and SBS charters to reflect their online and digital activities.
• Supporting community television services following digital switchover by providing them a permanent allocation of a portion of Channel A.
• Making permanent the 50% reduction in the licence fees paid by commercial television broadcasters, conditional on the broadcast of an additional 1460 hours of Australian content by 2015.

“These reforms will ensure for the Australian public a media sector that is fair, diverse, and able to tackle the challenges of the future.

“The Government will bring forward a press standards model which ensures strong self-regulation by print and online media organisations.

“Membership to such a body will ensure exemptions from privacy legislation for its member organisations.
“The Government will also bring forward in a separate bill a public interest test in relation to major media mergers and acquisitions.

“The Public Interest Test will ensure that diversity of voices is always considered when media organisations of national significance seek to merge.

“In consultation with the Opposition, the Government will appoint a Public Interest Media Advocate (Advocate).

“The Advocate will decide whether a media merger of national significance can proceed. The Advocate will also authorise the independent self-regulatory body or bodies for dealing with news media standards and complaints.”

“The Government will bring forward a separate Bill dealing with the announced licence fee rebate for television stations and associated issues respect of local content and matters associated with the ABC, SBS and community television.

“The Government will modernise the charters of the ABC and SBS to reflect their online and international activities.

“The Government will secure spectrum for Community television on the sixth channel. It will not be made available for a fourth free-to-air television network.”

“The Government will also establish a parliamentary committee to inquire into three potential further reforms:

1. The abolition of the 75% reach rule, particularly in relation to regional and local news. If the committee is able to come up with a quick resolution on the 75% rule, the Government would include this amendment in the general package;
2. On-air reporting of ACMA findings regarding Broadcasting regulation breaches; and
3. Whether the ACMA should consider program supply agreements for news and current affairs, as part of determining whether a person is in control of a commercial television broadcasting service.

“The Privacy Tort will be referred to the Australian Law Reform Commission for detailed examination.

“The reforms announced today are about ensuring for the Australian public a media sector that is fair, diverse, and able to tackle the challenges of the future.

“I want to thank everyone involved in the Convergence Review and the Finkelstein Inquiry for their work.

“I also want to particularly thank the people and organisations who took the time to make public submissions to these inquiries.

Date: 12 March 2013
Contact: Adam Sims 02 6277 7480"

Comment

I actually have no idea what all this means. It's partly that it's very skimpy on detail, partly that it puts together very different things in a sort of a rag-bag loosely joined by the notion of media. I don't understand why he felt obliged to do this.

I am also confused by the Minster's tactics in so aggressively saying take it or leave it now. I am left with the uncomfortable feeling that its a bit like those pieces of US legislation where bits that are really irrelevant get tacked on so that those involved are forced to accept the whole package regardless. Perhaps I'm wrong.  

Postscript 18 March

I have attempted to update this post because things have just been so chaotic, in part because of the huge media onslaught on the proposals. This piece from today's Sydney Morning Herald, Media chief questions Conroy's haste on media reforms, will give you a feel. It is quite hard for a blogger like me to provide constant updates to give you a feel as to what's been happening. That role is still best filled by the main stream media.

I said that I was also confused by the Minster's tactics in so aggressively saying take it or leave it now. This really blew up in the Government's face, with the PM first backing Mr Conroy's stance and then signaling willingness to compromise. All very strange.

Postscript 2 18 March

I see that independent MP Rob Oakshott ( "Weak policy and poor process': Oakeshott rejects Gillard's media reforms. There goes the game, surely.

Eddie Obeid - a case of media failure?

Last night's Four Corners Program, The Enemy Within, on the Obeid matter was interesting. How could it be otherwise, given the subject matter? In a way, more revealing was a story in today's Fairfax press by Anne Davies and Sean Nicholls, Diary Carr kept refers to Obeid's 'untidy' interests.

During a torrid meeting In March 2003, then NSW Premier and now Foreign Minister Bob Carr told Minister Obeid that he would not be reappointed. In his diary notes, Mr Carr wrote: ''Removing Obeid from cabinet means not having controversies about his untidy pecuniary interests. That eliminates one area of vulnerability.''

He also wrote: ''I took on the Obeid faction, the Terrigals, and forced their leader out. Squalls and turbulence, but I won, breaking Obeid's power. Now he flutters around me, desperately reasserting his relevance by managing and massaging backbenchers,''

As I read, I thought how revealing it was about both men. Mr Obeid was clearly a very determined and difficult man, apparently capable of combining aggression with charm, fear and favour and favour mixed; those desperate attempts were ultimately successful.

Mr Carr's focus appears to have been pragmatic, forcing himself to deal with a difficult problem in the now. There is no recognition of the longer term threat. It's a tactical, not a strategic response. And that was one of the problems, to my mind, with NSW Labor. Power and politics was a reactive game played in the now on a very particular stage with most of the play taking place backstage.

Maybe I am being unfair. I do not pretend to understand the complexities of it all. To someone from outside NSW in particular, the whole thing must seem very difficult, difficult to understand. One thing I query from Mr Carr's period is the lack of scrutiny by the main stream media. I need to define scrutiny.

Mr Carr served as Premier from April 1995 to August 2005, the longest service as Premier in NSW's history. In many ways he had a charmed run. Reporters liked him. My personal frustration and especially in the last period of Mr Carr's premiership lay in the absence of detailed analytical reporting. I may be naïve, but I regard that as important.

Opposition leaders Kerry Chikarovski and then John Brogden struggled to get any media oxygen. What happened to John stands out in my mind as an example of just what happens in the Sydney goldfish bowl. We talk about NSW politics, but that politics is actually generally dominated by events in Sydney. That is where the largest number of votes are, that is where the main media outlets are.

On 29 July 2005, John apparently made comments at a Sydney function about Mr Carr's wife Helena. If reported correctly, they were stupid and hurtful comments. They were not typical of the man. A media witch hunt broke out. Mr Brogden apologised, but the attacks continued.

On 29 August 2005, Mr Brogden resigned as leader of the opposition. The following day, he attempted suicide. He was found only because his family became concerned and contacted police.

On the evening of 30 August 2005, the Sydney Morning Herald contacted Barry O'Farrell, now Premier, to ask him about leadership speculation against Mr Brogden. O'Farrell replied: "Excuse me if I say I don't care about the leadership at the moment, but I am following an ambulance with John Brogden inside. He has attempted self-harm. It sort of puts things in perspective, doesn't it?"

It turns out that Mr Brogden was suffering from depression, an occupational hazard in politics where you are often alone, playing a role, always on show. This has become worse in recent years as changing social attitudes and heightened media scrutiny has shrunk the private space that politicians try to create for themselves.

Some of Australia's greatest political figures have been very imperfect human beings. They have drunk too much, had sexual encounters of various types, have tried to balance all the emotional complexities of the normal human life with the emotionally demanding and sometimes very stylised political game.

In Mr Brodgden's case, a brief fit of mea culpa gripped everyone. It did not last. There have been many cases since.

John himself went on to rebuild is life in a way I greatly admire. He had the personal strength and family support required to do this. Looking at what he has achieved makes me wonder just what he might have done if he had become NSW Premier.

To return to my main theme, my charge against the main stream media is simply this. Your focus on the personal, the immediate, is damaging our political system. You drive out a John Brogden, yet fail to identify an Eddie Obeid.

This may sound unfair. I don't believe that it is. The point is that real transparency requires objective analysis of not just immediate events but but of underlying processes and policies.

I accept that does not meet immediate deadlines, nor create nice stories.  I accept you have a problem, And yet, the events now unfolding through the ICAC inquiry would not have happened if you had been doing your job.

Postscript

Interesting piece by Alex Mitchell on the ABC's The Drum, Bob Carr's selective memory on Eddie Obeid, that provides a little more background on the rise of Mr Obied relevant to this post and also the comments. The discussion has been helpful to me in clarifying issues in my own mind.