Some seriously savvy media practitioners, and interesting regional variations on the issues facing journalism nationally and internationally. Those are my main impressions on the morning after the night before (yes, gentle reader, there was free beer and pizza). The night before being the Future of Journalism conference in Hobart last night.
A couple of things that were good news to me, and interesting. One was the clear statement by the Fairfax Media owned Launceston Examiner editor Fiona Reynolds that regional newspapers/news organisations have an opportunity. The revenue base has not yet been eroded by new media in the same way as the metros, and therefore there is time to adapt and learn from the mistakes and lost opportunities of the past. I couldn’t agree more. Let’s hope we see more of that kind of strategic thinking higher up the Fairfax tree.
I have, of course, written on the lack of such strategic action at Fairfax previously. Possibly I was wrong. More likely, I think, is that this kind of integrated, strategic thinking is only just getting going at Fairfax. And that’s putting it optimistically.
Hobart Mercury editor Garry Bailey surprised and gratified me by saying he agreed with most of what I had to say in my presentation. I didn’t embarrass him by asking him if that included my statement that Murdoch was talking moralistic tosh when he accused Google of being a thief. But while being up with the latest, Bailey, too, made the point that particularly in regional areas, newspapers have a long way to run.
One thing I liked about what he said was that reporters must be encouraged to social network as part of the job. By doing this they will connect with “an incredible variety of people” and be able to inform the editor what the audience thinks, rather than the other way round.
Chief reporter for the Mercury, Sue Neales, told me an interesting story over the pizza about how the newspaper recently used Facebook to find the Tasmanian victim of the recent Somalian tsunami.
Another surprise – and a distinct deja vue experience – was the hostility directed by some at Tasmanian Times founder Lindsay Tuffin. Indeed, I got a bit hot under the collar when there seemed to be suggestions that Tuffin should not use the forum to state his belief that for all their self-belief, the state’s newspapers are not as warmly regarded by their audiences as they would like to think.
Now to be frank I don’t look at Tuffin’s internet only Tasmanian Times often enough to say anything authoratative about it. It may be a crock for all I know. But the kind of comments and dismissiveness directed at the larrikin Tuffin reminded me strongly of the disdain directed at Crikey founder Stephen Mayne a decade ago and still present in some quarters.
Yet Mayne founded Crikey, which today employs journalists and keeps others, including me, on retainer. He established what has proven to be a sustainable business. Which of us can say the same?
Mayne, too, was and is a maverick and a larrikin. One criticism of Tuffin’s venture I heard over the pizza last night is that it does not yet make money, or employ anyone. Well,that was true of Crikey as well for a long time. Tuffin told us that while he has yet to break even, he is beginning to tap te advertising market and the audience has responded to his appeals to philanthropy. Memories of the Crikey army of old.
Another local luminary said that Tuffin is different to Mayne because he doesn’t do journalism, only opinion. I don’t know the publication well enough to comment, but would welcome the opinions of Tasmanians on this blog. A quick look at today’s edition of the Tasmanian Times will suggest one reason for the hostility. Tuffin takes a stick to the local mainstream media.
Why is it that some (certainly not all, perhaps not most) journalists have become the new conservatives, while much of society, and most big institutions, are all around them opening themselves to the public/ the audience? If we are frightened of diversse opinion, and most of all if we are frightened of our audience, then something has gone seriously wrong.
But the overwhelming impression from last night was not of conservatism, but of a community hungry for innovation and keen to talk it over. Props to the Media Alliance for putting on these gigs. Where do your dues go? Well, it was nice pizza.
9 Comments
Lindsay Tuffin and his tastimes is a godsend to Tasmania. Where else can we read stories, news and opinions on topics the dailies will not touch? Forestry, planning, local government, state government, the pulp mill shenaigans – all acceptable topics at tt. Which other media outlet would publish citizen reporters, dedicated people in a position to write authoritatively on events the mainstream media ignores.
All strength to him.
John Maddock
citizen reporter
Tasmania the landscape is wonderful. Tasmania the ‘State’ is a corrupt tinpot polity of 500,000 less deserving of statehood than Sutherland or Blacktown in southern or western Sydney respectively, that whines incessantly about mainlander impertinence while sucking on the federal govt teat. All the while despoiling the only thing worth saving down there.
Send Lennon, the Gunns cronies, Barry Chipman and the other 50% of them back to Europe on hulks I say and let the Green Party down there turn the whole island into a national park for world heritage tourism, which at least can turn a profit.
As for the Mercury, isn’t that in Wollongong.
Neither Reynolds or Bailey are ever going to say anything significant while answer to the media duopoly. Neither has any power at all to even change a single feature of their own websites, much less decide on strategic policy.
Of course they’re going to mouth the usual platitudes about engaging with the audience, blah blah blah. But have you ever tried to leave a comment on the Mercury’s site ? A 24-hour delay is common, by which time the story has sunk out of homepage. More often it just never gets published. For a 50/50 chance post early in the morning on a weekday, on the lead story. The Examiner ? Forget it. Their site is so poor it’s just not worth bothering at all.
Their model shows absolutely no evidence of changing and they continue to be the conduit for their advertisers wishes. In the north the Examiner is regarded with particular contempt for its shameless kowtowing to Gunns and a couple of other key advertisers.
Reynolds and Bailey are enjoying the last few years of monopoly media power and I’d bet the farm that they will be incapable of changing. Their attitudes, methods, and business connections are far too entrenched for that.
Tuffin’s Tasmanian Times, along with the ABC, and to a lesser extent Denholm from The Australian, are the only outlets getting close to the real news. And of them only Tuffin is prepared to really speak out.
…whereas of course, Tim, NSW is a shining beacon of good government and economic management.
The hostility towards Lindsay Tuffin is indeed reminiscent of that towards Stephen Mayne. Who can forget a drunken Glenn Milne racing up onto the stage at a Walkleys night in Sydney – appropriately, perhaps, at Luna Park – and shoving Milne off the dais? And then trying to do it a second time? (I venture to say that if it had been anyone other than Mayne, Milne might have been sacked).
You mention a ‘local luminary’ telling you that Tasmanian Times publishes opinion not news. Yes, there is a lot of opinion, but aren’t newspapers full of opinion pieces and personal columns? Your luminary is wrong, however, in saying there is no news. Tasmanian Times often breaks stories, and if and when they are picked up by mainstream media, the website is rarely credited.
Journalists are in the business of dishing it out, but sadly, have glass jaws when it comes to one of their own holding up a mirror.
Correction.
I wrote in my earlier comment that Milne knocked Mayne off the podium at Luna Park. Wrong. It was in Melbourne not Sydney.
The attack on Stephen Mayne by Glen Milne was actually at Crown Casino in Melbourne. I was there! No disagreement about glass jaws, but.
I was there too – sitting next to you Margaret, on the Crikey table. Had a momentary lapse in saying it was at Luna Park in Sydney, an event I attended the year before, hence a hasty correction to say it was in Melbourne not Sydney and neglected to say it was at Crown Casino.
I was sorry not to be able to go to the Hobart forum. Glad you agree about my comment about journos having glass jaws, but what does the ‘but’ mean?
Hi Margaretta. The “but” means nothing in particular. Probably just a hangover from my time in Queensland. Your correction crossed with my correction. I had posted mine before I went to the dashboard and found yours sitting there waiting for approval. I thought I remembered you being there, but wondered if my memory was wrong on that count.