Margaret Simons on Media

Category Archives: media futures

The Fall of Rome: ABC Managing Director Mark Scott’s Lecture

October 14, 2009 – 6:30 pm

ABC Managing Director Mark Scott is, at this very moment, getting to his feet to give the AN Smith Lecture in Journalism at the University of Melbourne. Titled The Fall of Rome: Media After Empire, it has been billed as a landmark statement. It fulfills that promise, while not containing any earth shattering revelations or [...]

By Margaret Simons | Also posted in Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Uncategorized | Comments (16)

Podcast Me – Pommy on New Media

March 24, 2009 – 9:36 pm

Don’t you hate the sound of your own voice? I can never quite credit how the English accent persists, even though I left that country more than 40 years ago.
Nevertheless, those of you who tolerate my musings on media futures might find this podcast on the Inside Story site of interest. I was interviewed by [...]

By Margaret Simons | Comments (0)

The Seattle P-I – Breaking the Rules

March 17, 2009 – 2:19 pm

News industry watchers mourned the announcement that the Seattle P-I was closing and becoming an internet only newspaper. Today the Executive Producer of the new site, Michelle Nicolosi, makes an upbeat debut in whcih she says that b ecoming a standalone digital news and information business gives them an opportunity to try out the theories [...]

By Margaret Simons | Comments (0)

State of the News Media

March 17, 2009 – 11:40 am

I’m a bit late coming in on this one, but the US State of the News Media report is out. It woudl be easy to get depressed reading it, but there are also signs of hope, chief amongst them the assertion that there is no evidence of declining public appetite for news and information.
On the [...]

By Margaret Simons | Comments (1)

Interesting Stuff on Future of Niche Media

March 5, 2009 – 9:13 am

A couple of interesting articles that shed some light on possible media futures.
First The Guardian reports on Pew Research Centre findings that suggest niche publications – particularly the little trade magazines that were once not taken seriously by mainstream journalists – are becoming the new sites of serious political reportage. There are implications for equity:
Press [...]

By Margaret Simons | Comments (1)

Social Media v Mainstream – Pew Centre Research

March 3, 2009 – 10:07 am

The Pew Research Centre’s New Media Index  is publishing some interesting data on the differences between social media, including blogs, and mainstream media outlets in the USA.
The New Media Index monitors and analyses the content on more than 100 million blogs and other social media web pages concerned with national news and public affairs, then [...]

By Margaret Simons | Also posted in Blogging | Comments (0)

A Public Good? Newspapers? Really?

February 25, 2009 – 11:24 am

Along with just about everyone else who cares about journalism, I like to think of it as a public good. On this I base the claim that we should worry and think about the decline of newspapers as the biggest employers of journalists.
The idea of journalism as a public good is what has led the [...]

By Margaret Simons | Also posted in Death of newspapers | Comments (7)

When Am I a Journalist?

February 24, 2009 – 12:29 pm

In the wake of the Quadrant hoax affair, there has been a continuing and sometimes quite heated debate on this blog and others about the similarities and differences between bloggers and journalists. (Start here and follow the links if you are coming in late). Now media academic Jason Wilson has given the issue a good [...]

By Margaret Simons | Comments (4)

Bushfire Media Coverage – How do We Report Trauma?

February 19, 2009 – 11:28 am

I wrote a post a while ago asking how journalists should report trauma in the wake of the bushfires. I have more to say on it in the Crikey e-mail later today, including some disturbing reports of media intrusion and the line being pushed too far. I also have some things to say about Ross [...]

By Margaret Simons | Also posted in media ethics | Comments (3)

Will People Pay, What Will They Pay?

February 17, 2009 – 11:15 am

I’ve done a few posts now linking to aspects of the argument about whether people will be prepared to pay for journalism, and if so what they might be prepared to pay.
This is a crucial question for the future of journalism. As I’ve been saying for a while now, we need to remember that journalism [...]

By Margaret Simons | Comments (7)