News Ltd CEO John Hartigan spoke about the future of journalism at the National Press Club today. Andrew Bolt comments that:
Hartigan is bullish about Australian newspapers, noting that the crashes in circulation seen in the US and Britain have not been seen here. He’s also confident that our own internet sites and blogs (one of which he alas fails to mention) can beat off the challenge of other blogs and news aggregators
A couple of things strike me about this:
- Hartigan talks about The Punch as “something completely new in Australian journalism”. But it seems to consist of just two components – it’s a site that (i) publishes opinion writing by a range of authors and allows comments on the articles (which, as Mark Bahnisch notes, is exactly what a group blog does) and (ii) aggregates content from other news and opinion sites. As Jason Whittaker noted, that’s not journalism. It also doesn’t seem particularly new, let alone completely so.
- Reviews of the first month’s stats by mUmBRELLA and Ben Shepherd don’t seem to support Hartigan’s enthusiasm about The Punch’s performance.
Hartigan also gets stuck into bloggers, describing the blogosphere as “all eyeballs and no insight”. The irony of Hartigan talking about bloggers and citizen journalists getting the facts wrong, after a month when we have seen the media outlets publish a fraudulent email and Richard Wilkins finally break into the US market by incorrectly reporting Jeff Goldblum’s death, is palpable.
Anyway, there’s plenty in the speech to talk about, so I will turn it over to comments. I’ll finish by noting that Bernard Keane has reported on Hartigan’s speech.
13 Comments
Is this the same John Hartigan who made that woeful sort-of apology after his paper published the fake photos of Pauline Hanson ?
“Journalism” these days is reporting car accidents and house fires.
Everything else has become opinion.
Hartigan’s harping on in the mindset of a typical old-school press-room hack; yearning for the days when the only way you could get your opinion published was via the letters-page editor.
Sadly for him, the world has changed.
The hysterical response of the poor benighted staff at The Australian to the vociferous campaign of criticism in their own blog pages is of the same ilk. It’s heartbreaking to Hartigan that the blogosphere allows contrary opinions and the possibility that his own pet puffers like Bolt can’t get away with their rubbish scot-free. Take Bolt’s hysterical drivel in today’s Herald-Sun about the brilliant, powerful Peter Costello showing up the protocol-driven rigidiste Julia Gillard. Not that there was any bias in his opinions you understand.
Why doesn’t Hartigan have the balls to follow up his threats? Just shut the News.Ltd blogs down and let the authors fend for themselves on their own web-pages.
I quite like The Punch as a site, but it really is a sort of high-profile blog site. I thought that was the idea. I would say it’s part of the blogosphere. I find it interesting, but it’s only a “brand-new” thing for News Ltd, not for the media in general.
today’s Crikey email contained the front page ‘editorial’ noting how Rudd and Gillard have recently criticised the Murdoch press in quite strategic fashion, something apparently taboo for politicians in the past. the editorial made the statement that the power base of media reporting is shifting, and the government is seizing the opportunity, as well as not feeling any obvious pressure from news ltd to worship at its feet. Not before time in my view.
We still need proper journalism, where journos get out there an investigate stuff, but sadly as utegate has shown us, that investigative angle is all too quickly corrupted by the media barons towards pushing the agency’s own political objective. Stripping away the political objective of news ltd, would the Steve Lewis, Journalist really rush to report the utegate email (complete with fake mock-up and wrong name) before conducting some kind of validity check of its contents and origin? would the Editor of the tele really rush to publish naked photos purporting to be of Pauline Hanson without conducting some kind of check as to its validity if the news ltd political agenda wasn’t front and centre?
Hartigan needs a serious dose of reality in my view.
The Punch comes across as David Penberthy and his work experience clique.
They give Bronwyn Bishop some space ffs. Yep that’ll really have the folks coming back for more…
I really have no idea why news ltd hate blogs so much. Jack the Insider blogs brilliantly on The Oz, he gets heaps of comments, he engages readers, does a bit of moderating of comments, has you coming back for more.
It ain’t rocket science.
I enjoyed the irony of tim Blair declaring Hartigan’s “right”, and Andrew enthusiastically reprinting the whole speech, when Hartigan said this of their ilk:
“Then there are the bloggers. In return for their free content, we pretty much get what we’ve paid for – something of such limited intellectual value as to be barely discernible from massive ignorance…
Blogs and a large number of comment sites specialise in political extremism and personal vilification. Radical sweeping statements unsubstantiated with evidence are common.”
Are they really so lacking in self-awareness that they can’t see themselves in his picture?
I mean, I’m sure Hartigan, if asked to clarify, would declare that he doesn’t mean any of the News Ltd blogs, no, he means filthy sites like the ones he doesn’t control – but still, his words should ring awfully close to home for his own hacks.
At 10.30am, the headlines on News Ltd homepage are …
Heartbreak hotels
Jackson funeral plans in disarray
Westfield targets misbehaving teenagers
Mass murderer wants computer in his cell
Escaped pet python strangles girl, two
Hewitt goes down in five-set thriller
And at 10.30am the first item on The Punch is “I ride fast bikes. Here’s what it’s like when they crash”.
The “future of journalism”?
Fuck me dead.
And at 10.30am the first item on The Punch is “I ride fast bikes. Here’s what it’s like when they crash”.
the Punch is very blokey in my view. Yesterday there was a post about aussie, aussie, aussie, oi, oi, oi and last week something about how men should masturbate more to live longer. The logo too is very male-oriented IMO.
Yet Penberthy’s opening post when they launched said that they didn’t want the blog to be a “ranting, lowest common denominator site.” given the content and the branding, how could they possibly expect otherwise?
Jeremy @7,
I think the ethos for Blair and Bolt is to shout your argument even louder when there’s a risk of hypocrisy. I’ve never seen the level of personal or collective vilification anywhere else that I’ve seen in Bolt……
the problem for hartigan and the rest of newscrap is that the whole world knows that he and his yellow rags are incapable of telling the truth. look at their most recent effort:
Newscrap proclaimed, with no ifs or buts, that it had evidence of a correspondence trail between the Prime Minister’s Office and officials that constituted a request for preferential treatment for car dealer John Grant.
It proclaimed that it had an email that could topple the government. No if, no buts.
Neither claim is true.
It is clear that {You might think so, but it’s not supported by evidence and potentially defamatory, so it has to be removed – Toby}
It is also clear that {Ditto – Toby}
but will it ever tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth in this affair? not a chance.