I find that when I explode with anger and say my piece, it feels good, then nothing, or even a heightened sense of powerlessness. What has changed? So here’s my attempt to synthesise the complaints about the state of journalism and suggest some first-take ideas in response.
1. Journalism is disconnected and out of touch. We no longer seek to inform readers, and instead are insiders spouting accepted wisdom within the power elite and crushing alternative views and interpretations. Carolyn Hart: “Only in the world of journalism, where an entirely homogenised view of the world prevails, would someone actually be congratulated for “allowing” Mr Robertson to air his non-radical views, albeit not in hard copy and to a very narrow audience.”
2. We are less accountable than the politicians and other public figures we report on, and fail to take responsibility for our part in public disillusionment with our democracy. Jack Robertson: “If you believe the system is rotten, get your own house in order first. This requires media transparency, tough, honest and on going self-criticism. Above all else, turn your bullshit detectors onto yourselves once in a while.” BRENDON: “They do horrible things to people who attract their attention, they are not accountable, they don’t have to be accurate, and they control the medium through which one might seek redress. They have a habit of abandoning their mistakes and moving on to the next issue. At least with the politicians you know where they stand, you can call them to account, you can go and see them and they can’t hide.”
3. A combination of the concentration of media ownership and what Jack Robertson calls “the relentless surrender of control over our lives to the private sector” puts journos in an untenable position. As the public sphere become less important and the power of big business overwhelms it, how can we scrutinise the powerful when we work for them?
4. We chase easy yarns and forget the big stuff, either because its too hard or because our bosses aren’t interested because it hurts their self-interest. Andrew Frazer says our work “simply dissolves into an endless recycling of easy stories, where nothing new is ever reported.” Brendon says we rarely even get the story right.
5. Our adversarial style is outdated and antithetical to our institutional role in our democracy – the people are looking for a future vision, a conversation, not the standard news model of rhetorical conflict and the standard shouting matches over the cultural wars. ANDREW FRAZER: “Criticism of the political system is a vital and important part of democracy. However perhaps sustaining faith in the democracy is also important – surely the media also has a part to play here”.
Right. Is there a solution? Ideas PLEASE! As you know. I’ve been questioning where journalism is and its future since experiencing the disconnect on Pauline’s Hanson’s election trail. My last take on media reform and accountability will be published late November in “Best Australian Essays 2000”, edited by Peter Craven and published by Black Inc. I’ve put it up on Inside Out for anyone who’s interested. My thinking is still developing on this, and its not just navel gazing – I reckon crises of confidence are happening across the professions, among the professionals themselves and their clients. There’s big trends happening here, and big adjustments need to be made.
So here’s some flash in the pan thoughts.
Journalists rely on the public to tell them what’s happening, and to read/listen to/watch their work. So the journalists and the public have a symbiotic relationship too, just as do political journalists and politicians, police reporters and cops, sports journos and players. etc.
If no-one trusts us enough to spill the beans (or if some are confident we’ll buy any old bullshit line) then we can’t get anywhere near the truth.
And if consumers don’t believe what we write, or find it boring or irrelevant, we’re out of a job.
Perhaps we need to restore the “partnership”, to use a current buzz word.
I’d like a contract between journos and readers. The Herald is still finalising its in-house code of ethics, which will be published in the paper. Readers will know our ideals, and can hold us to account when we don’t reach them. It is undecided how the code will be enforced, but I’d like to see an ombudsman appointed, like the Washington Post, to watch our performance and report our failures with the help of reader feedback.
Our Union, the Alliance, is slowly, painfully, trying to transform itself into a professional association, with an updated code of ethics. This will give us a weapon in attempts by management to compromise ethics in the name of the bottom line or proprietors’ interests. To me, ethical codes within each media group are more powerful tools, because management is also bound, and called to account. The success of attempts to separate our professional/democratic obligations from the owner’s self interest is vital if a concentrated media is to survive as credible.
Journalists must get back on the ground – out of their office on their phones – to reconnect. Reconnection means more raw, interesting and even exciting work. Through us, readers can connect to issues outside their experience. We must also move away from writing identified with power (eg in political journalism, identified with the politicians) and instead become reader identified.
Fairfax and the ABC – hated by both parties because our cultures are to be skeptical of all power – will survive only if their audiences support them. We must earn that support.
There’s no doubt in my mind that readers are sick of the rut in which our cultural wars are stuck. Left and Right shout at each other from opposite sides of the river bank in more and more strident and derogatory terms. Readers want CONVERSATION, and a search for synthesis. One way to achieve this is by letting more readers ideas into the paper. This page is an experiment in interactivity which, as a journo, I’ve found extremely exciting. On the most basic level, readers to this site helped get the debate on the Defence (shoot to kill) Bill into the public domain. I gave several reader emails to colleague Toni O’Loughlin, who started writing the yarn, only to find that the Right, the Left and the Centre were very concerned. The two party cozy deal fell over, Labor scrabbled to redeem itself, and the people got a partial win.
More abstractly, papers need articulate, engaged pieces from readers in their paper.
In the end, despite what the beancounters and the marketeers say, the paper belongs to the readers. If they like us, the shareholders, in the medium to long term, will be well rewarded.
Anyway, let’s move on from the prognosis to the solution – your ideas very, very welcome, also your views on what journalists are for.
TITBITS
1. Radio National’s Late Night Live has begun an audio of my Tuesday “Canberra Babylon” with Phillip Adams. If you’re interested, the link is http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/lnl/default.htm.
2. On direct democracy at work, USA style, MERRILL PYE advises that Colorado said yes to legalising the medical use of dope, while Alaska voted no. Also ballots on same-sex marriage, education and others. The site is http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/results/index.ballots.html
2. If you want to join the ABC’s latest game – NEW TITLES FOR ABC PROGRAMS POST BUDGET CUTS, write to CLICKON-L@YOUR.abc.net.au. Some ideas so far:
One Anorexic Lady (TV)
Australian Anecdote (TV)
The 7.30 Headline (TV)
Neighborhood Correspondent (TV)
Late Night Repeats (Radio National)
The If Pain Persists See a Doctor Report (Radio National)
One Hour of Power (Triple J)
Merrick Or Rosso (Triple J)
Net 5 (Triple J)
Lukewarm 100 (Triple J)
Reburied (Triple J)
Bicycle with Christopher Lawrence (Classic FM)
To end, here’s two late contributions on the journos-v-pollies debate which are too interesting not to publish.
LINDY EDWARDS, Graduate Program in Public Policy Asia Pacific School of Economics and Management, The Australian National University
Hi Margo, let’s see if I can slip one past the deadline by meshing your earlier call for a new age of essays with the outcry at journos.
I can’t help but wonder if the shift in the public palate from mainstream news to essays is a leap between facts and meaning. Maybe it is a symptom that we are hungering for something different.
Part of the public outcry about journos is the perception that journos spindoctor their stories. Journos weave facts into stories and then endeavour to pass them off as truth. It is not the ‘story making’ that is offensive – because there ain’t no other way to do it – it is the claim to ‘truth’ that is the problem. Readers are conscious they are being fed one perspective, but it is being sold as ‘truth’.
When having my dalliance as an ‘L’ plate journo I had a discussion with a senior journo about writing in the “I think” style. I was informed that it was the height of arrogance and absolute journalistic no-no, afterall who would care what I think? I was told that the reader wants something authoritative. I dutifully changed the style of the piece from opinion to fact. Chagrined at the process, I couldn’t help but wonder how many readers would share my view that ‘I think” was less arrogant and more honest.
I wonder if there has been a generational shift in the way we relate to information. In my view, “I think” was not preaching to the masses from on high. It was a modest endeavour to make a contribution to a public discourse. People could take my attempt to make sense of the facts, or leave it. It was one contribution in the menu of ideas readers could draw on in their attempts to make meaning of the events unfolding.
It is this same shift from wanting “truth” to wanting “resources” for DIY understanding that is driving the move towards essays. The main game is no longer “information”, but ideas for making sense of that information. God knows we don’t want more facts and figures, what we really want is a hand in finding a way to make it all hang together.
Dare one suggest that the newspaper style is old hat, and that a new generation has had to move into a new medium to find the space for what is really a new activity?
FRANK PAGE, Avondale Heights, Victoria.
Found your chat this week with Phillip very interesting and you’ve obviously had a difficult but as it turns out exciting time! Your comments re the paradigm shift required both for the media and pollies and the need for engagement and connection all struck a chord with me. Have just retired (at a very young 54) out of the Myer Grace Bros operation where I spent the last 19 years. They have been going through an incredible journey over the last 4-5 years shifting the paradigm massively and making huge cultural change – trying to remove hierarchy, empower all staff, etc. Much of it has worked and they have done amazing things. Mind you their corporate colleagues at CML think they’re bonkers but the profit results have tended to counter that response. I think the model though is equally applicable to the other institutions like government and the media. I guess the ones who realise first and genuinely make the shift will be the winners.