Margaret Simons on the future of journalism at Brisbane Wordpool

Media writer Margaret Simons was the star attraction for the final Wordpool event of 2009 at Brisbane's State Library of Queensland (thanks to Mark Bahnisch for the hat tip on the event). Simons is the author of the seminal text on Australian media The Content Makers (2007) and runs a blog of the same name under the Crikey banner. The Melbourne-based Simons reminded her audience of her close affinity with Brisbane having been here often since The Age assigned her to cover the Fitzgerald Inquiry twenty years ago. (photo of Margaret Simons at SLQ by Derek Barry)

Simons began with a history lesson and charted the influence of the Gutenberg printing press. This revolutionary device effectively created democracy and modern capitalism. The movable type press was invented in the 15th century but it took another two hundred years before newspapers emerged and almost another hundred before the first journalists arrived. The printing press altered power relations and caused the decline of oral memory. It enabled people to identify themselves belonging to nations rather than small communities. It caused the Reformation and the rise of Protestantism. It sowed the seeds for the American and French Revolutions. These trends were exacerbated by broadcasting in the 20th century.

Simons says the Internet now has the same revolutionary capability as the printing press. But its disruptive effect won’t be noticed overnight. Simons recalled what journalism was like when she started in the business 27 years ago, in an era without computers or mobile phones. The newspaper buildings had a manufacturing air with the smell of hot metal and ink and the rumbling of the presses. She recalled that people would queue out outside the building at midnight to get the first edition. Ruefully, she said, they were not there for the journalism; they had come to get first nibs at the classified ads.

But the classified ads model that sustained newspapers doesn’t work on the Internet. Free services such as Craigslist have destroyed the business model and ads don’t pay for journalists’ salary any more. Simons also noted that journalists’ power has declined in the Internet Age. Their influence has waned with the power of the masthead and the Page One headline does not matter as much as it did 20 years ago. Similarly the power of television has waned. Families no longer sit together to watch the 6pm news. 68 percent of Australian households have more than one television and a quarter of all households are single occupancy. This fragmentation undermines the business model that relies on gathering mass audiences to sell to advertisers. The business model is broken. And when high-speed broadband arrives, the last power of the broadcasters will have been broken with it.

Simons then moved on to discuss ABC boss Mark Scott’s recent “end of empire” speech. She was cautious about whether this was a good or bad thing noting the Life of Brian skit about “what have the Romans ever done for us?” Similarly old media such as News Corp have facilitated democracy, employed large numbers of people, acted as watchdogs and informed the public. She also noted the end of the Roman Empire brought in the Dark Ages and would not rule out the possibility that similar dark times lay ahead for journalists. The big change in the Internet era, said Simons was universal instant access to both information and publishing. With the aid of mobile phones, people could (and did) Twitter this speech immediately - she helpfully suggested the use of the #wordpool hashtag. Simons said that Twitter was now a crucial tool for deciding what to read or watch. The question was then, if everyone is now a publisher, what do journalists do that is “special”?

Simons said that journalists had to specialise in things they are interested in. The barriers to publication are low and it is possible to attract international audiences and advertisers who might be willing to pay to access such a niche. She noted the long tail model as perfected by Amazon who make most of their money from niche audiences. She said Crikey was a good example of niche media with its email list of 10,000 people. Its audience is small but influential and Simons could delve into more detail about the media there than in a mass publication because the audience is interested in that detail.

Simons also said that journalists must engage with social networks. They needed to show reliability, genuineness and a willingness to interact. Tools such as Twitter, Facebook and Google may come and go but the functionality they represent will stay. She said Twitter was moving fast and her advice was “get on board now”. She noted that the appetite for news has not waned though people may be looking in different places for it. Australia is a chronically underreported country and opportunities exist in reporting local councils and courts. What journalists need to do is to link these to federal and local government policy and make the connections. The bottom line was that if people want reliable information then "professional messengers need to be supported”.

Future of Journalism Queensland 1: The state of the global news media

The QUT Gardens Theatre was the venue yesterday for an all day summit devoted to a discussion of the Future of Journalism sponsored by the journalist union MEAA and the Walkley Foundation. It follows on from the successful Sydney summit in May and about a hundred journalists, managers, bloggers, educators and students came along to listen to the words of wisdom of many of Brisbane’s key media players. The day was broken up into six sessions that covered the state of global media, media students’ vision of the future, news managers’ survival strategies, future business models, blogging, and techniques and technologies. I will cover off my notes on these sessions in a series of articles and this first post is about the opening session entitled “the state of the global news media”.

The session was a discussion between MEAA federal secretary Chris Warren and media academic, journalist and author Margaret Simons. Warren began by hailing Simons’ 2007 book The Content Makers as “the text that summarises where we at” with the Australian media (an assessment I fully agree with). He then asked her where she thought the local industry was headed. Simons said that the industry had gotten industry into dire straights in the last twenty years and “it would get worse before it got better”. She said new media technologies (Internet, mobile, digital broadband) had put a bomb under the establishment and we had reached the “end of Empire” stage of the two major powers in Australian media: Murdoch and Packer.

But Simons did not necessarily want to put the boot in; she said it was almost a situation of “what did the Roman Empire ever do for us?” Both Kerry Packer and Rupert Murdoch supported unprofitable outlets but both The Bulletin and the Sunday program were killed off after Packer died and the same may happen to the loss-making The Australian when the “old man” Rupert Murdoch dies. Nevertheless there remains an “embarrassment of riches” available in terms of media content which is being repurposed in different places and different times. The problem is that the business of selling has changed as the classified ads migrate to new digital homes. “It is possible now," said Simons, “to buy a house or a car without buying Michelle Grattan.

Simons said the audience is fragmenting but that represents an opportunity as well as a threat. She believes we need to rethink what quality means and said that interaction with the audience is necessary. Some journalists are struggling with this concept. Mark Day wrote off bloggers this week in The Australian while George Megalogenis told the Byron Bay writers festival he would only allow “expert” opinion in his blog comments. But while some Australian journalists were dismissing the hoi polloi, over in the US Jay Rosen was an “exciting pioneer” with his pro am experiment Assignment Zero and its wisdom of the crowds approach.

Simons also noted how that approach influences newer media where there is “instant redaction” when there is an error. Simons said journalists need to acknowledge when they get something wrong. “It is a very human, but extremely destructive, impulse to back away from error.” But fixing it was “something we are bad at doing at the moment”. Simons also stressed the need for journalistic independence. By this she didn’t necessarily mean an independent voice but the ability to stand up to their editors when asked to provide objectionable reporting. She said those who criticise bloggers for their partisan positions should realise that this is also how the newspaper industry started. It wasn’t until the 19th century and an increasing reliance on advertising revenue that the notion of objectivity took hold.

Warren then moved on to ask Simons for some scenarios of the future for mass media. She said mass media would survive with “bite size” chunks of interactive news. However Simons was doubtful whether there would be enough of a mass to support national news journalism in Australia. She said high quality journalism will migrate to other platforms but won’t appear in the mass media. But she said other avenues were opening up for quality journalists to make a living. Simons said the non-fiction market has thrived in recent years and books such as “Dark Victory” by David Marr and Marion Wilkinson have achieved commercial success. Simons noted also that this type of journalism follows a true “user pays” approach where people who want a product pay full price for it.

Simons went on to discuss the importance of the national broadcaster. She said that if Jay Rosen was Australian, he would probably be working for the ABC. They have 3,000 content makers who are paid by what Rosen called “The People formerly known as the audience” (a slogan that several speakers would return to, as the day progressed). Simons said it would only be a slight step to make that process more direct and she believed ABC is moving towards the model. She said ABC boss Mark Scott is aware of the issues. While not totally in agreement with the way he is running the corporation, she said she was “glad ABC was aware of citizen journalism and what the challenges are.”

Warren asked about her views on how journalists should adapt to the changing landscape. Simons said that an increasing number of journalists were starting their own business. Stephen Mayne was a pioneer with Crikey and since he sold it, it is now making a small profit. Mayne is now involved a new video journalism experiment The Mayne Report. Meanwhile Alan Kohler and Stephen Bartholomeusz quit Fairfax to start their own subscriber-based “Eureka Report”. She said it was important to note that journalism and media were not the same thing and advised those at the start of their career to put together a business plan not necessarily to make huge profit but at least to pay a salary. She said small niches were the way to attract dedicated readership “but the challenge is connecting the niches”. Simons wondered how democracy would function if people only read their own niche.

Warren then expanded the democracy question to ask what role journalism had in the post-nation state era. Simons stated that the invention of the printing press caused democratic forms to change. She said there was 200 hundred years between Gutenberg’s press and the rise of the newspaper. “But only 30 years has passed since the invention of the Internet and we don’t know where it is taking us,” she said. “And democracy is not in great shape now”. But, she said, the growth of literacy and the communication of news in the 16th and 17th century had everything to do with the growth of democracy. What is needed is a return to the “high public purpose of journalism”.

Simons then moved on to the gift economy. She said this was a concept borrowed from anthropology where services are given for intangible rewards. Similar to potlatch rituals, people freely give away their services in return for kudos, pleasure and power. She said most blogs are not written for profit and the best of them, such as Larvatus Prodeo and the (now rebadged) Pollytics have given newspapers such as The Australian a run for its money.

Simons concluded the session by answering questions from the floor. One Courier-Mail journalist asked whether traditional journalism “craft skills” would still be relevant in the future. Simons agreed that the skills of writing things in newsworthy fashion, and extracting information in interviews were difficult to attain. She said that these craft skills were the key difference between journalists and bloggers. But her advice back to the journalist was to find out what your audience needs in terms of journalism and provide it for them.

On other questions Simons said the code of ethics needed to be constantly reviewed and updated, the staged political interview (such as those conducted by Kerry O’Brien on the 7.30 report) were a “tired cat-and-mouse game” and there were also hopeful signs for the industry in the Pay TV and documentary sectors. She said we needed to work out where the mass audience will be in the diversified market when analog TV finally switches off. Simons concluded on a positive note. “There was no evidence of declining appetite for journalism,” she said. “It is the business model that is at risk”.