Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Contents
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
We would also like to express our Future control over professional standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
appreciation to the more than 100
journalists and editors who gave us their Issues #10: Rewarding excellence in digital journalism
time and the benefit of their insights and
experience. Thanks also to the
cartoonists and photographers whose
work has enhanced this report. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
This research project would not have
been possible without the leadership
and financial assistance of the References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Walkley Foundation for Excellence in
Journalism and we would like to express
our appreciation, especially to the
Foundation’s director Jacqueline Park,
for its support. We would also like to
acknowledge the Foundation’s assistance
in compiling this report.
2
Foreword
T
he faltering economics of the newsgathering industry has left journalism in a
climate of fear. A cloud of doom has descended on those who care about quality,
independent journalism as they watch the means of funding it – revenue from
advertising – move from the steady decline of recent years into freefall. The bottom
of the cliff from which it has taken this dive is not visible at this point.
A little like Europe’s financial crisis, the numbers just keep getting worse and no one has
the answer. There are various corporate and editorial strategies for breaking this fall and I
fervently hope that something cuts through. The evidence would point to the most nimble
and flexible strategy – and newsroom – as having the most chance of survival. “How do you fully
I am lucky enough to have worked in newspapers for 40 years – as a reporter, sub-editor,
and section editor and, finally, as the first female Editor of The Sydney Morning Herald in 180 integrate a newsroom
years. Since this research project was launched, I have been at the centre of one of the most that serves print,
far-reaching periods of disruptive change in Australian news media history. It was not the mobile, tablet and
usual preoccupations of newspaper editors that kept me awake at night. The day-to-day drama website while keeping
of the country’s political, business and social issues were exciting, challenging, fascinating and
exhausting to cover. But rather, it was the questions raised in this report that cost me my sleep. the journalistic
How much cost-cutting is too much? How thinly can you spread your resources without foundations strong?”
affecting the quality? What can a superb narrative non-fiction writer bring to the digital
news platform apart from an extra 5,000 words? How do you fully integrate a newsroom that
serves print, mobile, tablet and website while keeping the journalistic foundations strong?
The profound structural and cyclical change in our industry is claiming not only
hundreds of journalistic jobs, but also traditional newsroom roles. Ongoing restructuring of
the newsroom I led until recently meant I was not only the first female Editor of the Herald,
but also the last Editor with a capital E – that is, a newspaper editor who ran the whole show.
The big question, as those leading the media industry search for new strategies, structures
and revenue streams to keep audiences and advertisers engaged, is how to keep “public
defender” journalism alive. So far, digital revenues have not reproduced the profits of the
bigger, trusted, print brands, which would make this kind of journalism possible.
There has been some erosion in public trust in news media as the 24-hour news cycle has
collided with shrinking resources and the traditional view of what constitutes news versus
opinion versus advertorial is increasingly blurred by the need for profits and by newcomers
in the digital space: bloggers, social media, content farmers, etc.
Over the decades, I have been privileged to work with hundreds of intelligent, sceptical,
passionate, values-driven journalists who care about the public interest and who show no
fear or favour in their reporting. What’s at stake amid this great disruption is the ability to
train, to hire and to retain in meaningful employment the calibre of journalist who can
produce news which people in a democracy need to know. These are journalists who can
dig up the truth no matter how long it takes, no matter what threats are made against them,
who can write seriously gripping narratives that leave the pyramid news story for dead and
who can work with a video team on a series that works across print, web and tablet to take
storytelling to a new level.
That’s not an easy ask, even in the best of times. Now, with the decline of newspapers and
magazines that not long ago were raking in the dollars, you can see why media proprietors
are trying anything that holds out the merest glimmer of hope. They know they need to
keep pumping money – that lifeblood of journalism – through the heart of their business,
the newsroom. And time is short.
According to recent research by the Pew Centre, in the US, five technology companies
accounted for 68 per cent of all online advertising revenue by 2011. That did not include
Amazon and Apple, whose earnings are from transactions, downloads and devices.
It poses the question: will we soon see a tech giant like Google or Facebook buy an ailing
“legacy” media outlet and its newsroom so it can offer the complete package to the connected
consumer? Adding real journalism to their offering would be icing on their cake. But where
would the public interest protections be in that? Would they still deliver the goods for citizens
interested in scrutinising their government, business leaders and civil society?
Meanwhile, we must wait to discover which of the strategies being pursued in media in
Australia and globally will prove to be the Holy Grail – that is, a revenue model that goes
hand-in-hand with a commitment to allow journalists to continue to protect the public
interest. And, if I may also say, that keeps and promotes more women in newsrooms as a
means of attracting a wider audience, and with it more dollars. But that’s a whole other report.
Amanda Wilson
July 2012
Amanda Wilson was editor of The Sydney Morning Herald from January 2011 to June 2012
3
Journalism at the speed of bytes
Australian newspapers in the 21st century
Introduction
F
or almost 200 years, journalism has played a central role in democratic societies,
informing the public and exercising independent scrutiny over institutions such as the
parliament, business and the justice system, as well as over the functions of government
such as education, health, welfare and beyond. More broadly, the news media has
been a forum for commentary and conversation about social and cultural issues. At its best,
journalism has been a professional practice that has done all these things ethically and fairly.
Until recently, newspapers and the print media have been the central institution through which
these functions of journalism have operated.
Today, journalism is in a deepening crisis in Australia and the rest of the industrialised world.
This crisis arises from the disruption that digital technology has dealt to the traditional business
model that has always paid for news. The sale of advertising space and the reporting of events
were once intertwined and mutually supportive activities; they are now diverging. This has hit
newspapers particularly hard as they have watched their monopoly on classified advertising for
cars, real estate and jobs disappear in the face of competition from a myriad of cheaper, more
popular alternatives on the internet. Newspapers are no longer the profitable enterprises they
once were – and it is uncertain whether they ever can be again.
These facts are widely known within the industry. Less discussed is the fact that this
breakdown of the business model has implications far beyond the industry and beyond those
who earn a living in it. The crisis for newspapers represents a growing crisis for all citizens who
directly or indirectly rely on professional news reporting to keep informed and, ultimately, to
decide how to vote.
While the growth of the internet has led to a flowering of many online publications, none
of them, including the most profitable, has the ability or the resources to provide the breadth
and depth of professional coverage of general news that newspapers currently do. And most
have yet to gain traction with the broader community – of the top 12 news-led sites in Australia,
all but one are owned by one or another of the major media organisations, including public
broadcasters (Harding-Smith 2012).
Technological advances allow news to be consumed quickly and in a variety of formats, but
there has yet to be any evidence that online news, whether consumed via computer, tablet
or mobile platforms, is generating sufficient revenue to pay for its own content. Virtually all
of what is misleadingly referred to as “online news” originates in the newsrooms of either
newspapers or public broadcasters.
More than just general reporting of public events, newspapers are the main vehicle for
what is variously known as watchdog journalism, public interest journalism and investigative
journalism. The permanent weakening of these functions, as the recent Independent Media
Inquiry noted, may cause “damage to democracy and society’s well-being” (Finkelstein 2012).
While independent observers, along with many journalists, express concerns about the
public consequences of industry uncertainty, the newspaper publishers minimise the adverse
social and political effects of the situation. They see the narrow consequences of the loss of
profitability of their industry, but not the collective problem that this failure presents to society
as a whole. Australian newspaper publishers concede that newsrooms will become smaller.
Surprisingly, they argue that “this should not be seen, automatically, as a cause for alarm or a
fall in standards” (NPA 2011). Rather, they welcome outsourcing and the conversion of a salaried
workforce to one based more on casuals and freelancers. In the future, the successful freelance
journalists will see themselves less as a journalist and more as a “product” or “service”, just as a
consultant would today, they say. While freelancers play a valuable role, the conversion of the
existing newsrooms to a casualised model is a major cause for alarm, not just for those currently
employed but for the wider public.
This is because newspapers form the living heart of the news cycle. Newspapers have the
biggest newsrooms and are able to employ journalists in specialist areas such as politics,
business, health, education, and so on. For these reasons, newspapers still set the agenda for
news in radio, television and today, in the online world. Without the current workforce of
journalists in newspapers, the ability of the wider Australian public to keep themselves informed
and play a full role in civic life will be seriously impaired.
For more than a decade, since The Age created Australia’s first newspaper website site in 1995,
newspaper journalists and readers have been asking themselves whether digital technologies
will enhance news quality or kill off print-based journalism in Australia. This report aims to
shed new light on this dilemma by systematically examining ideas about quality journalism,
gauging the views of newspaper journalists around the country and considering what readers
need to know about news standards in print and digital journalism.
Australian newspapers are not at the cutting edge of digital journalism. On the contrary, they
have been reluctant to innovate, slow to make the transition to multimedia news delivery and
uneasy about demands for greater reader engagement. There are many underlying reasons for
4
In the public eye: Newspapers are the main
fuel that feeds public debate.
Photograph by Stuart Mcevoy, © Newspix/News Ltd
this complacency: Australia’s media policy that favours existing players; extreme levels of press
ownership concentration that have created newspaper monopolies in six of the country’s eight
“More than just
major media markets (Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Darwin, Hobart and Perth) and business general reporting
strategies more geared to profit maximisation than building circulations. It is true that the of public events,
publishers are actively seeking creative new models to fund journalism based on subscriptions, newspapers are the
advertising and direct sales of products. But even if successful, there is no guarantee that these
revenue streams will be used to pay for, or retrain, the extensive workforce needed to produce
main vehicle for what
the quantity and quality of content that newspapers have offered until recent times. is known as ‘public
The question of what happens to news quality in the shift from print-based to multimedia interest journalism’.”
journalism is important for a range of reasons. Influential US newspaper analyst Philip Meyer
puts it best in saying that good, evidence-based journalism is the best defence against the
overload of “persuasive communication” – advertising, public relations and spin – found on
the internet. Not all readers demand this type of content. Nevertheless, as this study indicates,
journalists are very aware of their readers’ news preferences and of the need to provide them
with credible alternatives to what one editor described as the “commoditised noise” found
online. Moreover, they are legitimately concerned about the damage to journalism standards in
the context of newsroom cuts about which the publishers and owners are so complacent.
With these concerns in mind, our research team set out to examine perceptions of quality
journalism among senior members of the profession working in newspapers, as well as their
views on whether or not the Internet exercises a downward pressure on news standards.
Three main research questions are explored in this report:
• What do we know about quality journalism?
• What does the transition to digital journalism mean for news quality?
• What could journalists do – perhaps in league with readers – to renew and extend their
standards in this transition period?
Whether, or how, Australian journalists should be regulated in the context of the current
newspaper crisis is not in the remit of this report and is not discussed. However it should be
noted that journalistic ethics and excellence must go hand-in-hand if the craft of journalism is
to continue to enjoy the public’s trust. This will be central to the survival of the news industry.
The authors of this report believe the newspaper crisis has been seriously misjudged on two
levels: first, as a market failure arising from changing advertising trends which, it is assumed,
will rectify itself in time, and, second, as a moment of technological change that will produce
more and better news and information content in future. Neither prospect is guaranteed. This
misunderstanding represents a disservice to the readers of newspapers, those employed within
the industry, and society as a whole, all of whom have a stake in the outcome of an increasingly
difficult struggle to ensure the commercial viability of newspapers and the professional
journalism that it has traditionally fostered. Journalists are used to ringing the alarm bells about
other people and other industries. We believe it is time to hear what they have to say about the
future of their own industry and we hope this report contributes to a better understanding of
the current state of play.
5
Journalism at the speed of bytes
Australian newspapers in the 21st century
6
Issues #1 Why talk about “quality”?
There are three good reasons to talk about quality journalism. First, we need
to address the increasingly common claim that quality journalism is an
area of market failure because it costs “too much”. The connection between
journalism quality and the business success of newspapers has always
been hard to quantify. Media economists call this the “profit controversy”.
Investment in editorial is widely assumed to garner readers and add to the
value of advertising. Yet, newspapers rarely admit the quality of their product
might be compromised by disinvestment in editorial staff and resources.
Indeed, on the contrary, Australian newspaper companies have, in recent
times, justified newsroom cutbacks by arguing “production efficiencies” will
free up money to pay for more quality journalism.
Veteran newspaper publisher Jack Fuller (in Meyer 2003) reminds us
that newspaper managers are always searching for the “sweet spot” where
investment in editorial produces both business success and a well-informed
community. The best newspapers, in this view, know how to get the “profit-
service” nexus right, providing quality journalism that maintains reader
loyalty and community influence, while, at the same time, sustaining
profitability. In the online context, the same idea is expressed in terms of
“trusted brands” attracting users who will pay to access quality news content.
Defining “quality journalism”, or “quality content”, presents one difficulty
in finding the “sweet spot”. Newspaper analysts have been arguing over
Crikey’s Quality Journalism project asked
newspaper quality indicators for the past 50 years, since 1968, when news researcher John
some of Australia’s most respected journalists
Merrill first proposed the following five criteria: independence, strong opinion emphasis, to assess what they believed to be excellence
editorial focus on politics, educated and articulate staff, and appeal to opinion leaders. Philip in journalism
Meyer’s more recent list, from 2003, emphasises what readers are looking for: readability and
ease of use, localism, editorial vigour, a balanced news/advertising ratio, and a wide range
and diversity of commentary and interpretation. Nonetheless, because the links between
these indicators and financial performance remain hard to pin down, the blueprint for
finding the “sweet spot” remains elusive.
A second reason for talking about quality, a key media policy objective in the digital age, is
to be clear about its status as a public policy good. In regulatory terms, the Australian Media
and Communications’ Authority (ACMA 2011) ignores the profit-service nexus underpinning
the best newspapers and, instead, distinguishes between quality as an economic concept,
and ethical standards as a community expectation. Specifically, the underlying policy
premise is that media quality, in the form of innovation and diversity of media content and
services, will emerge from competitive market conditions; ethical standards, on the other
hand, require self- and co-regulatory arrangements to ensure citizens have access to fair and
accurate reporting of news and current affairs, a resource seen as fundamental to constructive
participation in Australian democracy. ACMA argues quality is an enduring policy concept
because convergence fosters competition, and opens up possibilities for enhanced, market-
driven media performance.
The third reason for this focus on quality is that newspaper journalists now use the term
“quality journalism” as shorthand for news content they hope readers will pay for because
it is distinctive (value adds) and meets their particular information needs and interests
(responds to readers’ news preferences). Another way of explaining this development is to
say journalists now believe the financial viability of their work depends on “monetising”
public interest journalism, that is, on getting the public interested in paying for types of
news content — specialised, investigative, complex, analytical, visually rich, interactive —
that they are used to getting for free online and on free-to-air television and radio.
For the profession, then, the issue of quality can be seen as the focus of efforts to reposition
and raise the profile of journalists’ contribution to the digital media economy. This means
redefining and raising the value of journalism work, understood as original content creation
rather than just information dissemination. It also means getting across the message that
credible, evidence-based reporting – and the newsgathering, verification, writing and editing
skills and conventions that underpin journalistic practice – is socially important (see, for
example, Crikey’s quality journalism project, www.crikey.com.au). This study documents and
analyses these efforts to reposition and redefine journalism in this way.
7
Journalism at the speed of bytes
Australian newspapers in the 21st century
8
The changing business of news
T
he newspaper business in Australia is now operating in uncharted waters. More than
1,000 journalists’ jobs have been lost in the last three years, with a consequent drop in
newsroom capacity to produce the same quantity and quality of daily journalism – all
with no guarantee that the digital destination will restore jobs or newsroom resources.
The key trends that emerge in this discussion of the changing business of news include:
• T he Australian newspaper publishing market is holding its value, estimated in 2012 at
$4.9 billion, but industry forecasters predict its future substitution by online publishing.
• T he newspaper business model is the major focus of discussion because it remains
unclear who will pay for digital journalism. There are other, pre-existing structural
problems in the news industry that exacerbate the current uncertainty, including falling
circulations, increased press concentration, and tougher competition for audiences from
television, radio and Internet news and information services.
• A ustralian newspaper companies, like their international counterparts, are responding
to the current crisis by diversifying into non-newspaper businesses, restructuring news
operations, adopting user-pays digital news models, and shedding staff. These strategies
are directed to ensuring the newspaper business survives.
• D ebates continue over the quality of news produced in downsized newsrooms, with
concerns about dwindling resources for “watchdog” or public interest journalism.
The main newspaper publishers are upbeat about the future of journalism and reject
any suggestion of market intervention to assist their industry as unwarranted and “Many fear that the
unnecessary.
In 2010, when the Media Alliance published Life in the Clickstream II, Australia’s newspaper
disappearance of an
industry appeared to have weathered turmoil in the news business far better than the US, UK adequate workforce
or, closer to home, New Zealand. While the pace of change had quickened, with most major of professional
news companies extending their online news offerings, integrated newsrooms were still journalists will deliver
optional, tablets and apps were a novelty, and paywalls were an experiment in the making.
A few alarm bells had started ringing about news quality, with journalists expressing
a less informed
concerns about excessive workloads linked to print staff layoffs and increased demands for public and a devalued
online output. In fact, some 50 per cent of those surveyed at the time, said the quality of democracy.”
news reporting and journalism was worse than it was five years earlier, compared to 15 per
cent who said it had improved. Moreover, the Press Council’s 2008 State of the News Print
Media Report documented problems adversely affecting the quality of journalism, including
“churnalism” (the uncritical use of press releases as news stories), reliance on bloggers for
news stories and images, and chequebook journalism.
Nonetheless, there were also positive indicators that newsrooms had accepted online
news as “core newspaper business” and were gradually transforming themselves to meet
the challenges of digital publishing. There were even signs that digital technology was
delivering on the promise of greater diversity, with, for example, online-only publications
(BrisbaneTimes, PerthNow, WAtoday) performing strongly against the monopoly newspapers
in Brisbane and Perth.
Two years on, however, the perfect storm of disruption from digital media coupled
with the effects of the global financial crisis, has hit circulation and readership causing a
precipitous drop in the advertising revenues on which newspapers have always relied to pay
their journalists. The crisis appeared to have come to a head in June 2012 when the two
major news groups, Fairfax Media and News Ltd, announced major cuts to jobs, internal
restructures, centralisation and, in the case of Fairfax, the closure of two printing plants.
Both companies hope that their new focus on digital delivery will provide a workable
business model to support their journalism. But it is by no means clear that this will occur.
Many fear that the disappearance of an adequate workforce of professional journalists will
deliver a less informed public and a devalued democracy.
9
Journalism at the speed of bytes
Australian newspapers in the 21st century
The OECD report points out that in sheer economic value, judged by revenue, the
“The current global newspaper publishing market (US$164b) is bigger than each of the global markets
economic crisis has of recorded music (US$27b), films (US$85b) and consumer/educational book publishing
(US$112b). The growth of this global newspaper market slowed progressively from 2004
intensified structural (3.6 per cent growth) down to zero growth in 2007 with negative growth in 2008 (-5 per
problems that have cent). But like many calculations of averages, these figures conceal more than they reveal.
existed for many The decline in the US newspaper market between 2007 and 2009 was -30 per cent and in the
years.” British newspaper market -21 per cent. (By contrast, the same decline in Australia was -3 per
cent, one of the smallest in the world.)
These are the latest international figures available, but anecdotal evidence suggests
this shrinkage has continued in most English-speaking markets and it is a pattern that is
replicated across the developed world.
Australia’s newspaper publishing industry was recently valued at $4.9 billion dollars, ahead
of free-to-air television broadcasting at $4.3 billion. Yet, a 2012 report on industry futures,
A Snapshot of Australia’s Digital Future to 2050, classifies newspapers as an industry in “likely
demise” rather than “transformational”. Industry forecaster Phil Ruthven (2012), who
prepared the report for IBM, predicts newspapers will be substituted before 2050 by online
publishing because, in his view, there is a “slow but inevitable demise of the printed output”.
The current economic crisis has intensified structural problems that existed for many years.
These include declining circulation and advertising revenue, competition from traditional
media such as TV and radio as well as new media such as the internet.
Changes in advertising revenue are due to structural changes caused by digital technology
and are likely to have the most significant results. US newspaper-advertising revenues fell
by a massive -23 per cent over 2008 and 2009. In Britain, print advertising revenue fell by
more than -30 per cent in 2009 and, despite a recovery in 2010, is estimated to have fallen by
-12.8 per cent in 2011 (Barclays 2012), illustrating a general downward trend which appears
unlikely to be reversed. The OECD report identifies a “downward spiral of many forms of
printed news” and for these reasons it argued that the “economic foundations of journalism
have to be rethought”. More significantly, the report continues that “it is less obvious what
online business models, partnerships and organisations will best support cost-intensive,
public service-oriented news in the future” (OECD 2012).
The report states that while most newspapers still make profits, these are more likely to be
around an average of 5 per cent, which is less than a quarter of what they were in the 1990s.
This advertising income has fallen by nearly -48 per cent since 2006, according to the Pew
Centre’s 2011 report, State of the News Media. In the past 20 years, the number of US daily
newspapers has decreased from 1,611 in 1990 to 1,387 in 2009, a decline of -14 per cent. The
2011 report notes that employment of full-time editorial staff peaked in 2000 at 56,400 but
10
had since fallen -26.4 per cent by 2009. Taken together, the 2011 and 2012 reports show just
how difficult market conditions have been in the US, with only some faint glimmers of hope
lying in the move towards some form of partial paywall giving the prospect of increasing
subscription revenue. But just what level of editorial staff this would support is unclear.
Similarly, in Australia the “perfect storm” has prompted a decline in overall print circulation,
which has contributed to falling in advertising revenue (also partly a product of the financial
crisis). The report of the Independent Media Inquiry found that while the overall advertising
market grew at a compound annual rate of 5.7 per cent, newspaper advertising revenue grew
by only 2.7 per cent in Australia suggesting that during the past decade, newspapers have been
losing market share to other media sectors – increasingly, over the past five years or more, to
online competitors. In 2011, total newspaper advertising revenue in Australia fell by -8 per
cent, and this was -18 per cent below the figure posted in 2008 (Holgate 2012).
Like in the US and UK, this has prompted cost-cutting measures including rationalisation
of editorial and advertising sales staff.
As far back as 1995, US newspaper analyst Philip Meyer (1995) identified the dilemma
facing newspaper companies in an article, “Learning to Love Lower Profits”, in the
American Journalism Review. He identified the vicious circle of falling circulation, falling
influence, declining revenue, cost-cutting, loss of quality, falling circulation that leads to a
downward spiral in newspaper fortunes. “Under this scenario, the owners raise prices and
simultaneously try to save their way to profitability with the usual techniques: cutting news
hole, reducing staff, peeling back circulation in remote or low-income areas of less interest
to advertisers, postponing maintenance and capital improvement, holding salaries down”
(Meyer 1995). This is a picture we are seeing in Australia.
Circulation
While the immediate cause of the crisis lies in the shift of advertising revenue away from
newspapers to online alternatives, the circulation decline of newspapers has also been
steadily accelerating.
One of the best ways to understand the overall change of newspaper circulation is to
examine the sales of newspaper per head of population. Using data from the 2011 statement
from the Audit Bureau of Circulation it is possible to find per capita circulation from 1992 to
2001. In March 1992, the rate of newspapers sales per 1,000 persons was 153.4. Looking at
five-yearly intervals, we can see that in 1997 it dipped to 143.4; in 2002 to 133.3; in 2007 to
120.9 and in 2011 to 102.5. In simple terms, average newspaper sales have dropped -23 per
cent since 2002 (Este 2012). Another set of figures shows that, by contrast with the US and
Britain, Australian newspaper circulation are falling less dramatically. Between 2005 and 2009
Australian newspaper sales dropped -4 per cent compared to -13 per cent in the US and
-16 per cent in Britain (Shoebridge 2011).
11
Journalism at the speed of bytes
Australian newspapers in the 21st century
Falling revenue
While Australian newspapers widely expected a small revival in 2011, the actual results saw
the revenue situation worsening. In the first half of 2011 total print advertising was $1648
million, -7.6 per cent lower than for the corresponding period a year earlier, reducing print
share of the overall advertising market by -2.2 per cent (Finkelstein 2012). By contrast TV
advertising increased by 0.3 per cent and radio by 2.4 per cent.
Overall, newspapers saw a drop of -$136 million in their advertising revenue. By contrast,
internet advertising grew by $191 million (18 per cent) and one estimate saw an overall print
downturn of between -2 and -4 per cent (Finkelstein 2012). In the first seven months of 2011
the newspaper ad market shrank -6.6 per cent according to the media information company
SMI (Shoebridge 2011). Comparing the month of February 2012 to the previous February,
there was a drop of -18 per cent in advertising revenue across all metropolitan newspapers
(The Australian, 2012).
The industry observer Goldman Sachs sees a continuing drift of advertising away from
traditional media such as print. This will be driven by the “relentless march of technology”
and the rise of social media and fragmentation, it says (Goldman Sachs 2012). Of
technological change, the report notes: “Over the past 10 years, the growth in online has
been nothing short of phenomenal. Online advertising has grown from virtually zero in 2000
to c.21 per cent of the total ad market in 2011 as a result of the share gains in online display,
online classifieds, and search.” The next stage of this will see a major increase in advertising
going to social and online media. In stark contrast to this growth is the performance of print
publications which in 1996 captured 56 per cent of advertising, this quantum falling to
34 per cent of the market by 2011 by Goldman Sachs’ reckoning.
12
Declining share price
Despite efforts made by the management of newspaper companies to restructure their
operations to reflect the changing nature of the news business, the gloomy outlook for the
sector is reflected in poor performance on the stock exchange.
Since the Fairfax newspaper group merged with Rural Press in 2007 to form Fairfax Media, the
fortunes of the company have steadily declined. In June 2012 the company’s share price hit new
lows, reaching 54 cents compared with a high of more than $5 in 2007. This represents a loss of
about -90 per cent since the merger.
Fairfax’s competitors have hardly fared better. In the past five years, APN’s shares have fallen
in value from $5.75 to 57 cents in July 2012, while Seven West Media shares have fallen from
more than $15 to a 20-year low of $1.53 in July 2012. News Corp’s listing on the Australian
Stock Exchange has fallen from more than $27 to around $21, rallying in the past year to reflect
the overall strong position of the global entertainment business.
13
Journalism at the speed of bytes
Australian newspapers in the 21st century
14
The transition from print
to multimedia journalism
C
an newspaper journalism adapt to the digital age? That’s the question driving this
section of the report. It represents a systematic effort to examine the changing
nature of newspaper journalism at a critical time. The interview data discussed here
was gathered and analysed before Fairfax Media and News Limited announced major
company restructures in June 2012, changes that will no doubt alter the picture of industry
that emerges here.
Nonetheless, the accelerating pace of change in newspapers has been evident for the past
three years and our study captures an important moment in the industry’s transition from
print to multimedia news delivery.
15
Journalism at the speed of bytes
Australian newspapers in the 21st century
16
Figure 3: Quality of newspaper journalism
Only (14 per cent) respondents declared their full confidence in online journalism,
highlighting the advantages of immediacy and saying the news quality is excellent. Slightly
more (17 per cent) were reluctant to pass judgment, saying digital journalism has yet to
establish itself in Australia.
At the same time, there was considerably more enthusiasm for news delivered on mobile
devices, particularly tablets. One-third (34 per cent) of respondents described the tablet as a
“game-changer” because it is journalist-friendly (adaptable to known news cycles, formats
and values), reader-friendly (adaptable to known consumer preferences and habits) and
financially viable because the content is seen to be more readily monetised.
17
Journalism at the speed of bytes
Australian newspapers in the 21st century
18
Three hurdles to making the shift to user-pays online news emerged: first, company “Tablet subscriptions
reluctance to take “bold action” on user-pays online news while the print editions are still
making money (although this changed in June 2012 when Fairfax announced it was taking
were seen as the
all its newspapers behind paywalls); second, reader resistance to paying for what is now freely most consumer-
available, and, third, concerns about producing news worth paying for without additional friendly method of
staff/resources. Technology offered answers for some, with tablet subscriptions seen as the user-pays news.”
most consumer-friendly method of user-pays news. For others, the shift to user-pays means
journalists will have to prove their relevance in the digital age, or as one journalist said, “We
have to convince people that what we produce has value”.
Only 10 per cent of respondents responded to the question about a new business model by
raising issues other than creating new revenue streams, such as developing more innovative
forms of digital journalism, more efficient work methods or better strategies for marketing
the news. For one of these respondents the top priority is getting young people interested in
journalism; another spoke of the need to foster audiences. Two respondents pointed out that
the business model is constantly changing and newspapers have multiple revenue sources
beyond advertising. For another, all the talk of business models was “a distraction” from the
core task of producing good journalism.
Newsroom structure
Uncertainties about revenue express themselves most clearly in the competing and often
inconsistent editorial priorities of the print and online editions of the same newspaper.
At the time of the survey, Fairfax Media’s newspapers were just moving to an integrated
editorial structure whereas The West Australian and most of the News Limited mastheads had
already done so.
For a quarter (25 per cent) of respondents, separate editorial control of the website and the
newspaper was confusing, counterproductive or undermined the brand, while for another
quarter (26 per cent), the mechanics of editorial integration across the digital, print and
mobile platforms were still in the process of being worked out, with different degrees of
success in restructuring work flows and responsibilities, convincing journalists to re-version
stories, or achieving product consistency across all platforms.
Adelaide-first
The Advertiser offers the most interesting example of a converging newsroom. Fifteen years
ago, Peter Morris (1996), an Australian technology writer for the West Australian, predicted
that News Limited would outpace Fairfax and drive the transition to multiplatform
newsrooms, as it had the most to gain from digital news delivery systems. What Morris
didn’t foresee was that News Limited’s newsroom revolution would get underway not in the
major media markets of Melbourne or Sydney but in the one-newspaper town of Adelaide,
where Rupert Murdoch got his start as a proprietor.
For the past three years, the Advertiser has been moving to a broadcast newsroom model,
flattening out news management, abolishing the roles of chief-of-staff and section editors,
and creating new thematic editorial teams that deliver content to four platforms: the
newspaper, website, iPad edition and email newsletter. The newsroom looks almost the same
as before except that the conference desk has moved to the centre of the newsroom, next to
a high-tech interactive whiteboard used to monitor the status of the days’ big stories.
19
Journalism at the speed of bytes
Australian newspapers in the 21st century
News Limited clearly thinks the experiment is producing excellent results: The Advertiser won
the Chairman’s prize at the 2010 News Awards. The company’s then CEO, John Hartigan
(2010), said The Advertiser had “overhauled decades-old work practices and changed deeply-
embedded parts of editorial culture in an exceptional way”. Significantly, new workflows
have meant new work practices and journalists now “have much more responsibility for
how their story progresses throughout its lifecycle on each different platform” (MediaPlanet
2011). Inevitably, this means more time spent on the job and a faster pace of work. Another
concern is whether stories produced by the same journalist working across the four platforms
make the best use of each medium, or tend to uniformity. More importantly, whether readers
notice, or even care about, the changes to news content that result from such newsroom
restructuring is another question altogether. The changing relationship between journalists
and readers is taken up further on, in the next section this report.
“I think the biggest challenge for anyone managing journalists into the future,” said
one editor, “is to direct them, herd them like cats, towards an environment where they are
thinking about what they will file for their website as much as what they will file for the
newspaper.”
20
Another editor said, “It’s just the mind-set really…some people are a bit nervous about
doing the video stuff because they say they’ve got a great head for radio and not for video,
but, largely, people see it as an opportunity to do something new and different.”
Only one in five (18 per cent) of the editorial executives mentioned the importance of
encouraging staff to embrace multimedia journalism. “We have to change the cultural fixation
with print,” said one editor. “It’s ‘I work across platforms’ now, not ‘I work for the paper’”.
Restructuring workflows and responsibilities is the main step that editorial executives are “Printed copy goes
taking or say needs to be taken in order to change newsroom culture. Twenty-two of the 39
editorial executives talked about this as a priority.
past at least four
“The whole newsroom has been restructured in order to be able to respond quickly and get pairs of eyes before
material up online in a very short timeframe,” said one editor. “People start here now very it gets released –
early in the morning compared to when the normal newsroom would start, and the structure with online it might
is more like a television station than a traditional newsroom … it’s an attempt to flatten the
structure of management and make people respond and get things done more quickly.”
be one.”
Just over half (56 per cent) of the editorial executives said they were taking specific
measures to ensure the quality of the newspaper’s website content, with one-third (33 per
cent) identifying the need to moderate readers’ comments as a key measure, either to prevent
publication of racist and inflammatory material, or, more proactively, in the words of one
editor, to “raise the level of that side of the content”.
Keeping the focus on fact-checking and accuracy was another important measure. While
several editorial executives insisted online news standards were the same as for print, “you
just have to do it a bit quicker, that’s all”, there were numerous concerns that the speed of
online publishing was itself the main problem for news quality: “I think there’s a sense that
if you’re wrong online, you’re not wrong for long,” said one editor, “and I don’t think that is
a good attitude.” Another editor said: “The printed copy goes past at least four pairs of eyes
before it gets released; with online, it might be one.”
Getting “proper resources” was a third measure, with several editorial executives expressing
concern that small teams of young, less-experienced journalists are working on the online
sites when “a wider pool” is needed: “The more the traditional journalists can change and
embrace and adapt to the new medium,” said one editorial executive, “the better it will
be for the quality of journalism online”. Another editor said young, inexperienced digital
journalists would benefit from “exposure to, mentoring from, and training by, colleagues
working on the print editions” – because they are “some of the best journalists in Australia”.
A third editor said: “You need training and experience, intelligence and effort.”
Interestingly, the 2012 Fairfax Media restructure directly addressed this concern,
announcing a shift to a digital-first editorial model for all the mastheads, and promoting
the editor of smh.com.au, Darren Goodsir, into the position of news director for The Sydney
Morning Herald and deputy to the new editor-in-chief, Sean Aylmer.
In our survey, half (51 per cent) of the editorial executives admitted their staff were not
receiving enough training in digital journalism, with some (20 per cent) offering ad hoc
audio/video training on an as-needed basis, even fewer (10 per cent) providing social media
training, and others (20 per cent), meeting digital skills shortages by hiring new staff.
21
Journalism at the speed of bytes
Australian newspapers in the 21st century
When asked about the preferred skills and attributes of recruits, almost half (46 per cent)
of the editorial executives nominated digital media skills as the top priority. Other desirable
skills were news sense (36 per cent), writing skills (28 per cent) and personal qualities such as
initiative, energy and enthusiasm; courage and persistence; maturity, and curiosity. Personal
qualities got more attention than qualifications, with only 21 per cent of respondents
interested in new staff holding tertiary degrees.
22
Issue #6 Digital-first journalism
We know what newspaper journalism looks like. What will journalism in purely digital
publications look like?
Some observers are worried that editorial decisions – what to publish? what angle to
take? —will be dependent on commercial criteria determined largely by analysis of hits and
impressions. Professional news judgment will play no role. These fears were fuelled by the
leaking last year of an internal document from AOL, the giant internet company, spelling
out guidelines for its editors. Significantly, the leak occurred just before AOL bought the
The Huffington Post, one of the most successful online publications (it expected to make
$10m in 2011).
The leak was of a 57 page PowerPoint presentation called “The AOL Way” which is
still available on the Business Insider website. The presentation decreed an integration of
advertising and editorial staff. As well, it urged editors to decide what to publish based on
four consideration: the traffic potential, revenue potential, edit quality, and turnaround
time, according to Business Insider. Page 28 of the presentation specified that the “content
creators” should be “mindful of the bottom line”. For example, an article for which a
freelancer is paid $50 must be highly likely to bring in at least $100 in revenue, judged by
“page views” and “cost per thousand” page impressions.
The Colombia Journalism School report on the business of digital journalism, The
Story So Far, gives an example of an article for which a freelancer is paid $100 and which
therefore needs $200 in ad revenue. The story must be guaranteed to generate around
22,222 page impressions. The report also points out that at cnnmoney.com, all staff have
access to page-view and traffic data. The staff gets daily emails listing the top 50 stories by
section.
All of this has consequences. When it became possible to analyse TV ratings minute-by-
minute, it became obvious that when a current affairs show interviewed a politician there
was a sudden drop in the number of viewers. Now it has become possible through data
analytics to do a similar analysis of stories for digital news media.
There is a further complication. The new saviour of newspapers and digital news sites
is widely seen to be paywalls. Readers who pay a subscription can avoid the paywalls to
get access to articles. But the content behind the paywalls is also scrutinised using these
data analytics. So if a reader subscribed to The Sydney Morning Herald, assuming this meant
delivery of a certain kind of content, they could find that the content changed rapidly and
went down market, much the same as the way in which the content of the Herald websites
differs markedly from that of the printed newspaper.
Cartoon by Andrew Weldon
23
Journalism at the speed of bytes
Australian newspapers in the 21st century
“It’s all very well to The wide range of responses presented here, across all four themes, indicate some
journalists are thriving on change, on the faster pace, rolling deadlines and opportunities
pull out one story a to break more stories: “My focus is on news breaking,” said one reporter, “It’s all very
month from some well to pull out one story once a month from some investigative unit, but someone has
investigative unit, to ‘feed the beast’ and I respect that type of work as well”.
but someone has to Others are struggling to adapt to expectations about re-skilling, to reconfigured news
agendas and standards and to the relentless new imperatives of speed, immediacy and
‘feed the beast’.” instant reader appeal.
“The story gets forgotten in the search to dress it up,” said one reporter, “We need
substance, not just enthusiasm for technology, it’s the story that should be the foremost
consideration.” Another reporter said, “We publish a lot more now without thinking
about whether it is good or not.” A more senior colleague worried aloud about the
political implications of the rush to get stories up online: “It’s bad for public debate,” he
said, “there’s a tendency for misinformation to gather its own pace and be taken as fact
when it’s not. The immigration debate is a good example.”
The old rules of the news game are gone. Only a decade ago, journalism was a
stable, medium-sized occupation; news production followed well-established routines
and conventions, and the internet looked like offering interesting new possibilities
for news production and delivery. Now, unstable revenues and job cuts mean fewer
reporters, reconfigured workflows, centralisation and outsourcing of subbing and other
elements of news production, and increased workloads and responsibilities. The pace of
daily journalism is faster. There are many more readers, with many more information
demands. And the tasks of newsgathering and storytelling are getting more complicated
as journalists are expected to enrich the reader’s experience by adding audio, video,
photos or other types of visual data to text-based stories.
24
processes and content. Ms Rinehart has refused to do so and, as noted, has sold down her
interest to 15 per cent of the company.
The current charter of editorial independence was adopted in 1992 as part of the public
listing of Fairfax.
Fairfax Media’s CEO, Greg Hywood, recently described the charter as the “rock on
which we base this organisation”. The charter was “part of the culture of the place”, he
said. It meant that the board had the right to appoint editors but that it was the CEO’s
responsibility to select and interview the candidates. The charter, he said, prevents
“individual board members from going to individual journalists and telling them what
they should or should not write”. It was both a promise to readers that they get fair-
minded representation, and a “promise to advertisers: that they would be treated fairly”.
Cartoon by Ron Tandberg
To test claims that Australian journalists have been slow to embrace digital tools except
as a way to promote and distribute their work, we polled Walkley-winners for 2010 and
2011, asking about their use of these tools in researching and producing their stories.
Around a quarter said they had used social media tools to research their subjects; the
most popular means being through blogs and message boards (28 per cent); followed by
Facebook (22 per cent) and Twitter (17 per cent).
Respondents who used social media commented that the volume of people now using
such tools – and the information they are willing to share make them good tools for
finding sources and discovering social trends. Online message boards and chatrooms, as
well as blogs, were also seen as good places for locating sources: “Social media allows you
to cut through the red tape and speak directly to people,” said one respondent.
Another prize-winner, while enthusiastic about the use of such tools to find sources,
especially for international stories, social media “ought not to replace direct verbal or
written contact between journalists and sources”.
Another respondent observed that certain blogs, by high-profile professionals and
business people, provided authoritative insights – the key thing being the authority of the
source.
Access to photos was also cited by several respondents as important plus point for using
tools such as Facebook.
However some respondents also raised ethical concerns such as invasion of privacy,
while others cited the difficulty of verifying information and identity of bloggers – one
instance cited was the “Gay Girl in Damascus” blog, which claimed to document the life of
25-year-old Amina Abdallah Arraf al-Omari, a half-Syrian, half-American lesbian living in
Damascus and turned out to be written by a middle-aged American man living in Scotland.
“I would generally only use it as a search and messaging tool, not necessarily a source
25
Journalism at the speed of bytes
Australian newspapers in the 21st century
of unquestionable facts,” seems to sum up the attitude of those people who said they used
social media tools in their work.
As for multimedia presentation, few respondents said they or their organisation had
fully exploited the possibilities that their stories offered. Most said their stories – whether
they were print or broadcast (TV and radio) – had been available online, but very few
had offered broad multi-media packages. About 17 per cent said their stories had been
accompanied by a slideshow of images and the same number said their stories had
employed interactive graphics.
Several respondents said their work might have been enhanced if it had been
accompanied by original documents and extra features such as (as one print respondent
suggested) video interviews.
“I think it’s great that you can feature extra interviews, longer cuts and supporting
materials online to allow audiences to engage with a story more thoroughly,” said one
respondent, cautioning that as many people would be accessing this material on a small
screen, it would have to be carefully designed. “If someone likes your story they’re
generally keen to see/learn more.”
The main drawbacks were seen as a lack of time and resources as well as insufficient
training for reporters to be able to attempt some of these enhancements themselves.
When it came to distribution and promotion, 50 per cent of respondents said their work
had been promoted by social media – the majority by Facebook and Twitter.
When asked whether the use of new media tools should be regarded as an important
journalistic skill, most respondents were cautious, and stressed that, as one put it: “the
quality of the story is more important than the technology used to deliver it”. This message
recurred, in different ways, time and time again. “I think high-quality journalism is almost
immediately recognisable through its sheer impact and importance,” wrote another.
However others saw the use of social media for sourcing and distributing stories, and
multi-media tools for the production and presentation of issues as “vital journalistic skills”.
“In terms of presenting, I think multimedia is more than just a skill, but something every
journalist simply has to master,” wrote one respondent.” Thinking about the presentation
of your story as a multimedia package from the outset is not an optional extra anymore.
These skills greatly enhance newsgathering, quality and presentation and I believe they
should be recognised with prizes.”
The question of whether use of new media tools and technology should be specifically
recognised by industry awards divided people. Those who had used such tools the fullest
naturally felt that they should be recognised, while the majority did not see the need.
The consensus was that the quality of the journalism should always be the central
criterion for awarding prizes, while the presentation (or “bells and whistles” as one
respondent put it) should always be a secondary concern.
One respondent summed it up thus: “The journalistic skills are not really changed.
For me, new media provides extra outlets for distribution but doesn’t change the basic
journalistic skill set. High-quality journalism is about research, tracking down people to
talk, analytical skills and the ability to communicate clearly – most of which are unaffected
by the medium (new or otherwise).”
We will return to the important issue of digital journalism and news quality and
standards later in this report, after first turning our attention to the changed relationship
between journalists and readers.
26
Journalists’ changing
relationships to readers
Do Australian newspaper journalists provide news and information services that
networked, information-rich, and technologically savvy news consumers want or need
anymore? Relevance is a major question driving the changing relationship between
journalists and readers, and a major issue in terms of journalism’s ongoing capacity to
serve democracy. We know that digital technologies enable unprecedented opportunities
for interaction and exchange between journalists and readers. We also know that
readers (citizens) have relished the chance to comment on, add to, re-work, re-tell, and
re-distribute stories published on online news sites, as well as creating their on news
communities using blogs, social media and other digital tools. Citizen journalism is
rewriting the relationship between politicians and voters. This section examines the ways
that increased reader engagement is forcing journalists to rethink who their readers are,
what they want from the news, and where they fit into news reporting and production.
There are no easy answers to these questions, especially in a changing and uncertain
industry environment, but they will not go away and clearly need more attention.
27
Journalism at the speed of bytes
Australian newspapers in the 21st century
In summary, past research in this area highlights tensions between claims that reader
engagement and citizen journalism mean a “dumbing down” of news and, on the other
hand, claims that they foster a healthy and welcome democratisation of journalism.
We asked a range of questions to build a better picture of the different dimensions of the
changing relationship between journalists and readers. In the first instance, we asked all
respondents about readers paying for online news, co-creating content, interacting more
with journalists and, more broadly, their views on the trend towards more conversational
forms of journalism. We wanted to explore journalists’ reactions to the increasing
proximity between journalists and readers, and to get a sense of any concerns related to
this trend. The results are grouped according to the following four theme: first, redefinition
of the journalist-reader online relationship; second, newspapers’ reader engagement
strategies and concerns; third, new editorial priorities and challenges and, fourth, renewing
the concept of public service.
28
Redefining the online relationship
The findings suggest that journalists were ready for the shift to user-pays online news.
Two-thirds (68 per cent) of respondents said readers would have to pay for online news
in future. They viewed the introduction of paywalls or digital news subscriptions as both
“inevitable” and necessary. Others took the view that paying “makes sense” because
“readers pay for the newspaper now, paying for online is the next step.” Several journalists
compared paying for news with buying other commodities, ranging from chocolate
bars to music downloads to bottled water: “I think it’s bizarre,” said one journalist,
“that people will pay $3 for a bottle of water that should be free and yet expect content
produced by experts for nothing, it’s economic nonsense!”
Those who disagreed, a minority (21 per cent), were either opposed in principle to
the user-pays idea or pessimistic about making it work “I don’t want to pay,” said one
journalist, “so why should they?” Another journalist said, “It’s just a dumb idea. News is
news. The whole point is to get it out there before anyone else.” A third view was that “it’s
a theoretically justifiable experiment, although I wonder whether it will be sustainable.”
There was a range of views about what readers should pay for. Forty-six journalists
talked about the need to “value add” in some way. Many thought general news should
remain freely available, with readers paying for “something new and different and worth
paying for”.
“I tend to think of it like iTunes,” said one editor, “you pay for music because you can
listen to it again and again. So, you won’t pay for some throwaway 10-par rip-off from
AAP because you’ll never read it again. You might pay for a tool that helps make sense
of the federal elections, or the federal budget, something important like that, or what is
the hung Parliament in 10 dot points…you wouldn’t pay for just that one FAQ but if you
knew that this was the sort of place that did that tomorrow as well, you might subscribe
and stick around.”
29
Journalism at the speed of bytes
Australian newspapers in the 21st century
Content co-creation
Opinions were more divided over readers contributing to content creation, and while
almost half (45 per cent) of respondents favoured this trend, one third (33 per cent) said
they were against it, and another one in five (21 per cent) said they were undecided.
“This debate is all a bit high-falutin’,” said one editor, “the papers at the regional or
suburban level, the free papers, they give great community service because their columns
are so open to their communities…if you want a paper that is going to be vibrant and
survives and has revenue and an audience, you’ve got to get people to write in.”
The biggest concern was about the future of journalistic expertise although there was
plenty of interest in the democratic potential of this development. Much of the argument
hinged on the type of content that readers might contribute and the level and cost of
moderation/editing that might be needed before this type of content was published.
“I think it’s democratic,” said one journalist, “I’m happy about it with an important
caveat that professional journalists must maintain strict control over the editing and the
output.”
“I think it’s a very exciting prospect,” said another journalist, “but you really need to
have very experienced journalists managing the process.”
“If people are going to pay for us,” said a third journalist, “they want to actually see
some value put into the reporting and editing that makes it worth paying for, not just what
some bloke down at Mount Gravatt, or up at Caboolture or over in New Farm thinks, you
hear that for free on talkback radio.”
Conversation
There was even more disagreement over the shift to more conversational forms of
journalism. Only one quarter (25 per cent) of respondents endorsed the idea that print
journalism is moving away from its traditional role of producing newspapers of record to
become a “living conversation”.
“What we have to achieve,” said one editor, “is to move professional journalism more
effectively into the immediate space, which is widely populated by the citizen journalist
and the blogger. Journalists need to be much smarter and more effective in what they do in
the online breaking news space.”
On the other hand, one third (34 per cent) of respondents were reluctant to accept the
term “conversation” as the new modus operandi of either newspapers or their websites, and
suggested this characterisation of the changes underway was at best debatable. Journalists
might well be engaged in lots more online exchanges with readers and news reported
with more immediacy online, but for this group of respondents this did not amount to
conversation becoming the most important, much less, sole purpose of journalism.
As one journalist explained, “If the trend is to think of online news as ‘opinion-sharing’
then that can – and often does - quickly descend into ‘opinion-shouting’. And then like the
worst of Twitter, it’s just a bunch of voices talking at each other, not to each other. It could
also mean sites tailor their coverage to the loudest five per cent of their audience, thinking
they are representative of all, rather than pushing themselves to look for new audiences
and new areas of interesting issues to report in an innovative way.”
30
“You’ve got to tell the story of what has happened,” another journalist said. “To bring
people up to the point where the conversation starts – and newspapers will continue to
play that role.”
31
Journalism at the speed of bytes
Australian newspapers in the 21st century
online sites have to grapple with is what people think they want, and what we think
they want, versus what they read.” “We have a finicky readership that likes quality,” said
another editor, “they love world news stories; but they also love gossip although they
won’t admit to reading it.”
In relation to political and business news, there was interest in both state and national
political and economic issues. Readers particularly want to know about poor economic
management by government: “when there’s a perception that the state government is
misusing funds, we get a very strong reaction online,’ explained one editor. “The right
political story will rate well,” said another editor, and what I mean by the right political
story is where there’s a personality involved!”
Interest in sport is much more unambiguous: “Sport is one of the golden spots in
journalism at the moment,” said one editor, “The more sport you have in the paper, the
better you seem to go…people like to read about success and they like to be inspired.”
Five editorial executives made the point that readers increasingly demand news coverage
with “a bit of light and dark”, that is, some “good news” stories to balance the flow of
information about society’s conflicts and problems. One editor said, “Readers want a laugh,
that’s a real challenge”. “They don’t want bad news jammed down their throats,” said
another editor, “they don’t want to be frightened about the world they live in, they want
to be informed, but not intimidated.”
The editorial executives linked their newspapers’ capacity to provide comprehensive
coverage that helps readers to understand the complexity of the world around them, to
readers’ trust in journalism. Interestingly, only about half of them saw responsiveness to
readers as another trust-building strategy.
Twenty-one of the 39 editorial executives said their editorial priorities had changed as a
result of increased interaction with readers, including story choices and angles, the length
of time a story runs and the prominence it is given, and the range of voices that get a
hearing. “We are trying to meet the demand for what people want online,” said one editor,
“we are adapting to how they want news, what type of news they want, and how quickly
they want it.” Another editor said, “We often get feedback online and turn it into stories.”
The feedback is not always that constructive, as a third editor explained, “Certainly
there’ve been instances when the readers have been quite venomous about something that
we’ve written, and that’s caused us to go back and rethink the approach we’ve taken to the
story.”
Sharing editorial responsibilities with readers, even to a limited extent, is not an easy
issue for the editors, or their newsroom staff, because it raises questions about the role of
journalists and editors. As one editor explained, “At the heart of that question is whether
editors should tell people what they need, or listen to people and give them what they
want…but isn’t one of the functions of editors and media organisations to challenge
people, to set an agenda, to find new stuff? Isn’t the contract between the reader and the
journalist one based on trust, on the readers trusting us to exercise our judgment?”
For other editorial executives, adapting journalistic practices to meet the new
circumstances was more important than redefining roles: “As you know,” said one editor,
“the stories where we shine lights into dark corners often don’t have the audiences,
and yet clearly and obviously they are still a very crucial part of journalism. I think it’s
incumbent on journalists to present those stories in ways that make them relevant to
people. It’s not good enough just to write that story anymore in a way that assumes
knowledge. I think that’s what we often did in the past with our investigative journalism.”
32
Twenty-eight of the 39 editorial executives said they were taking measures to maximize
traffic to their newspaper’s website, ranging from search engine optimisation, cross-
promotion of newspaper and website stories and picture galleries, to social media
marketing, user alerts, and direct marketing via email newsletters. Only 11 of the 39
editorial executives indicated they were not directly involved in taking these types of
measures.
Editorial executives were more reticent to talk about the work their newspapers are doing
to increase non-advertising revenue streams; 22 of the 39 respondents to this question said
they were not involved in the business side of the newspaper, or, if they were, would prefer
not to discuss money-making strategies in detail. Amongst those who offered some general
observations about emerging new business models, talk of “journalists” and “readers”
quickly gave way to talk about “content” and “traffic”, PIs and UBs (page impressions
and unique browsers), “user profiles” and “behavioural targeting”, or “transactions”,
“subscriptions” and “selling apps”.
This shift in lexicon was a stark reminder, if one was needed, that the business
of newspaper journalism no longer depends on using news stories to sell readers to
advertisers, an activity of diminishing financial rewards. Instead, at the time of the survey,
“selling apps” was seen as the most exciting potential new revenue-earner, a “back to the
future” option that, in the words of one editor, was even garnering “great confidence and
interest from hardened newspaper editors”, mainly because “it closes the knowledge gap
between digital and print, with apps, we’re all newbies together, we’re all in the dark, so
that has brought digital and print back together again.”
The responses outlined above demonstrate an overall readiness amongst newspaper
journalists to engage more directly and in more interesting and collaborative ways with
readers. Nonetheless, the data also reveals that journalists face two kinds of difficulties
at the moment in building new relationships with existing readers and attracting new
audiences: first, the practical issue of finding ways to fit increased interactions with readers
into their daily work routines, and, second, the professional issue of working out what
these exchanges might contribute to both editorial content and reader satisfaction.
The conceptual challenge is tough. The idea that readers would act in league with
journalists to create good journalism and enhance news quality may require significant
rethinking of the values and standards that are intrinsic to journalists’ professional culture.
As we’ll discuss in the next section on professional standards, that culture is an important
resource that, arguably, has given journalism its resilience in the face of technological
and market pressures. By “professional culture”, we’re referring here to the commitment
to the Code of Ethics, to well-established role perceptions and news conventions, to the
professional association and its prize system that gives collective expression to journalists’
aspirations, and to journalism education and training that prepares and socialises new
recruits. To be clear, we’re not saying journalist-reader collaborations are a bad idea because
they create new pressures to rethink some of the fundamentals of journalism. We are
saying that these new pressures should not be ignored while there is still time to do the
work of evolving professional values and standards that can give meaningful expression to
both journalism’s past strengths and the innovations it must adopt in the future.
33
Journalism at the speed of bytes
Australian newspapers in the 21st century
34
Future control over
professional standards
I
n this final section, we examine the question of how much power journalists,
individually and collectively, have over the future direction of the newspaper
industry in Australia. This may sound like an odd angle, at a time when the “ec-tech
squeeze”, the combined pressures of media commercialisation and technological
change, is intensifying employment insecurity and uncertainty about the future. Indeed,
as journalism researcher Suellen Tapsall (2001) noted, because the idea that technology
brings progress is so widely held, it is likely that many will feel powerlessness in the face of
changes that seem both inevitable and inescapable.
Yet, this study did not detect widespread feelings of disempowerment or resignation
amongst newspaper journalists. On the contrary, we found a mood for change. The
majority of journalists we spoke to were looking ahead with optimism, and there was no
shortage of views on what could or should be done to improve news content, exploit the
newsgathering and reporting potential of digital technologies, or beat the competition. Figure 11: Key roles
This section therefore discusses what these journalists believe their profession does best, for journalists
how they judge news quality, and why they seem ready to
evolve and adapt professional standards in this transition
period.
The Walkley Awards provide our benchmark for talking
to Australian newspaper journalists about what they do
best because they are the country’s leading media industry
prizes. Created by petroleum magnate Sir William Gaston
Walkley in 1956, and now administered by the Walkley
Foundation, the award system is open to all journalists on
the basis of self-nomination, and judged by distinguished
media industry figures. Around 1300 journalists compete
for these prizes each year. This is the profession’s own
way of rewarding good journalism and encouraging high
standards.
The market and the regulators both claim to influence
news media performance, although as stated in the
beginning of this report (see “Why talk about quality?”),
they do so on different terms. For newspaper companies,
optimal press performance – the “sweet spot” – can be found at the intersection of reader
appeal and profitability; for the electronic media regulators, strong media performance
depends on both competitive markets and intervention to ensure news media adhere to
community expectations about ethical standards.
What is often forgotten here is that professional journalists, as a group, also have a stake
in the issue of news quality. Their “sweet spot” lies in finding the balance between news
that is in the public interest and news that is popular, that the public is interested in;
their adherence to ethical standards is a self-imposed discipline, expressed in consistent
responses to the dilemmas posed by daily newsgathering and reporting, and “enforced”
through peer-pressure.
The newspaper journalists we spoke to had very strong feelings about news quality
and journalism standards. And, while many believed in the market dictum that quality
journalism would always find an audience, we also found awareness that journalists
themselves have to exercise more initiative in setting and judging the standards of news
media performance. Our discussion of this new insight provides one response to the
opening question on what journalists can do about the future of journalism.
35
Journalism at the speed of bytes
Australian newspapers in the 21st century
in journalists’ backgrounds and beliefs at both the national and international levels.
In 1998, John Henningham (1998) found Australians journalists were typically young,
well-educated, middle-class, and male. He estimated there were around 4,500 journalists
working in mainstream newsrooms at that time. They were committed to information
dissemination, valued autonomy and editorial policies, frequently held “somewhat left-of-
centre political views” and faced two main challenges: media ownership concentration and
new media technologies. According to Henningham and Delano (1998), Australian, British
and US journalists’ shared comparable professional roles and values, although British
journalists were more “gung-ho in ethical areas” and willing to “get the story and worry
about the consequences afterwards”. Interestingly, Susan Forde’s (2005) study of cultural
diversity in Sydney newsrooms, found two-thirds of the mainstream journalists surveyed
were from British or Irish backgrounds.
Mark Deuze’s (2002) five-country study of national news cultures backed up
Henningham’s findings. It revealed broad similarities in the way journalism is practiced in
the US, UK and Australia, but found Australian and British journalists rated the watchdog
or adversarial role more highly than their US counterparts.
The 2007-2011 Worlds of Journalism project found more evidence that Australian
journalists resemble their counterparts in Western liberal democracies, this time because
they shared a common belief in the media as Fourth Estate (see www.worldsofjournalism.
org/). They valued objective reporting and universal ethical rules, but were fundamentally
pragmatic, and tried to find a balance between giving audiences what they wanted, and
reporting news that journalists thought they should know (Hanusch 2008). Deuze (2008)
noted that the homogeneity underpinning journalistic perceptions and practices has
given coherence to news work, but, at the same time, has meant newsrooms tend to have
inward-looking, self-referential cultures: “journalists [tend to] privilege whatever colleagues
think of their work over criteria such as viewer ratings, hit counts or sales figures”.
The past research, in summary, confirms the strength and consistency over time
of Australian journalists’ role perceptions and values and suggests that professional
culture provides an important collective resource for any discussion of news quality and
journalism standards. At the same time, the self-evident gender bias, mono-culturalism,
and traditionalist orientation of the professional culture are significant limitations, which
can be seen to undermine Australian journalists’ capacity to respond adequately to a
rapidly changing, multicultural media world.
We asked five distinct sets of questions about journalism roles, values and standards in
order to explore journalists’ self-perceptions in the face of rapid workplace change and
the growing uncertainties of today’s news environment. To start, we asked all respondents
to define the most important role of journalists and to identify the journalism standards
and values that are most fundamental to their work. To get a deeper appreciation of the
relative importance of specific standards and values, we then used two sets of questions,
first, checking journalists’ views on the Walkley Award criteria, and, second, exploring
their perspectives on the characteristics of quality journalism in print and online. A
further set of questions asked about the current level of professional recognition for online
journalism, the standards by which it should be judged, and the standout attributes of
good journalism in this medium. The final question probed the meaning of the term
“quality journalism”. We wanted to gauge journalists’ level of confidence in the current
weight and future relevance of their professional standards. The results are grouped into
three themes: first, defining quality; second, continuity and change in journalism values
and standards and, third, evolving digital journalism standards.
Defining quality
Although the term “quality journalism” is bandied about with increasing frequency, it
is neither easy to define nor universally accepted. Four out of ten (40 per cent) of the
journalists we spoke to had reservations about its meaning and use.
One in ten (9 per cent) flatly rejected the idea, saying it was code for resistance to change
or, more colourfully, an excuse “to sit there for a couple of weeks thinking about your next
story”. For others in this group, “quality” was an out-dated concept, linked to a reluctance
to embrace digital journalism. One journalist said it was a problem of generational change
amongst more experienced journalists: “they see me as much more of a trash bag in my
news values,” he said, “but I think the world has changed and they’re refusing to change
with it.” Another journalist linked quality to the “look” of traditional newspapers, and said
newspaper companies and news readers were having trouble adjusting to digital formats: “I
like the idea of going into this different world online,” she said, “I don’t see any reason why
it should look like a traditional newspaper but I think we’re still hung up on that idea.”
Conversely, six out of ten (58 per cent) respondents agreed that “quality” was a
keyword for the future. For half of this group, interest in quality signalled a willingness to
36
embrace digital journalism. “Online adds greater depth of information, a greater range of
information,” said one journalist, “we have to embrace the change and use it with all the
capacities it offers, which are enormous; but, it’s hard going through the process if you’re
not making scads of money…good journalism does cost money.”
Others were more interested in the credibility of digital journalism, especially in the
context of the shift to user-pays online news: “There’s no way you can charge for Lady
Gaga news. It’s impossible,” said one editor. “If all we’re doing is offering them a slightly
different version of something they can get on 473 websites,” said another, “why would
they pay for it?”
37
Journalism at the speed of bytes
Australian newspapers in the 21st century
Nonetheless, there is further evidence of a readiness to innovate in the fact that more
journalists agreed with interactivity and inviting readers’ comments as features of good
journalism, over and above the more traditional view, that quality is based on journalists’
knowledge of readers’ likes and dislikes. This result is consistent with other findings
discussed in the previous section on journalists’ changing relationship to readers.
The bottom end of the table also reveals the demise of two key aspects of traditional
approaches to news quality: first, the idea that broadsheets do better than tabloids, and
second, the idea that quality journalism “deals with politics and business” because they are
the two most important topics in journalism.
In short, the newspaper journalists we spoke to hold strong, common views on the key
characteristics of quality journalism, which for the most part they define in terms of what
newspapers have traditionally done best: investigative journalism in the public interest.
Nonetheless, there is also evidence of a more innovative approach to journalism standards,
perhaps driven by pragmatism, with journalists recognising that good journalism can
be found across all media platforms, and, further, surprisingly, that reader engagement
– interactivity, co-creation of content, and reader comments – adds to the quality of
Figure 13: Journalists journalism. Change in the professional culture of journalism may well be a slow process,
(n=100) responses to but these results indicate that change is underway.
11 criteria for judging One online editor explained the changing professional attitudes to online news
excellence in journalism, standards in the following way: “When I started, over three years ago, there was a lot of
ranked according to their emphasis on what drove traffic, and less emphasis on what you put up there to get the
perceived value traffic. So, as a result, you had an awful lot of curly pictures…now, if you look at it, there’s
far less of that, people have stepped back and thought, ‘hang on, this
Criteria for judging journalism Rank is not what we are on about, we’re on about quality journalism,’ so the
content has changed, and the traffic has still been there, but it is traffic
Ethics 1
that is less reliant on superficial titillation.”
Newsworthiness 2
What journalists do, what readers see
Public benefit 3
The other part of the answer comes from journalists’ perceptions of the
Originality 4 criteria for judging quality journalism. We asked journalists to evaluate the
Research 5 11 criteria used by the Walkley Awards to reward excellence in journalism
– creative flair, ethics, impact, incisiveness, innovation, newsworthiness,
Impact 6 originality, production, public benefit, research and writing – in order to
Writing 7 compare aspects of quality that are visible to readers, who see only the end
result of journalistic activity, with those aspects that may well be invisible
Creative flair 8
to readers, but express professional journalism’s core values and guide
Incisiveness 9 journalistic activity. For the purposes of analysis, the data was reduced to
Innovation 10 show the relative value given to each of the 11 criteria, and the following
table shows their final ranking.
Production 11
It is immediately clear, again, that the criteria that express core
professional values rank highly with four of the top five responses referring
to newsroom-based aspects of journalistic activity: ethical practice, news judgement,
originality and story research.
The difficulty for journalists is that while the quality of the end product depends on
these journalistic activities, they are not necessarily visible to readers. Moreover, there is no
certainty that readers share journalists’ definitions of news that has “public benefit”, the
third most valued criteria for judging journalism, and the only one directly related to the
end product that is visible to readers.
The bottom of the table is also troubling because it reveals newspaper journalists’
perceptions that innovation and production values are the least important criteria for
judging journalism standards; yet, arguably, these criteria refer to crucial aspects of what
readers see, and expect from, digital journalism’s various end products.
This becomes a pressing issue in relation to user-pays online news. As one editor noted, “the
iPad is the most realistic thing I’ve seen that people would actually pay for, if you’ve got good
quality applications. To me, it is different from online because in terms of the quality, some of
the apps that have been developed in the US are really good, so I’m thinking more of the iPad
than the websites when I’m commenting on readers paying for news.”
There are two other important results that add to our picture of continuity and change
in journalists’ values and standards. First, in relation to role perceptions, three-quarters (75
per cent) of the journalists in this study said their most important role was “to inform the
public” or similar statements, couched in terms of conveying information, explaining the
facts, telling the truth, providing the public with facts so they can decide, or getting the
news to people. One third of respondents (34 per cent) also said their role was to scrutinise
decisions of the powerful, to act as a watchdog for the public, to shine a light in the dark, or
to act as an accountability mechanism. Other common answers were “entertaining readers”
(15 per cent), usually as part of the process of informing the public or scrutinising power,
38
and “supporting democratic society”, or “giving people information so they can participate
in democracy” (13 per cent).
Second, in relation to professional values and standards, three-quarters (72 per cent) of
respondents identified “accuracy” – or related terms such as “getting the facts straight”,
“truth telling” or a desire to “get it right” – as the value that was most important to their
work. Other important values were fairness (37 per cent), honesty (36 per cent) and
autonomy (14 per cent).
In line with past research, these responses demonstrate a striking similarity of viewpoints
amongst the journalists we interviewed, a similarity that speaks of self-belief and
conviction. Moreover, we do not have to look far for an explanation of this confidence: the
journalists’ role perceptions and key values directly reflect the professional norms set out in
the Media Alliance’s Code of Ethics. The code, created in 1944 and last updated in 1999, is
a public statement about the what, how and why of journalism as well as a set of guidelines
for journalism practice and newsroom decision-making. That so many of the journalists in
our sample talk about their work in terms of truth-telling, informing and entertaining the
public, scrutinising power, giving people a fair hearing, and supporting democracy, suggests
the broader professional culture influences their individual self-perceptions and provides
evidence of the resilience of that culture. The newspaper journalists we spoke to remain
convinced that they have an important role to perform in Australian society, and know the
standards and values by which it can be done well.
Yet, this high degree of certainty about what journalists think they should be doing is
increasingly under assault as uncertainty intensifies as to whether newspaper companies will Figure 14: Key attributes
be able to support newsrooms with the staff, time and resources of online journalism
to do this kind of work in the future. There is, therefore, a
growing imperative to develop digital journalism standards if
journalists are to retain future control over news quality.
39
Journalism at the speed of bytes
Australian newspapers in the 21st century
40
Conclusion
Daily newspaper journalism in Australia is changing dramatically. This study is anything but a
lament for the demise of print media (“dead trees”), rather we set out to systematically examine
the implications of current economic and technological pressures for news delivery, newsroom
structures, workflows, editorial priorities, media standards, and interactions with readers. Our
underlying concern is how Australians will keep themselves informed or be able to participate
in democratic politics if there is a significant drop in the current supply of original news content
produced by professional journalists. That question takes on new urgency now that the next
phase of the commercialisation of news – paywalls – has started to be rolled out, heralding further
audience fragmentation, increased competition for audience attention, and new demands for
reader engagement. The results of our investigations, outlined above, combine to provide a rich
picture of an industry in rapid transition as well as insights into what newspaper journalists are
doing to renew their values and practices, and maintain the trust of the public, at this challenging
time. The views of newspaper journalists provide the key findings for this study. We draw on them Figure 15: What do we know
in this concluding discussion, which is arranged as a response to the research questions. about quality journalism?
What does the transition to digital journalism mean for news quality?
The jobs of professional journalists working in large newsrooms are at risk as the industry moves
to “digital-first” editorial models, print editions of major titles are being downgraded, news
production is outsourced, and staff are laid off (again). Employment in newspapers has become
more uncertain, less rewarding and more intense. Workloads have expanded as news delivery
platforms multiply. Three years ago, there was print and online; now there is print, online,
mobile phones and tablets.
As news moves into the next phase of commercialisation, the trend in freely available
multiplatform publishing is toward breaking and continually updating stories, as well as
re-versioning and recycling them across platforms and titles, while longer and more deeply
researched news stories will likely end up behind a paywall.
Experienced print journalists are learning audio/video production and other digital
journalism skills, either through employer provided on-the-job training or, more likely, through
individual initiative. They have to. Across the industry, the trend is toward hiring new staff with
digital media skills, to work on the digital platforms.
41
Journalism at the speed of bytes
Australian newspapers in the 21st century
42
References
Anderson, P. and Ward, G. 2007, The Future of Journalism in the Advanced Democracies, Aldershot, UK: Ashgate
Publishing.
Australian, 2012, Fairfax leads market drop, 16 February.
Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), 2011, Enduring Concepts: Communications and Media in
Australia, Available 30 June 2012 from <engage.acma.gov.au/enduring-concepts/>.
Barclays Bank, 2012, UK Media sector outlook, Available 12 July 2012 from <business.barclays.co.uk>.
Beam, R. and Meeks, L. 2011, So many stories, so little time: Economics, technology, and the changing
professional environment for news work, in W. Lowrey and P. J Gade, (Eds.), Changing the News: The Forces
Shaping Journalism in Uncertain Times, New York: Routledge
Crikey 2012, The quality journalism project, Available 20 July 2012 from < www.crikey.com.au/quality-in-
journalism/ >.
Deuze, M. 2008, Understanding journalism as newswork: How it changes, and how it remains the same,
Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, 5(2), 4-23.
Deuze, M. 2002, National news cultures: a comparison of Dutch, German, British, Australian and U.S. journalists,
Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 79(1), 134-149.
Este, Jonathan 2012, Figures and graphs for this report, Sydney: Walkley Foundation.
Federal Communications Commission USA 2011, Information Needs of Communities, Available 20 July 2012 from
<www.fcc.gov/info-needs-communities>.
Finkelstein, Hon. R. and Ricketson, M. 2012, Report of the Independent Inquiry into the Media and Media
Regulation, Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, Available 20 June 2012 from <www.dbcde.gov.au>.
Forde, S. 2005, The changing face of the Australian newsroom: Cultural and ethnic diversity among Sydney
journalists, Australian Journalism Review, 27(2), 119-134.
Garden, M. 2010, Are predictions of newspapers’ impending demise exaggerated?, Asia Pacific Media Educator, no.
20, 37-52.
Goldman Sachs, 2012, Media Sector Outlook 2012, 1 February, see < www.goldmansachs.com>.
Grueskin, B. Seave, A. and Graves, L. 2011, The Story So Far: What We Know About the Business of Digital Journalism,
New York: Columbia Journalism School.
Hanusch, F. 2008, Mapping Australian journalism culture: results from a survey of journalists’ role perceptions,
Australian Journalism Review, 30(2), 97-109.
Harding-Smith, R. 2012, Media Ownership and Regulation in Australia, Centre for Policy Development, Available
1 July 2012 from<cpd.org.au>.
Hartigan, J. 2010, Speech to News Awards, Available 23 July 2012, from <www.newsawards.com.au/>.
Henningham, J. 1998, Australian journalists, in D. Weaver (Ed.), The Global Journalist: News People Around the
World, Cresskill, N.J.: Hampton Press.
Henningham, J. and Delano, A. 1998, British journalists, in D. Weaver (Ed.), The Global Journalist: News People
Around the World, Cresskill, N.J.: Hampton Press.
Holgate, B. 2012, Newspapers at a crossroads, Australian Financial Review, 13 June.
Josephi, Beate 2011, Supporting democracy: How well do the Australian media perform? Nathan, Qld.; Griffith Centre
for Cultural Research, Griffith University.
Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance 2010, Life in the Clickstream II — The future of journalism, Media Alliance:
Redfern.
Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance 2008, Life in the Clickstream — The future of journalism, Media Alliance:
Redfern.
MediaPlanet, 2011, How The Advertiser revolutionised the newsroom, 25 February, Available 2 July 2012 from
<www.mediaplanet.org.au>.
Meyer, P. 1995, Learning to love lower profits, American Journalism Review, December
Meyer, P. and Kim, K-H. 2003, Quantifying newspaper quality: I know it when I see it, Paper presented to the
annual AEJMC conference, Available 13 July 2012 from <www.unc.edu/~pmeyer/Quality_Project/quantifying_
newspaper_quality.pdf>.
Morris, P. 1996, Newspapers and the new information media, Media International Australia, no. 79, 10-21.
Nguyen, A. 2008, Facing the ‘fabulous monster’: The traditional media’s fear-driven innovation culture in the
development of online news, Journalism Studies, 9(1), 91-104.
Newspaper Publishers’ Association (NPA) 2011, Submission to the Independent Media Inquiry, Available 20 June
2012 from <www.dbcde.gov.au>.
OECD, 2010, News in the Internet Age: New Trends in News Publishing, OECD Publishing, Available 15 October 2011
from <dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264088702-en>.
O’Donnell, P. 2009, That’s Gold! Thinking about excellence in Australian journalism, Australian Journalism Review,
31(2), 47-60.
Pew Research Centre’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2011, The State of the News Media, Available 2 June
2012 from <pewresearch.org/pubs/1924/state-of-the-news-media-2011>.
Pew Research Centre’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2012, State of the News Media, Available 3 June 2012
from <stateofthemedia.org/>.
Ricketson, M. 2012, Australian Journalism Today, South Yarra: Palgrave Macmillan.
Rosenstiel, T., Jurkowitz, M and Ji, H. 2012, How newspapers are faring trying to build digital revenue, Project for
Excellence in Journalism, Available 3 July 2012 from <www.journalism.org>.
Ruthven, P. 2012, A Snapshot of Australia’s Digital Future to 2050, IBM, Available 5 July 2012 from <ibm.com/ibm/
au/digitalfuture/index.html>.
Schudson, M. 2008, Why Democracies Need an Unlovable Press, Malden: Polity Press.
Schultz, J. 1998, Reviving the Fourth Estate, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Shoebridge, N. 2011, Newspapers aim to tell it straight, Australian Financial Review, 22 August.
Simons, Margaret 2011, Journalism at the Crossroads: Crisis and Opportunity for the Press, e-Book, Scribe Publications.
Singer, Jane B. 2011, Journalism and digital technologies”, in W. Lowrey and P. J Gade, (Eds.). Changing the News:
The Forces Shaping Journalism in Uncertain Times, New York: Routledge
Sweney, M. 2012, Mail Online editor says site will break even this year, The Guardian, April 20.
Tapsall, S. 2001, Technological talespinning: The media is the message, in S. Tapsall and C. Varley (Eds.),
Journalism: Theory in Practice, South Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
Tiffen, R. 2010, The press, in S. Cunningham and G Turner (Eds.), Media and Communications in Australia, 3rd
edition, Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin.
Weaver, D. (Ed.), 1998, The Global Journalist: News People Around the World, Cresskill, N.J.: Hampton Press.
43