Philip Meyer, author of the influential book, “The Vanishing Newspaper: Saving Journalism in the Information Age“, tries to predict a media future:
A smaller, less frequently published version packed with analysis and investigative reporting and aimed at well-educated news junkies that may well be a smart survival strategy for the beleaguered old print product.
What this does for the less educated and less media-savvy in society is anybody’s guess. Should only the elite get access to vital information? The future of public broadcasting must be strong.
“A smaller, less frequently published version packed with analysis and investigative reporting and aimed at well-educated news junkies that may well be a smart survival strategy for the beleaguered old print product.”
Seems to be a good description of the old National Times.
Problem is, the NT never made money even in the heyday of Aus investigative journalism. Bigger problem was that the corporate interests the NT often investigated exerted considerable influence over the distribution network. Consequently, you could often not find a newsagent with ‘available’ copies of the NT even on the afternoon of the day it came out (Thursdays from memory). This problem became particularly acute after the NT leaked the Costigan Royal Commission findings about a ‘goanna’ named Kerry Packer.
Can’t imagine what sort of business model would sustain the sort of paper Meyer describes. If it relied too heavily on advertising it would ultimately go the same way as the rest of the corporate media. If its news-stand price was able to cover investigative reporting expenses it would put itself beyond the reach of most of its potential audience (at least in Aus, the economies of scale in the US market might help a bit).
At last month’s George Munster Forum, Gerard Ryle came up with some models that, in my view, pretty much equated to destroying investigative journalism in order to save it.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bigideas/stories/2008/2372954.htm
Ryle’s suggestions mostly hinged around the notion of heavy subsidies from philanthropic donors. He even went so far as to note that short selling against companies which are about to be exposed might be used to fund investigations. Its pretty obvious to me that investigative journalism funded in such a manner would lack a vital ingredient. Credibility.
In fact it seems to me that we already have a loss making national broadsheet that does some pretty good quality investigative journalism that is funded by that great philanthropist, Rupert Murdoch. The price, of course, is the naked propaganda that fills out the bulk of The Australian and seriously undermines the reputation of the better quality journalism that fills the spaces between it. And if one of Murdoch’s financial interests needs investigation …
I reckon print and broadcast journalism in Aus is cactus.
It will increasingly be abandoned by those after real news, who will look to more credible sources on the internet, both from relatively mainstream media in bigger and more sustainable overseas markets and from driven individuals such as whistleblowers and obsessives who will track down and report the stories they’re focused on regardless of whether there is a penny to be made in it.
Print and broadcast will increasingly be the media of consumer and corporate propaganda. Its customers will be the people who want to know the appropriate topics and opinions to discuss around the water cooler at work if they want to fit in and avoid being labeled a crank. Sports, celebrities, movies and TV programs, new consumer products, the latest moral panic, hand fed spin from the authorities, formulaic analysis from anointed ‘public intellectuals’ … You know, the same sort of thing that already makes up the overwhelming bulk of what passes for ‘journalism’ in Aus today.