tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/kim-williams-3310/articlesKim Williams – The Conversation2024-01-24T05:10:23Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2218472024-01-24T05:10:23Z2024-01-24T05:10:23ZAs new ABC chair, one of Kim Williams’ challenges will be to stiffen the organisation’s spine<p>Kim Williams takes over as chair of the ABC at a moment when its preparedness to protect its journalists and the organisation’s editorial independence from external attack is under serious question.</p>
<p>It was the issue that came to define the tenure of the outgoing chair, Ita Buttrose. She proved at crucial moments to be a strong defender of the ABC’s independence against sustained attacks on it by the government of Scott Morrison, who appointed her to the job as a “captain’s pick”.</p>
<p>Unlike Buttrose, Williams comes to the job at least as a result of due process. The government chose him from a shortlist of three prepared by an independent panel, the system set up by the Gillard government but routinely ignored by its Liberal-National successors.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/kim-williams-to-be-new-abc-chair-described-by-albanese-as-a-true-renaissance-man-221845">Kim Williams to be new ABC chair, described by Albanese as 'a true renaissance man'</a>
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<p>Williams’ history indicates he brings to the job a formidable intellect, a broad understanding of the media industry and a temperament that might be cautiously described as mercurial.</p>
<p>He also brings some baggage. In December 2011, he was appointed CEO of Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited, which was later rebadged News Corporation Australia.</p>
<p>After a turbulent 20 months, during which he tried to restructure the newspapers to make them more suited to the digital age and bring about complementary cultural change, he <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/aug/09/kim-williams-departure-victory-murdoch">fell victim</a> to the brutal internal politics of News Corp, where he was resented by the editors as an outsider, and resigned. </p>
<p>Although he was an outsider in the newspaper business, he was no stranger to the media industry more broadly. In his ten years as CEO of Foxtel between 2001 and 2011, he was credited with bringing the company back from its deathbed.</p>
<p>While he spent 18 years working for Murdoch – indulging the routine attacks News Corporation makes on the ABC – writing him off as a “Murdoch man” would not do justice to the breadth he brings to the position. </p>
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<p>He is a <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/kim-williams-former-news-corp-ceo-has-more-surprises-in-store-20140407-367kd.html">classically trained musician and composer</a>, a former general manager of Musica Viva, head of the Sydney Opera House Trust and CEO of the Australian Film Commission. </p>
<p>Here he ran into veteran broadcaster Phillip Adams, who has described him as “a maker and a destroyer”. “Even as a success, there is something tragic about him.” </p>
<p>At the same time, Adams recognised Williams’ intellectual ability and they formed a formidable alliance at the commission. Adams is one of the ABC’s most treasured broadcasters, having presented Late Night Live on Radio National for 33 years.</p>
<p>Williams also has executive experience at the ABC. In 1991 he was appointed to lead the ABC’s pay-television initiative, Australian Information Media (AIM). But suddenly, in the midst of negotiations with Foxtel over its becoming a carrier for AIM’s content, Williams announced he was resigning from AIM to become CEO of Murdoch’s Fox Studios.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/antoinette-lattouf-sacking-shows-how-the-abc-has-been-damaged-by-successive-coalition-governments-221578">Antoinette Lattouf sacking shows how the ABC has been damaged by successive Coalition governments</a>
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<p>Adams likened this to a rat leaving a sinking ship. An ABC board member at the time, Rod Cameron, described it as a disgrace.</p>
<p>Although described as charming, Williams <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/kim-williams-former-news-corp-ceo-has-more-surprises-in-store-20140407-367kd.html">is also reputed</a> to have a ferocious temper. A former News Corp executive is reported as saying:</p>
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<p>He internalises to the point where you think his whole head is going to explode. The pressure he brings himself under, let alone the target, is truly terrifying.</p>
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<p>Williams has also been widely criticised for lacking not just social skills but political skills. He made many enemies at News Corp but more importantly, in the context of his ABC appointment, his ability to get policy changes through the political process has been questioned.</p>
<p>The media analyst Margaret Simons <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/aug/09/kim-williams-departure-victory-murdoch">has noted</a> that while at Foxtel he failed to persuade governments of either side to liberalise the anti-siphoning laws, under which certain major sporting events may not be shown on pay TV until they have been shown on free to air. Getting more of these high-profile events for Foxtel was a key part of the business strategy to build the network.</p>
<p>She reports he also failed to advance media deregulation at the time the Gillard government commissioned the Convergence Review, which was about reviewing media policy in the light of digital technology. </p>
<p>This background suggests Williams’ tenure as chair of the ABC could be a mixture of dazzling successes and disastrous failures.</p>
<p>It may also be turbulent. The internal politics of the ABC are every bit as febrile as those of News Corp. Political adroitness will be essential not only in navigating those but in effectively representing the corporation in Canberra and fending off the depredations of politicians on both sides.</p>
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<p>Williams has made an encouraging start by saying in an ABC interview that he will treat staff concerns seriously.</p>
<p>But the ultimate test is whether he will be able to stiffen the corporation’s spine when it comes to defending its journalists and their journalism from external attack.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221847/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Denis Muller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>At a vulnerable time for the public broadcaster, Williams has made a promising start by saying management must take staff concerns seriously.Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/693972016-11-25T05:48:43Z2016-11-25T05:48:43ZChanges to Radio National are gutting a cultural treasure trove<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147528/original/image-20161125-15344-5knzuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The latest RN makeover is largely about talk – a cheap format that costs little to produce.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tracey Nearmy/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“RN is the home of big thinking, big ideas, and the national conversation,” <a href="https://radio.press.abc.net.au/ideas-network-rn-announces-2017-lineup">the statement </a>from ABC management said. It seems odd that, in pursuit of that notion, RN intends to halve the output of its documentary program, Earshot; cease almost all music broadcasting; abort its flagship sound art show, Soundproof, and a short-form storytelling show, PocketDocs; and dispense with the services of respected religious broadcaster John Cleary as well as seven music and features producers.</p>
<p>Cleary’s show, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/sundaynights/">Sunday Nights</a>, deals with “religion and ethics, beliefs and values, as they shape the issues affecting daily life in Australia and around the world”. Given how much religion has informed the geopolitical landscape since 9/11, it is extraordinary that the ABC would terminate a presenter who is not only manifestly expert in this sensitive area, but whose ratings are also remarkable. Often, they were within a few points of the popular host Tony Delroy, who until recently occupied the slot weeknights.</p>
<p>The new schedule continues the gradual undermining of the specialisation that has been crucial to RN’s output and success. RN producers are often noted experts or intellectuals in their field, with the added virtue of understanding the radio medium.</p>
<p>Their collective output is a cultural <a href="https://theconversation.com/radio-national-is-a-leader-in-cultural-radio-heres-why-26799">treasure trove</a>, which has been increasingly gutted – from the evisceration of radio drama and the loss of top-notch producers and shows in 2013 to the digital-driven remit of today. As Robyn Ravlich, an award-winning former RN producer who still freelances for the network, told me, the best public radio is about much more than talk:</p>
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<p>The value of radio features and other creative forms is long-lasting … and beneficial in that complex ideas and stories can be told in imaginative ways that engage listeners. They are a necessary adjunct to more topical talk programs, which lose currency and value very quickly.</p>
<p>RN should not just be a collection of programs with talking heads that report on what’s happening. Public service broadcasting has a special mandate to create radio that is artistic and in itself a contribution to culture.</p>
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<span class="caption">Kim Williams.</span>
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<p>But the latest RN makeover is largely about talk – a cheap format that costs little to produce. There’s What Keeps Me Awake, a talkfest with “high-profile Australians” to be hosted by former News Corp boss Kim Williams; Arts Weekly, “a snappy conversational podcast about the arts”, hosted by Cassie McCullagh. A weekly panel-based show, God Forbid, will discuss religious and ethical issues – but only for an hour, compared to Cleary’s four.</p>
<p>There are positive changes. An Indigenous Unit will be created, along with three junior producer positions. But while hiring young producers could be said to bring fresh ideas and approaches, seasoned staff see it more cynically, as a recruitment of cheap labour. </p>
<h2>A toxic atmosphere</h2>
<p>So toxic is the atmosphere at RN that none of the RN employees I spoke to for this article would be named. At the time of writing, a meeting of some 60 Sydney staff had passed a unanimous motion of <a href="https://www.radioinfo.com.au/news/abc-staff-pass-no-confidence-motion-management">no confidence</a> in RN management, complaining of a lack of consultation about the changes, an erosion of producer control over program content, an undermining of specialist content and a top-heavy management-to-producer ratio.</p>
<p>The changes were announced by Judith Whelan, RN’s new Head of Spoken Word Content – an appointment that senior staff found bizarre, given her lack of experience in audio (she is a former magazine and newspaper journalist and editor).</p>
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<span class="caption">There is tension within the network.</span>
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<p>Corporate-speak has crept into the creative realm, with one manager saying at a meeting this week that RN needed to deliver a “return on investment”. This is a departure from the loftier language of the ABC <a href="http://about.abc.net.au/how-the-abc-is-run/what-guides-us/legislative-framework/">Charter</a>, which describes “programs that contribute to a sense of national identity and inform and entertain, and reflect the cultural diversity of, the Australian community”. </p>
<p>Recent ABC audience <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/cm/lb/7890592/data/abc-ozpod-audience-research-data.pdf#View%20the%20full%20survey%20results%20and%20research.">research</a> into podcasts delineates listener demographics by age. Says one RN staffer: “That may work for selling shoes but it does not apply to purveying knowledge.” The push, the staffer says, is for content that is “young, sexy, funny or foodie”.</p>
<p>Much of the tension at RN derives from a division between the digital-first operations of the network (which make podcasts such as the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radio/firstrun/">First Run</a> series and ran a popular <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/ozpod/">OzPod</a> conference in September) and the longstanding “linear” RN producers, presenters and sound engineering staff. </p>
<p>The latter resent being portrayed as “fuddy-duddy, leftie conservatives, resistant to technical change”, as one put it, given that, since the days of the crystal set, radio has never been static – and RN has often been ahead of the curve.</p>
<p>While podcasting has enjoyed a <a href="https://theconversation.com/video-didnt-kill-the-radio-star-shes-hosting-a-podcast-59987">much-vaunted boom</a> since 2014, UK media scholar Kate Lacey has pointed out that “radio invented liveness, mass communication, participatory media and mobility”. But what’s old is new, and if <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/rn-podcasting/">podcasting</a> can help RN grow the “30+ digitally-savvy audiences” that, according to a recent memo, “the ABC is seeking to capture” (and garner the desired one in every two Australian listeners), it needs to be harnessed to the hilt. </p>
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<span class="caption">There will be new podcast-first offerings.</span>
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<p>As part of the changes, there will be new podcast-first offerings: The Edge, a science and health-themed show hosted by polymath broadcaster Natasha Mitchell; This is About – about “the beautiful, awkward and dismal stuff that actually happens to people” – and The Real Thing, a show about “real Australia”.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, an internal “RN Production House” will create audio-rich packages to mark significant events, embed content across the network and produce short-form and history-based work as podcasts.</p>
<h2>An international success story</h2>
<p>Nowhere does the ABC management press release say why there should be a “focus on key specialist talk content”, as opposed to, say, documentary.</p>
<p>RN’s expertise in documentaries and features is world-beating, as its swag of prestigious awards, from the Prix Italia to the New York Radio Festival, shows. This <a href="http://australianaudioguide.com/radio-is-dead-long-live-radio-documentaries-and-features/">decades-old tradition</a> has been continually eroded, with the earlier axing of lauded shows such as Radio Eye, The Listening Room, The Night Air, 360 Documentaries and <a href="https://theconversation.com/axing-hindsight-and-rear-vision-would-be-historically-shortsighted-32226">Hindsight</a>, RN’s history showcase. </p>
<p>Yet outside Australia, the perception of RN’s features’ success is very different. Former BBC producer and Prix Italia winner Alan Hall, who now runs an independent UK audio production company, says of the changes:</p>
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<p>It appears bizarre deliberately to diminish the ABC’s distinctiveness and quality – in the loss of PocketDocs, Soundproof and much more – at a time when the global nature of the audio landscape has seen a great movement of listeners … beyond national borders. The best Australian radio production speaks across the world.</p>
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<p>Prominent American audio figure Julie Shapiro founded Soundproof in 2014 and is now executive producer of <a href="https://www.radiotopia.fm">Radiotopia</a>, an independent podcast network in the US, which makes the kind of podcasts whose success RN’s First Run seeks to emulate. Writing of the changes in US public media outlet <a href="http://transom.org/2015/julie-shapiro/">Transom.org</a>, Shapiro said:</p>
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<p>The loss of Soundproof and what it stands for – honouring creativity and imagination, taking risks, and believing in the power and importance of art in our lives – is everyone’s loss.</p>
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<p>Earlier this week, Fairfax Media caused a kerfuffle by reporting that RN was expected to “cease to exist as an on-air transmission by the year 2020”. The story was quickly pulled. Soon after, the ABC issued a firm <a href="http://about.abc.net.au/statements/abc-statement-regarding-changes-to-rn-22-november-2016/">repudiation</a>. It said in part: </p>
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<p>There are categorically no plans to end linear broadcasting on RN. We expect it to be a full linear service well beyond 2020. </p>
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<p>Whelan emailed RN staff “to put to bed once and for all the false idea that RN is slated for a digital-only future”. The idea of a podcast-only RN disturbs many as it would mean less equitable access to its valuable content for those Australians without adequate internet or phone support. </p>
<p>There are other reasons why maintaining RN as an actual radio network is vital. The serendipity of hearing something you didn’t expect to come across, which happens when you switch on a radio but is less likely in a self-curated podcast ecology, is crucial if we are to counter the echo chambers that arguably contributed to the rise of demagogues such as Donald Trump. </p>
<p>Some experienced RN hands see the latest changes as being about something quite sinister – the eventual dismantling of RN. “Digital is only a smokescreen,” one told me. </p>
<p>Others see the promotion of conservative figures such as Kim Williams and Tom Switzer (who has links to the right-wing IPA think-tank) as ominous signs of a political agenda.</p>
<p>It has been rumoured for years that key shows Breakfast, Drive and investigative program Background Briefing might be transferred out of RN to the jurisdiction of News.</p>
<p>If that were to happen – and with production expertise asset-stripped, music performance culled and so many features and specialist programs gone or scattered incoherently in a podcast-first sphere – the undermining of the “big thinking” RN would be well on the way.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69397/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Siobhan McHugh receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She has produced many documentaries for ABC RN and continues to be associated with RN as a freelance producer. She has an association with Fairfax Media, as consulting producer on the podcast Phoebe's Fall.</span></em></p>Sweeping changes proposed at Radio National undermine the network’s specialist knowledge and documentary-making savvy. Yet amid the echo chambers of social media, we need RN more than ever.Siobhan McHugh, Senior Lecturer, Journalism, University of WollongongLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/191062013-10-14T02:45:26Z2013-10-14T02:45:26ZNewspapers are dying, but long live the news<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/32912/original/dp2v9tty-1381627354.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There may not be good news for the future of newspapers, but the future of journalism can be bright.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Alan Porritt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Former editorial director of News Corp in Queensland David Fagan expressed both optimism and realism about the future of journalism in Australia when he addressed an audience of academics at Queensland University of Technology last Thursday. </p>
<p>Like Kim Williams <a href="https://theconversation.com/former-news-corp-chief-plays-coy-on-election-coverage-18125">a few weeks before</a> - who gave his first public talk since <a href="https://theconversation.com/tomorrows-fish-n-chips-kim-williams-leaves-news-corp-16891">resigning as News Corp CEO</a> at QUT - Fagan was discreet regarding the circumstances of his departure from the company. He displayed notable stoicism about the brutal nature of the business in which he had worked for 30 years as a journalist, editor, editor-in-chief and editorial director. </p>
<p>At their best, the news media should be “disturbers of the peace”, Fagan said. But it was those very media which in recent times had seen their peace disturbed by the digital transformation of the journalism industry. He noted that around 2,000 journalists had lost their jobs in Australia in the last two years - many of them at News in Queensland - as the old business model of print journalism imploded. </p>
<p>Fagan showed us a copy of the Courier Mail’s classified weekend supplement of a few short years ago. It comprised some 150 pages, slapping with a satisfying thud on the floor as he let it fall. Now, he said, showing us a recent edition of the same supplement, there were 16 pages. The rest had gone to the internet. How could any business, he asked, sustain such a hit to its core revenue stream? </p>
<p>And as advertising migrated online, so had the readers, damaging the press’ other key income stream – circulation revenue. A vicious spiral downwards had set in. </p>
<p>The Australian press, Fagan conceded, had experienced this economic double whammy later and to a lesser extent than their counterparts in many countries, but were now catching up, as those 2000 job losses starkly indicated. Once secure media organisations, luxuriating in super profits from decades of secure advertising and circulation revenue, now had to adapt to the online world or die. Digital was not the future but the now, and denial of that reality was not an option. </p>
<p>None of this was new to the media analysts in the room, but Fagan’s impressions and insider anecdotes – we heard about the News Corp strategy conference in California, where hungover execs were addressed by Bill Clinton, Bono and other global thought leaders – conveyed in a more personal manner the pressures and challenges faced by change managers such as him. </p>
<p>When Fagan observed that he had spent most of his recent time at News Corp dealing with personnel and human resource matters, one sensed that here was a man who genuinely loved print journalism, and who found managing its decline hard to bear.</p>
<p>But Fagan was optimistic too. If print was dying - and it is by now hard to dispute that trend – news and journalism were in an expansionary mode. If the internet was closing down one model of news provision, it was opening up many more. The future for journalism - and journalists - is bright, if the right strategies and decisions are taken now.</p>
<p>Fagan suggested that for organisations and individual journalists alike, the key to survival in the emerging digital landscape was enhancement of the brand. And indeed, this is what we see happening. All over the world - and in Australia no less - those print mastheads which have transferred most successfully to the internet are those which signify quality and distinction of one kind or another. </p>
<p>The Daily Mail and The Guardian, right and left-of-centre pillars of UK print media for decades, are <a href="http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/nrs-guardian-co-uk-is-uk-s-top-monthly-news-site/s2/a553108/">among the world’s most successful online presences</a>. They have become global signifiers of journalistic excellence. News Corp’s own Wall Street Journal has exploited a similar brand profile, joining the Financial Times as a global online leader in financial journalism. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/32913/original/pztrcq83-1381628004.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/32913/original/pztrcq83-1381628004.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32913/original/pztrcq83-1381628004.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32913/original/pztrcq83-1381628004.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32913/original/pztrcq83-1381628004.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32913/original/pztrcq83-1381628004.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32913/original/pztrcq83-1381628004.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal has built a large (and successful) online presence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Justin Lane</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Journalists in the digital era must also play to their uniqueness and individuality as creators of content which will attract multitudes of choice-rich users. More than ever, the journalist becomes a brand, competing not just with a hundred others in the local print sector, but thousands and millions of others online, all of whom now have access to a global internet audience. </p>
<p>When asked by one member of the audience what the implications of digital transformation were for journalism education at universities such as QUT, Fagan stressed the growing importance of entrepreneurial and business management skills. He also reiterated the value of core generic journalism skills such as the ability to write well. Good writing, he observed, was transferable across all media platforms, including the internet.</p>
<p>As a journalism professor I find myself in agreement with that analysis. Journalism is not heading for extinction, but is evolving its modes of production and consumption. The capacity to adapt to the digital environment will be crucial to the survival of both individual journalists and news media organisations, but the rewards for those who succeed in that process will be considerable. </p>
<p>Newspapers may be dying out, but journalism becomes ever more central to the everyday lives of billions, striving as they do to make sense of a world constantly growing in complexity. Our job as journalism educators is to give young people the tools and motivations to rise to that challenge.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/19106/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian McNair does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Former editorial director of News Corp in Queensland David Fagan expressed both optimism and realism about the future of journalism in Australia when he addressed an audience of academics at Queensland…Brian McNair, Professor of Journalism, Media and Communication, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/181252013-09-11T20:47:39Z2013-09-11T20:47:39ZFormer News Corp chief plays coy on election coverage<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/31184/original/7bbdzhyw-1378898060.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former News Corp Australia chief executive Kim Williams speaking with journalist Kerry O'Brien at a QUT business leaders' forum.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kim Stephens/Brisbane Times</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In his first major speech since <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-09/kim-williams-resigns-news-corp/4875670">his sudden resignation</a> last month as News Corp Australia’s chief executive, Kim Williams had the packed Grand Ballroom at Brisbane’s Hilton hotel abuzz with speculation. </p>
<p>What might he reveal about Rupert Murdoch and News Corp’s internal politics? And what would he say about the News papers’ <a href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/consign-rudd-to-the-bin-of-history/story-fni0cwl5-1226691046953">“Kick this mob out”</a> election coverage?</p>
<p>As The Australian Financial Review’s Brisbane bureau chief Mark Ludlow <a href="https://twitter.com/M_Ludlow/status/377619628006309888">tweeted</a>, “Former News Corp boss Kim Williams about to speak at QUT Biz Leaders Forum, partly sponsored by Courier Mail. Awkward.”</p>
<p>Queensland University of Technology invited Williams to speak at its prestigious <a href="http://www.qut.edu.au/business/about/events/qut-business-leaders-forum">Business Leaders Forum</a> some time ago, before his resignation. The lunchtime events are intended to celebrate exceptional leadership and achievement in business, and Williams was an obvious choice, given his experience up to and including News Corp.</p>
<p>Until the fateful day, that is, only days after the federal election had been called, when <a href="https://theconversation.com/news-is-the-story-as-boss-kim-williams-resigns-16889">Williams walked away from the Murdoch empire</a>.</p>
<p>As many media observers wrote at the time, that decision was not only connected to <a href="http://www.afr.com/p/national/allan_puts_punch_back_into_news_hHeGfA2cYTy02WpFU7AUjJ">personality and power clashes within News Corp</a>, but also possibly linked to the increasingly shrill anti-ALP tone of its newspapers in particular. This was widely believed to be the result of the <a href="http://inside.org.au/col-allan-murdochs-100-million-man/">return to Australia of Col Allan</a>, Rupert’s bulldog in charge of whipping the troops into shape for a Coalition victory.</p>
<p>On the day of the resignation, both Murdoch and Williams <a href="http://mumbrella.com.au/kim-williams-resigns-171875">restricted their public statements</a> to protestations of mutual admiration and respect, and the story soon faded from view as the election campaign gathered steam. Those of us on the guest list for his Brisbane speech did wonder, though, if the lunch would go ahead. </p>
<p>Well, Williams did come to Brisbane yesterday, and he did talk about News Corp’s election coverage. (<a href="http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/former-news-boss-defends-election-coverage-20130911-2tk6e.html">You can watch some of the highlights here</a>, in which Williams also discusses “grin-f***ing”, Australia as “the land of the glass jaw”, and his opinion of Rupert Murdoch.)</p>
<p>Asked by <a href="http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/18880167/election-coverage-wont-hit-news-williams/">an AAP reporter</a> whether he thought News Corp had damaged its brand by running so hard against Labor, Williams replied “I saw nothing in the last election that was [brand damaging]”. He added:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Campaigning journalism in elections has been a periodic and regular phenomenon in Australian media, particularly in print media, and I see nothing in the last election that was… I mean there may have been a greater degree of energy in that campaign, but whatever commercial rewards that will be harvested from that will be through the response of consumers and their products or not.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In other words - and as he had argued earlier in his official speech - “consumers are now in charge”. If they don’t like News Corp’s coverage, they can vote with their eyes and wallets and go elsewhere.</p>
<p>Interestingly, however, when gently prodded by moderator and <em>Four Corners</em> host Kerry O’Brien on “how did you personally feel” while reading The Daily Telegraph and The Australian each day through the campaign, Williams became less forthcoming.</p>
<p>“As a personal matter, I’ll probably keep it in the personal inbox,” Williams replied, to laughter from the crowd.</p>
<p>“I think you’ve answered the question,” O'Brien said. “I think if you had felt comfortable entirely you probably would have said something.” Williams simply smiled.</p>
<p>Elsewhere in his Q&A session with O’Brien, Williams spoke highly of Rupert Murdoch, describing him as more complex than the caricature many people saw; “at his best he is tremendously insightful and a remarkable human being”.</p>
<p>Williams again attacked the Gillard government and then Communications Minister Stephen Conroy’s unsuccessful attempt to regulate the news media. And he connected that failed move with a broader denunciation of Australia’s regulatory culture, which he argued “is verging on out of control” and out of synch with an increasingly engaged public, armed with a universe of information and communication tools through the internet.</p>
<p>In a well-received and <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FVJZhxZ_QO7xrNeWn_-Oflw2mu-MT6BZ1SRG1Kx9A-A/edit?usp=sharing">wide-ranging address</a>, Williams spoke of the discipline he learnt through music and his work in the arts; how Australians don’t give or take criticism well (“I think it is a real national limitation”); and his optimism that big data could be “a force for good”.</p>
<p>He also confessed to being a recent convert to Twitter. Having told 7.30 presenter Leigh Sales he thought Twitter was “rubbish”, he said she had put him straight and that he is now a keen reader of tweets. (But before you start following @KimWilliams, it’s being used as a spam account; Williams doesn’t have a public profile yet.)</p>
<p>And he observed how some Australian commercial radio hosts – no names were mentioned, <a href="http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity/why-alan-jones-should-be-scared-of-what-happened-to-vile-kyle/story-e6frfmqi-1226487273417">none were required</a> – had been called to account by their listeners using social media. To paraphrase him, people are no longer prepared to be condescended to or treated like passive subjects of top-down authority – a lesson not just for the media, he argued, but for all institutions, public and private.</p>
<p>These are important observations, coming as they do from the man responsible for the restructuring of News in recent years. One hopes that future News Corp managers will share Williams’ pragmatism. </p>
<p>As for dishing the dirt on News Corp and what lay behind his sudden resignation - well, we’ll have to wait for the memoir.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/18125/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian McNair receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>In his first major speech since his sudden resignation last month as News Corp Australia’s chief executive, Kim Williams had the packed Grand Ballroom at Brisbane’s Hilton hotel abuzz with speculation…Brian McNair, Professor of Journalism, Media and Communication, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/168912013-08-09T06:31:54Z2013-08-09T06:31:54ZTomorrow’s fish n’ chips: Kim Williams leaves News Corp<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/28970/original/xx52bq99-1376029684.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kim Williams' departure from News Corp can be seen through the prism of him having 'failed to civilise' the media giant.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Tracey Nearmy</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Poor old Kim Williams. It was like putting celebrity chef Gabriel Gaté in charge of the abattoir. Red in tooth and claw is the News Corp style, especially during election campaigns, and now in the midst of its extraordinarily visceral anti-Labor campaign, he is gone.</p>
<p>It is unlikely to make any difference to how the News Corp newspapers – the tabloids in particular – cover the campaign. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/05/daily-telegraph-election-australia">“Kick this mob out”</a> was page 1 of the Sydney’s Daily Telegraph on the first day of the campaign; <a href="http://couriermail.newspaperdirect.com/epaper/viewer.aspx?key=r00332eqol&targe">“Send in the clown”</a> was how page 1 of how Brisbane’s Courier-Mail reported Peter Beattie’s recruitment as a Labor candidate on August 9: it is not as though the allegedly civilising influence of Williams was having any visible effect.</p>
<p>Col Allan, the Murdoch man from New York, will get the job done for Rupert. And the job at hand is to defeat Labor at the election. Allan is a man who knows the culture – we are not talking Musica Viva here – and so does the new CEO, Julian Clarke. At least the News Corp Australia <a href="http://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20130809/pdf/42hkwtvqbcb6tz.pdf">media release</a> announcing his appointment said he did, with just the faintest sigh of relief.</p>
<p>The relevant paragraph reads:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>News Corp executive chairman Rupert Murdoch said, “I am so pleased to have Julian taking the helm at News Corp Australia. He is an experienced executive with a unique understanding of our company’s culture, and the immense energy and clarity of vision necessary to drive our properties forward at this challenging time.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Note the word “properties”. In any discussion about the Murdoch press’ coverage of the election, it is a word not to lose sight of. The newspapers are Rupert’s property, just as the Fairfax newspapers are the property of that company’s shareholders, and all other media outlets in Australia, except the ABC and SBS, are someone’s property.</p>
<p>How they use them is simply a matter of property rights. Isn’t it? Well, no. C. P. Scott, the towering editor of the Manchester Guardian, <a href="http://www.rjionline.org/MAS-Reference-CPScott">put it this way</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A newspaper has two sides to it. It is a business like any other, and has to pay in the material sense in order to live. But it is much more than a business. It is an institution…it is in its way an instrument of government. It has, therefore, a moral as well as a material existence.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is in recognition of this institutional role – this moral existence - that democratic societies confer on the media certain privileges, including legal privileges. In return, society expects newspapers to perform a few core functions, one of which is to provide reliable information on which people can base their choices at election time. It is an implicit compact between newspapers and society.</p>
<p>It has been recognised since at least the middle of the twentieth century that an essential part of meeting these obligations has been to separate news from comment. While the line has never been clear cut, it has long been considered correct ethical practice to strive for impartiality in news coverage, and reserve prejudices and preferences for the comment pages.</p>
<p>By contrast with this, the Murdoch tabloids’ coverage of the election so far is terribly nineteenth century: highly partisan, with comment woven into the fabric of news coverage. They don’t even pretend to be impartial, which is honest in its own way, but it robs their readers of that bedrock of reliable information, the provision of which has so long been considered a central function of the press – and a responsibility to be shouldered in return for those privileges.</p>
<p>The Australian Press Council is careful in its <a href="http://www.presscouncil.org.au/statements-of-principles/">Statement of Principles</a> not to trespass on the property rights of the newspaper proprietors or to be too prescriptive about this question of separating news from comment. Principle Six is headed “Transparent and fair presentation”. The relevant sentence says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Publications are free to advocate their own views and publish the bylined opinions of others, as long as readers can recognise what is fact and what is opinion.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The difficulty with the Murdoch tabloids’ approach is that it is impossible to be sure whether their readers are able to untangle the facts from the opinion. And the facts are reported in such a partisan way that it might not make much difference to their understanding even if they could.</p>
<p>No-one denies that Murdoch is entitled by property rights to run his papers like this, but it means he is not keeping his side of the implicit compact that newspapers have with the society they are meant to serve.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/16891/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Denis Muller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Poor old Kim Williams. It was like putting celebrity chef Gabriel Gaté in charge of the abattoir. Red in tooth and claw is the News Corp style, especially during election campaigns, and now in the midst…Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/168892013-08-09T04:51:07Z2013-08-09T04:51:07ZNews is the story as boss Kim Williams resigns<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/28959/original/pscvmhs3-1376022443.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The resignation of News Corp Australia CEO Kim Williams comes at the end of week where the company's tabloids were criticised for 'biased' election coverage.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The first week of what is shaping up to be a great election campaign ended as it began – with the media at the forefront of the agenda. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp Australia has been firmly in focus all week, and the media company this morning <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/business/media-and-marketing/kim-williams-quits-news-corp-20130809-2rlny.html">announced the departure</a> of its chief executive, Kim Williams.</p>
<p>The last time Rupert Murdoch lost a CEO in such a dramatic manner was when his son James resigned from <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/feb/29/james-murdoch-resigns-news-international-chairman">his UK job</a> as chairman of News International, forced out by the fallout from the <a href="https://theconversation.com/news-of-the-world-scandal-reverberates-beyond-the-murdoch-empire-2256">phone hacking scandal</a> and the very real possibility that he could face prosecution in Britain and the US for corporate bribery of public officials and other offences. James Murdoch’s resignation was a sacrifice to the cause of damage limitation in the hugely important US market, as was the closure of the News of the World, where the scandal began.</p>
<p>Kim Williams’ resignation has very different roots, of course, but confirms the depth of the management dysfunction now afflicting the Murdoch empire. At the end of a week in which News has been <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-outcry-over-that-front-page-decline-of-objectivity-or-a-way-to-get-media-coverage-16773">heavily criticised</a> for its brazenly biased coverage of the election, the CEO of the company resigns. This in the wake of the arrival of <a href="http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/07/26/news-corp-veteran-col-allan-returns-to-oz-to-advise-kim-williams/">hardman Col Allan</a> to provide “additional editorial direction” – News-speak for ensuring that the boss’ desires be implemented fully.</p>
<p>Not that Williams was a pussycat in management terms. According to one report today there was a “good Kim and a bad Kim”; he is a man with a “volcanic temper”; a “genius” but a “complicated” character. But he was not the typical News manager, being something of an intellectual, and not especially comfortable with the idea of fronting the corporate vehicle for a propaganda campaign against the ALP. The arrival of Col Allan to whip him into line seems to have been the trigger for today’s announcement, which comes at the worst possible moment for the company.</p>
<p>This display of executive disunity, at the outset of a campaign in which News titles have already been placed under scrutiny for their ideologically committed approach, draws more attention to their motives and agendas. If a seasoned manager like Williams can’t stand the heat, what on earth must the rest of the staff be thinking right now - those, that is, who don’t willingly buy into the “Rudd bad/Abbott good” frame being pursued by News?</p>
<p>Williams was someone who, while addressing quite ruthlessly the need for digital transformation of News’ business, also wished to keep the Australian branch free of the taint of the UK phone-hacking scandal. He sought to address the perception in Australia that News had become simply a Murdoch family mouthpiece, and to stress the importance he placed on quality journalism. He <a href="http://www.news.com.au/national-news/news-ltd-boss-kim-williams-blasts-media-reforms/story-fncynjr2-1226596529410">condemned</a> former communications minister Stephen Conroy’s proposals for reform of Australian press journalism after the Finkelstein review (as did many of us not in receipt of the Murdoch dollar), but he also gave the impression of understanding where the pressure for reform was coming from. </p>
<p>Williams’ management style and editorial approach were not those of a Col Allan, or Williams’ predecessor John Hartigan, or former editor of The Sun Kelvin MacKenzie in the UK, by which I mean unapologetically confrontational, populist and loyal to the boss. With Allan’s high profile and humiliating arrival, Williams appears to have decided that he was fatally compromised at News Corp Australia.</p>
<p>So this is an extraordinary end to an extraordinary week, in which issues of media bias and tone – and the relationship between media, democracy and power - have been consistently at the top of the news and campaign agendas.</p>
<p>As a longstanding observer of the UK scene where, until the phone hacking scandal broke, News got away with the most outrageous political coverage for decades - challenged only by the left and some in the academic world - I think this is a good way to start an election campaign.</p>
<p>There has been a lot of debate this week about how important News’ ferocious coverage of the ALP will be in shaping the election outcome, and how important mainstream media are in the digital news environment. What we can say with some confidence is that the capacity of any media organisation to influence public opinion is inversely proportional to the degree of scrutiny and transparency which surrounds its activities. </p>
<p>For the moment at least, News is the story of the campaign, and not in a good way. Nothing it prints, posts or broadcasts about the competing programs on offer in 2013 can be read free of the highly illuminating context this week’s events have provided.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/16889/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian McNair receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>The first week of what is shaping up to be a great election campaign ended as it began – with the media at the forefront of the agenda. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp Australia has been firmly in focus all…Brian McNair, Professor of Journalism, Media and Communication, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/79782012-06-29T00:56:59Z2012-06-29T00:56:59ZNews Corporation is breaking itself up. Why?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/12369/original/n8bmrc5y-1340928431.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">News Corporation will split its publishing assets from its entertainment arm - with the exception of its Australian operations.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>News Corporation is breaking up. The process will take about 12 months and is subject to shareholder approval. The de-merger will separate News Corporation’s publishing assets from its media and entertainment assets. It is not an even split. The entertainment division will have about <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/business/world-business/news-corp-board-approves-split-wsj-20120628-21406.html">ten times the revenue</a> of the publishing company and more than ten times the value.</p>
<p>The key question to ask about the News Corporation de-merger is: why?</p>
<p>Often, a corporate break-up is a sign that things are going badly within the company. The break-up may be driven by a perception that one poorly performing division is dragging the rest of the company down. The obvious answer is to sell the poorly performing division – as long as someone can be found to buy it. If no buyer can be found, then a de-merger is the alternative.</p>
<p>The News Corporation <a href="http://www.newscorp.com/news/news_535.html">press release</a> suggests that this is the reason for the de-merger. The aim is to “enhance strategic alignment and increase operational flexibility”. This is business-speak for “cutting off an infected limb before it kills us all”.</p>
<p>This “separate out the poor performers” reason has some merit. News Corporation’s share market performance has been weak in recent years, but it is not alone. Its share price fell sharply during the global financial crisis. However, its recent pre-speculation share price of $US20 is not far off its 2007 highs of $US24 and a long way from its price of around $US6 in 2009. However, the publishing part of News Corporation has faced a significant drop in advertising revenue and faces harsh competition from internet-based media. The newspapers are trying to reinvent themselves behind electronic pay walls but it is unclear if this will be successful. So the de-merger might be News Corporation’s way of separating out its newspapers so they can have a quiet and peaceful death.</p>
<p>If this is the strategy, what are we to make of recent moves by News Limited, News Corporation’s Australian arm, to bring its publishing and media assets closer together? News Limited appears to be following the exact opposite strategy to News Corporation. News Limited will be kept as a single entity but as part of the “publishing company” despite its Foxtel media assets being aligned with the “media and entertainment” company. </p>
<p>Keeping News Limited together should make its CEO, Kim Williams, happy. However, it should also make him nervous. The Australian assets will provide about <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/media/local-news-assets-to-stay-together-as-directors-approve-historic-split-of-the-global-media-giant/story-e6frg996-1226411572734">25% of the revenue</a> for the new publishing business, with the UK providing another 25% and the remainder from the US assets. So News Limited will be an integrated media business that is part of a global newspaper business and it will not be calling the shots.</p>
<p>The different strategies – integration for News Limited and separation for News Corporation – raise a second question. Who is right, Murdoch or Williams? Personally, I put my money on Williams. At a time when the divisions between video, entertainment, movies, and publishing are being blurred by digital communications and the internet, it seems odd that News Corporation is dividing itself along traditional lines. If the benefits from integration are increasing why would News Corporation choose separation?</p>
<p>Perhaps there is another answer. There has been speculation that the de-merger is an attempt to distance the majority of News Corporation from the UK phone-hacking scandal. If this is the case, then the cure appears worse than the disease. The publications division will include some of the world’s best-known newspapers, such as the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal. If the UK newspapers are so tainted that they need to be separated from the rest of the company, then a sale would have been appropriate. In this case, the de-merger may signal two things. First, the damage to the UK newspapers may be so bad that no buyer is likely to be found, leaving de-merger as the only alternative. Or, News Corporation expects the scandal to widen to its US newspapers and it is divesting them before the scandal grows. Either of these conclusions is bad news for the Australian part of the company that will be tied to these overseas newspapers.</p>
<p>In my opinion, however, the most likely reason for the de-merger is much simpler. News, entertainment, publishing, movies, and pay-TV are all going through a technological revolution. Nobody is quite sure which way to jump or what the industry will look like in 10 or 15 years. Corporate leaders are making their bets. After the disastrous bet on MySpace (bought for $580m and sold for $35m five years later) the de-merger is simply News Corporation’s latest attempt to try and work out how to survive. </p>
<p>It may or may not work, but the break-up is probably driven by fear and uncertainty. It has tied News Limited, which is betting on integration, into the exact opposite strategy at a global level. Murdoch has made a gamble one way. Williams has taken the opposite bet. Only time will tell if either is correct.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/7978/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen King does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>News Corporation is breaking up. The process will take about 12 months and is subject to shareholder approval. The de-merger will separate News Corporation’s publishing assets from its media and entertainment…Stephen King, Professor, Department of Economics, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.