tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/print-media-3229/articlesPrint media – The Conversation2024-01-09T19:16:49Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2173712024-01-09T19:16:49Z2024-01-09T19:16:49ZMagazines were supposed to die in the digital age. Why haven’t they?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565041/original/file-20231212-23-u1vhzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4031%2C3024&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/melbourneaustralia-30th-june-2019-australian-magazine-1439740124">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the classic comedy Ghostbusters (1984), newly hired secretary Janice raises the subject of reading, while idly flipping through the pages of a magazine. The scientist Egon Spengler responds with a brusque dismissal: “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3v_ogRaTf4">print is dead</a>.”</p>
<p>Egon’s words now seem prescient. The prevailing assumption of the past couple of decades is that print media is being slowly throttled by the rise of digital. Print magazines, in particular, are often perceived as being under threat. </p>
<p>While not nearly as popular as they once were, magazines haven’t died. New ones have started since the dire predictions began, while others continue to attract loyal readerships.</p>
<p>So what’s the enduring appeal of the print magazine? Why didn’t it die, as so many predicted?</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/substack-newsletters-are-a-literary-trend-whats-the-appeal-and-what-should-you-read-211429">Substack newsletters are a literary trend. What's the appeal – and what should you read?</a>
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<h2>Printed words in an online world</h2>
<p>The word “magazine” derives from the <a href="https://www.etymonline.com/word/magazine">term for a warehouse or storehouse</a>. In its essence, it is any publication that collects different types of writing for readers. Each instalment includes a range of voices, subjects and perspectives. </p>
<p>Print magazine culture has certainly seen a decline since its heyday in the 20th century. Once-popular print magazines have moved <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/garyphillips/2019/04/30/espn-saying-goodbye-to-its-print-magazine/?sh=5dde00c2167c">entirely online</a> or are largely sustained by <a href="https://pressgazette.co.uk/media-audience-and-business-data/media_metrics/womens-interest-magazines-abcs-2022/">growing digital subscriptions</a>. </p>
<p>Elsewhere, internet media sites, of the type pioneered by <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/au">Buzzfeed</a> and its imitators, increasingly fulfil the need for diverse and distracting short-form writing. </p>
<p>The explosion of social media has also cut into the advertising market on which print magazines have traditionally depended. </p>
<p>Online audiences have come to expect new content daily or even hourly. Casual readers are less willing to wait for a weekly or monthly print magazine to arrive in the post or on a newsstand. The ready availability of free, or significantly cheaper, digital content may deter them from purchasing print subscriptions or individual issues. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565365/original/file-20231212-15-90alox.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A pile of Vogue magazines on top of each other." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565365/original/file-20231212-15-90alox.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565365/original/file-20231212-15-90alox.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565365/original/file-20231212-15-90alox.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565365/original/file-20231212-15-90alox.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565365/original/file-20231212-15-90alox.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565365/original/file-20231212-15-90alox.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565365/original/file-20231212-15-90alox.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Global fashion magazine Vogue has maintained a loyal readership, both in print and online.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/lodz-poland-april-18-2020-stack-1707148741">Grzegorz Czapski/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<h2>Turning from screens to the page</h2>
<p>And yet print magazines refuse to die. Established periodicals, such as <a href="https://www.newyorker.com">the New Yorker</a> and <a href="https://www.vogue.com.au">Vogue</a>, stubbornly cling to a global readership in both print and digital formats. </p>
<p>New titles are emerging as well – 2021 saw the launch of <a href="https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/369821/magazine-analyst-new-print-magazine-launches-more.html?edition=124786">122 new print magazines</a> in the United States alone. The number is smaller than some previous years, and this perhaps reflects the generally shrinking market for print media. </p>
<p>But given the accepted wisdom, it is remarkable there are any new periodicals at all.</p>
<p>In Australia, print magazines sales have <a href="https://www.afr.com/companies/media-and-marketing/physical-magazines-are-making-a-comeback-with-or-without-readers-20230818-p5dxo4">risen 4.1% in 2023</a> and previously axed publications – such as Girlfriend – are now receiving one-off, nostalgic <a href="https://www.beautydirectory.com.au/news/news/girlfriend-magazine-returns-for-a-special-one-off-print-edition">returns to print</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/equal-social-rights-for-sexes-in-the-1930s-the-australian-womens-weekly-was-a-political-forum-212770">'Equal Social Rights For SEXES': in the 1930s, the Australian Women's Weekly was a political forum</a>
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<p>The market for print magazines isn’t exactly thriving. But they haven’t vanished as quickly as anticipated. </p>
<p>Some commentators have attributed the enduring appeal of print magazines to the physical experience of reading. We absorb information differently from the page than from the screen, perhaps in a less frantic and distractable way.</p>
<p>“<a href="https://fortune.com/2023/05/25/tech-giants-have-gutted-publishing-now-digital-fatigue-is-giving-print-a-new-lease-on-life/">Digital fatigue</a>” from the years of the pandemic has arguably resulted in a small pivot back to print media. The revived interest in print magazines has also been attributed to the <a href="https://www.afr.com/companies/media-and-marketing/physical-magazines-are-making-a-comeback-with-or-without-readers-20230818-p5dxo4">“analog” preferences</a> of Gen Z readers. </p>
<p>As the writer <a href="https://catapult.co/dont-write-alone/stories/in-a-digital-age-why-still-read-print-magazines-hope-corrigan">Hope Corrigan has noted</a>, there is also something appealing about the aesthetics of print magazines. The care taken with layout, images and copy can’t always be replicated on as screen. Indeed, magazines with a significant focus on photography and visual design – such as fashion and travel magazines – are enduring in print. </p>
<p>Magazine expert Samir Husni <a href="https://www.fipp.com/news/why-it-might-be-time-to-think-again-about-print-mr-magazine-samir-husni-on-the-formats-remarkable-resilience">has observed</a> that emerging independent print magazines are more focused on targeting a niche readership. Advances in printing technology have made smaller print runs more cost-effective. This allows new magazines to focus on quality over quantity. </p>
<p>The new wave of print magazines tend to have a higher cover price and standard of production. They are also published less frequently, with quarterly or biannual schedules becoming <a href="https://www.sappipapers.com/insights/print-media/launches-print-magazines-2022">more common</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-magazine-that-inspired-rolling-stone-86910">The magazine that inspired Rolling Stone</a>
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<h2>What was old is cool again?</h2>
<p>This trend moves away from the idea of magazines as cheap and disposable. Rather, it reframes them as a luxury product. </p>
<p>Print magazines cannot compete with digital media in providing constantly up-to-date content to a mass audience. But they can potentially maintain a dedicated readership with a meaningful and aesthetically pleasing publication. </p>
<p>This means print magazines may be spared some of the turbulence suffered by media websites that are solely dependent on digital advertising revenue. The past few years have seen staffing upheavals, mass resignations and shutdowns at popular magazine-style websites such as <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/11/01/775548069/after-days-of-resignations-the-last-of-the-deadspin-staff-have-quit#:%7E:text=After%20Days%20Of%20Resignations%2C%20The%20Last%20Of%20The%20Deadspin%20Staff%20Has%20Quit&text=via%20Getty%20Images-,The%20entire%20writing%20and%20editing%20staff%20of%20Deadspin%20quit%20after,to%20%22stick%20to%20sports.%22">Deadspin</a>, the <a href="https://www.pajiba.com/miscellaneous/the-gutting-of-the-av-club-is-an-embarrassment-to-the-industry-and-a-horrible-sign-of-its-future.php">Onion AV Club</a>, the <a href="https://wolfsgamingblog.com/2023/11/07/the-escapist-looks-doomed-following-mass-staff-exodus-including-yahtzee-crowshaw-creator-of-zero-punctuation/#:%7E:text=Escapist%20staff%20members%20Darren%20Mooney,video%20team%20in%20the%20process.">Escapist</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/nov/09/jezebel-news-shut-down-layoffs-go-media">Jezebel</a> (although the latter has since <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/business/media/jezebel-resurrected-paste-magazine.html">returned</a>). The original vision and standards for these sites have arguably suffered from the constant drive to increase daily traffic and reduce costs. </p>
<p>Print magazines may also be seeing a revived interest from advertisers. <a href="https://mgmagazine.com/business/marketing-promo/defying-digital-the-resilience-of-print-advertising/">Recent research</a> indicates a strong preference for print advertising among consumers. Readers <a href="https://www.walsworth.com/blog/print-magazines-arent-dying-and-heres-why">are far more likely</a> to pay attention to a print advertisement and trust its content. By contrast, online advertising is <a href="https://perfectcommunications.com/thought-leadership/print-trustworthy">more likely</a> to be ignored or dismissed. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/what-are-magazines-good-for">2021 profile</a> of magazine collector Steven Lomazow, Nathan Heller writes: </p>
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<p>[…] what made magazines appealing in 1720 is the same thing that made them appealing in 1920 and in 2020: a blend of iconoclasm and authority, novelty and continuity, marketability and creativity, social engagement and personal voice. </p>
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<p>While the circulation and influence of print magazines may have reduced, they are not necessarily dead or even dying. They can be seen as moving into a smaller, but sustainable, place in the media landscape.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217371/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julian Novitz 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>As digital media took off in the 2010s, few believed magazines could survive. While the industry isn’t what is once was, magazines are still very much alive, but why?Julian Novitz, Senior Lecturer, Writing, Department of Media and Communication, Swinburne University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1901052022-09-12T14:35:40Z2022-09-12T14:35:40ZRacism in South African newspapers persists – even after decades of black media ownership<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483468/original/file-20220908-4832-jfkrlw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutter2U/Getty Images</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When formal <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a> ended in South Africa in 1994, several policies were introduced to address the racial and economic segregation of the past. One such policy was <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/broad-based-black-economic-empowerment-act">Black Economic Empowerment</a> (BEE), designed mainly to facilitate an increase in black ownership across sectors. </p>
<p>The media was one of the sectors BEE legislation aimed to transform. Media ownership has notably transformed from no black owned media companies prior to 1994 to now <a href="https://www.intellidex.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/IntelldexWhoOwnsTheMediaFinal.pdf">substantial black ownership</a> of South Africa’s commercial media. Four of the biggest operators are black controlled and smaller operators have substantial black shareholding.</p>
<p>But has an increase in black media ownership led to diverse, transformed content? In a context like South Africa’s racist past, has black media ownership in the democratic era led to a less racist framing of news content? </p>
<p>To find out, I conducted a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23743670.2022.2096090">content analysis</a> of six newspapers from the English-language press in the period from 1994 to 2014. These were <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/">Business Day</a>, <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za">Sowetan</a>, <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/">Sunday Times</a>, <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/the-star">The Star</a>, <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/sundayindependent">Sunday Independent</a>, and <a href="https://mg.co.za">Mail & Guardian</a>. The sample of newspapers was selected to ensure that the country’s diverse newspaper types and readership profiles were well represented.</p>
<p>My study focused on three issues that have framed democratic-era South Africa: socio-economics, labour, and black government versus big business or the “white economic elite”.</p>
<p>My fundamental finding is that a change from white ownership to considerable black ownership through BEE did not significantly “transform” historical racist tropes (over-used themes and clichés) of blackness in South Africa’s newspaper content. Coverage was laden with racist assumptions about blackness and black people – as “deviants”, “disorderly”, “criminals”, “lawless”, “incompetent”, the “damned”, or “excessively violent” in stories about black protesters, black labour and black leadership’s misdemeanours.</p>
<p>It is imperative that the modern South African media become a “transformer” of historical racist ideologies. Racism of various kinds and in different societal spaces can only be disrupted or ended if South Africa’s media stops perpetuating past racism.</p>
<h2>Inferential racism</h2>
<p>The racism I identified in my research is not overt. The language used isn’t the sort that would invoke a shocked response from readers. Instead, it’s a more subtle and naturalised form of racism embedded in news reporting that is less discussed and condemned. This is known as <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Mh2PWvtzNFUC&oi=fnd&pg=PA89&dq=Stuart+Hall+inferential+racism&ots=WWcLXKRh--&sig=TtnCOxZJ7jgl_URu90yCSiQbVQs#v=onepage&q=Stuart%20Hall%20inferential%20racism&f=false">“inferential racism”</a>, a term coined by well-known British sociologist Stuart Hall in a 1981 book on racist ideologies and the media. Inferential racism is those events or situations or statements that have racist premises inscribed in them as a set of unquestioned assumptions. </p>
<p>This kind of racist reporting especially flourishes in societies where racist stereotypes of black people have become internally ingrained without question or conviction. That eventually become seen as the accepted perspective and norm. It tends to go undetected and unchecked. But it enables and perpetuates racist discourses. As <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/2870/chapter-abstract/2722535/Whites-of-Their-EyesRacist-Ideologies-and-the?redirectedFrom=fulltext">Hall warned</a>: </p>
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<p>These enable racist statements to be formulated without ever bringing into awareness the racist predicates on which the statements are grounded.</p>
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<p>My content analysis was also performed through the decolonial lens, which is centred on the belief that there are continued operations of colonial patterns of power after the end of colonial administration referred to as <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09502380601162514">“coloniality”</a>. Decoloniality uses the concepts of power, knowledge and being as its organising principles of critique.</p>
<h2>Analysing core issues</h2>
<p>The first issue I analysed was coverage of socio-economics. This refers to reporting on poverty, inequality and unemployment. These make up the country’s <a href="https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/555842/rr-south-african-doughnut-sustainability-social-justice-280515-en.pdf;sequence=7">three-part socio-economic crisis</a>. </p>
<p>Most of the socio-economic front page news was about: economics news for the elite (29%); simplistic socio-economics news as it relates to government updates (27%); sensational news with a socio-economic component (18%); and basic coverage of socio-economics news (13%). Poverty and inequality news only received 2% coverage. Notably, rural people were mostly visible as violent and voiceless protesters who cause havoc during social protests. They were hardly ever depicted positively. </p>
<p>The coverage of labour issues, meanwhile, was near invisible. It often demonised labourers and unions. No stories represented labour positively, while 34% of labour stories depicted labour negatively. The remainder were neutral, however in many instances these reports were missed opportunities for the press to fulfil its “watchdog role” and to also hold government accountable for labour injustices and issues.</p>
<p>Most of the coverage of labour protests showed a <a href="https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/viewFile/2873/1215">“protest paradigm”</a>. This refers to a pattern of protest news coverage that is negative or shows disapproval. Many articles represented labour protesters in a single narrative as infuriatingly angry, lawless, disorderly, social deviants, unruly, unmannerly: the dangerous <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/nov/08/us-vs-them-the-sinister-techniques-of-othering-and-how-to-avoid-them">“other”</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-dimensions-of-human-inequality-affect-who-and-what-we-are-137296">How the dimensions of human inequality affect who and what we are</a>
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<p>The third issue I analysed, black government versus big business or the “white economic elite”, showed a high visibility of corruption and shortcomings of black leadership. I found that the print media over-scrutinised the black elite. It overwhelmingly neglected big business which, according to <a href="https://theconversation.com/white-people-in-south-africa-still-hold-the-lions-share-of-all-forms-of-capital-75510">Johannesburg Stock Exchange statistics</a>, is mostly made up of the “white economic elite”. </p>
<p>A significant 45% of stories about government between 1994 and 2014 represented it negatively, compared with 3% positive coverage. Big business was represented in a mostly neutral tone. Only one story was about business corruption.</p>
<p>Broadly, I found that various racist assumptions undergirded the way in which black people were covered by the media. The six newspapers presented narratives of danger, incompetency and corruption. Taken together, this painted a damaging and demeaning picture of blackness in print media content.</p>
<h2>Producer or reproducer?</h2>
<p>The media possess incredible power. In South Africa, the media could stagnate the racial justice progress achieved by liberation movements, democratic processes and activism. Even worse, it could take the country backwards.</p>
<p>That’s because, as Hall argued – and as my research has proved – the modern media still have the power to be “producers” or “reproducers” of racist tropes and discourses.</p>
<p>But there’s a third role the media might play, according to Hall: the “transformation of ideologies”. Modern media can do this by rejecting racist tropes and disrupting the current dominant discourse. This can be done by reporting with respect, inclusion, equality and diversity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190105/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This work was supported by The National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS).</span></em></p>The study analysed the content of six news outlets from 1994 to 2014, looking at how core socio-economic issues were reported.Prinola Govenden, Senior Research Fellow, Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1302292020-01-20T14:45:04Z2020-01-20T14:45:04ZTelegraph’s new tactic: will offering a Fitbit be enough to attract new readers?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310900/original/file-20200120-69606-ip9bok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C33%2C4466%2C2465&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lenscap Photography</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The news that UK printed newspapers are <a href="https://pressgazette.co.uk/national-newspaper-abcs-full-figures-december-2019-observer/">continuing to lose circulation</a> comes as no surprise, extending – as it does – a trend that has been gathering pace for two decades after digital media began to cannibalise print sales.</p>
<p>But the latest release of Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) circulation figures came with a postscript. The ABC <a href="https://www.abc.org.uk/newslink/113-abc-news/909-abc-statement-regarding-the-telegraph">announced</a> it had been informed that the Telegraph Media Group would no longer take part in the ABC’s audit that, for decades, has been the Holy Grail for the industry and advertisers.</p>
<p>The Telegraph justified its decision by explaining that the ABC metric was not how it measured its success. In its <a href="https://corporate.telegraph.co.uk/2020/01/16/company-announcement/">press release</a> the company said it was focused on a subscriber-first strategy underpinned by “long term investment in digital transformation”.</p>
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<p>The ABC metric is not the key metric behind our subscription strategy and not how we measure our success.</p>
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<p>What is surprising isn’t The Telegraph’s decision to leave, but that it took this long for a national heavyweight to make this move, given the growing and increasing reliance on digital in today’s multi-channel news consumption marketplace. Of course, while The Telegraph’s stated aim is <a href="https://www.newsworks.org.uk/news-and-opinion/the-telegraph-launches-new-vision-to-reach-1-million-paying-subscribers-">10 million registrations and one million paying subscribers by 2023</a>, transforming the available digital eyeballs into long-term paying subscribers won’t be easy.</p>
<p>Inevitably, more publishers are trying to charge for content to sustain their newsrooms in the face of falling advertising revenue. But the <a href="http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/">Reuters Digital News Report 2019</a> highlighted the battle they face, revealing only 7% of those surveyed in the UK said they had committed to ongoing payments for online news in January/February 2019. Compare that to top-of-the-league Norway where it was a heady 27% of those sampled.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310876/original/file-20200120-69547-i5ss8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310876/original/file-20200120-69547-i5ss8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310876/original/file-20200120-69547-i5ss8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310876/original/file-20200120-69547-i5ss8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310876/original/file-20200120-69547-i5ss8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310876/original/file-20200120-69547-i5ss8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310876/original/file-20200120-69547-i5ss8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310876/original/file-20200120-69547-i5ss8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">UK national newspaper circulation December 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ABC</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Interestingly, The Telegraph reported <a href="https://corporate.telegraph.co.uk/2020/01/16/company-announcement/">44% growth in digital subscriptions in 2019</a>, taking it to 213,868 and for the first time exceeding its 209,443 print subscriptions. Last month the Telegraph achieved record subscriptions and a record number via mobile. Those encouraging statistics may have prompted the decision to leave the ABC.</p>
<p>The group is aggressively marketing its digital subscriptions. Currently enlisting for an annual <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/customer/subscribe/">high-end Telegraph digital subscription</a> – which offers access to all articles on telegraph.co.uk and digital editions of the paper each day to read on a mobile device (£200) – comes with a sweetener of a high-end Fitbit which is worth close to £200. That’s attractive. The challenge will be persuading these subscribers to stick around after 12 months.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310892/original/file-20200120-69547-ij0u5i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310892/original/file-20200120-69547-ij0u5i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310892/original/file-20200120-69547-ij0u5i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310892/original/file-20200120-69547-ij0u5i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310892/original/file-20200120-69547-ij0u5i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310892/original/file-20200120-69547-ij0u5i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310892/original/file-20200120-69547-ij0u5i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A new digital strategy for The Telegraph?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">urbanbuzz via Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Guardian has shown how brokering these new relationships (as well as pursuing an aggressive cost-cutting strategy) can be effective, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/gnm-press-office/2019/may/01/guardian-media-group-announces-outcome-of-three-year-turnaround-strategy">announcing last May</a> it had broken even at operating EBITDA level. The group’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/gnm-press-office/2016/jan/25/the-guardian-outlines-three-year-business-plan-to-staff">three-year-strategy</a> reduced costs by 20% (partly as a result of redundancies) and boosted the newspaper’s digital presence, with an increase in its total monthly page views from 790 million in April 2016 to 1.35 billion page views in March 2019.</p>
<p>Importantly, the Guardian revealed that 55% of its revenues were now digital, highlighting “good growth in digital advertising, digital subscriptions and reader contributions”. And it confirmed more than <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/gnm-press-office/2019/may/01/guardian-media-group-announces-outcome-of-three-year-turnaround-strategy">655,000 monthly paying “supporters”</a>, plus an additional 300,000 people who had made a one-off contribution in the previous year under its <a href="https://support.theguardian.com/uk/contribute">“Support the Guardian’s journalism” scheme</a>. </p>
<h2>Print v digital</h2>
<p>The downward trend in print circulation that all publishers are battling has gathered pace in the past decade. The <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/research-and-data/tv-radio-and-on-demand/news-media/news-consumption">Ofcom News Consumption Report</a> for 2019 released last summer reported <a href="https://whatsnewinpublishing.com/how-people-in-the-uk-are-accessing-news-6-key-findings">a fall of 52.5% for UK national newspaper print circulation</a>, down from 22 million in 2010 to 10.4 million in 2018.</p>
<p>And as anyone working in newspapers knows, online audiences have become increasingly important, as well as facing head-on the challenge from social media as a news source, with nearly half of all adults in the Reuters report saying they <a href="http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/">use it for news</a>.</p>
<p>Inevitably, as online audiences get bigger, the drive to grow digital advertising revenues gathers pace. Advertising clients already expect to be quoted digital success figures, from the number of page views a site receives each month to unique user numbers or the average engagement time.</p>
<p>And, as many in the industry agree, focusing on growing audience numbers is just as important as managing newspaper sales numbers to maintain the ABC figures. As one senior newspaper executive said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s a bold move [by The Telegraph] to step away from the ABCs but their decision to focus on digital registered users and online subscribers is a strong nod towards their belief in the growing success of digital journalism.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Of course as The Sun and The Daily Mail vie for top slot it suits both to stay within the current ABCs. There’s bragging rights at stake. But, for The Telegraph, where was the value in staying? In December 2002 it sold around 933,525 papers each day. After 17 years, showing the seismic shift seen across the industry, its total average print circulation for December 2019 was 317,817, down 12% year on year.</p>
<p>The Times fared better in the latest audit, but only just, dropping by 11% to 370,005 with 53,284 bulk sales – meaning those given away in hotels, airports and the like. Over the same period, the Financial Times fell 10% to 162,429, with 29,783 bulk sales and the Guardian’s circuation fell by 5% to 133,412.</p>
<p>It was the same story for the Sunday “quality” rivals. Again the Telegraph stable experienced the highest percentage fall, the Sunday Telegraph’s 12% drop to 248,288 was 3% worse than The Sunday Times whose 9% took them to 648,812, with 50,808 bulks, while the Observer had the greatest cause for encouragement with an overall fall of only 2% and figures of 163,449.</p>
<h2>It was the Sun wot won it – just</h2>
<p>It remains to be seen if ABC methodology will change. The ABC statement was conciliatory, acknowledging the Telegraph’s wish to promote “growing subscription numbers across print and digital”, but adding the best route would be “an industry-agreed ABC standard”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310894/original/file-20200120-69535-19u1xmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310894/original/file-20200120-69535-19u1xmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310894/original/file-20200120-69535-19u1xmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310894/original/file-20200120-69535-19u1xmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310894/original/file-20200120-69535-19u1xmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=676&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310894/original/file-20200120-69535-19u1xmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=676&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310894/original/file-20200120-69535-19u1xmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=676&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Sun newspaper’s circulation fell by 13% during 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michaelpuche via Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>ABC <a href="https://www.abc.org.uk/newslink/113-abc-news/909-abc-statement-regarding-the-telegraph">said it was</a>: “open to working with the Telegraph, as with all publishers, on developing metrics which support their strategies”.</p>
<p>Interestingly, December’s traditional ABC figures were accompanied by a new metric – measuring <a href="https://www.abc.org.uk/newslink/113-abc-news/908-abc-figures-show-1-68-billion-national-newspapers-circulated-in-2019">total circulated copies</a>, which refers to “the complete number of copies distributed by media owners” and is calculated by multiplying each title’s number of issues by their monthly ABC figure, then aggregating across the year.</p>
<p>Under that metric, The Telegraph ranked fifth in national daily newspapers with 97.1 million for January to December 2019 – only beaten among daily broadsheets by The Times, which sold 115.5 million copies. Achieving a new industry-agreed ABC standard to capture subscription numbers across print and digital would be progress, albeit long overdue – the only surprise is it hasn’t happened sooner.</p>
<p>But until the ABC metrics change, the most fascinating aspect will be whether The Sun can retain the accolade of the UK’s top-selling newspaper. With the red top newspaper’s total average circulation of 1,215,852 declining 13% year-on-year – compared to a fall for the Daily Mail of just 7% to 1,141,178, there well be change at the top in 2020.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130229/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mary Williams 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>It’s a bold move, but publishers are increasingly desperate to attract digital readers to offset the fall in print sales.Mary Williams, Principal Lecturer in Journalism, University of PortsmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1074532018-11-22T15:06:52Z2018-11-22T15:06:52ZFuture of journalism: papers must deliver value – to readers not shareholders<p>The conflict that exists within the organisations that own Britain’s newspapers, and the strategies that they employ in running their businesses, was recently brought into sharp focus. One of the key regional players, Johnston Press, went from publicly-listed administration to a <a href="https://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/2018/news/johnston-press-under-new-ownership-with-35m-cash-injection-and-135m-less-debt/">controversial, private rebirth</a> within 24 hours, prompting a wider debate around the state of the industry.</p>
<p>The company, which owns major regionals such as The Scotsman and the Yorkshire Post as well as the nationally popular i newspaper, announced <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/nov/16/owner-of-the-scotsman-and-i-newspapers-enters-administration">on November 16</a> that it was in administration only to reveal the following day it had <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46243622">been bought out by its debtors</a> and would continue to operate as before but under the new name of JPIMedia.</p>
<p>While it undoubtedly leaves the newspaper titles in a healthier financial position for now, whether or not any optimism will be long-lasting, given the state of the UK’s print newspaper market, is a matter of some conjecture.</p>
<p>In September 2018, I made a submission to the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/call-for-evidence-on-sustainable-high-quality-journalism-in-the-uk">Cairncross Review</a> – a government initiative to examine the options for securing a sustainable future for high quality journalism. The events of the past week have led me back to the following extract:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>During the past decade of declining revenues, the traditional local news publishers have used a smoke and mirrors approach to mask their editorial cutbacks. News content has become more regionalised and less relevant, patch offices and receptions have been closing, while titles have continued to be branded as local. There are understandable business reasons for this happening, but these public limited companies have always had profits at their core, often prioritising their shareholders over their readers.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This tension remains at the heart of many newspaper companies – and it is also a parallel to the historic and counter-intuitive decision-making that still remains when it comes to print and web content.</p>
<p>If everyone in the industry – regional or national – knew then what they know now about the challenges faced with monetising their websites through a commercial base then I’m sure the landscape would be very different. The assumption that display advertisers, classifieds, property and motors would migrate seamlessly into digital was fatally flawed because the traditional media giants did not anticipate the competition that would spring up. They had no track record of overcoming it by making their own offerings better than the rest.</p>
<p>And while they were struggling to compete online, time and cash should have been reinvested into the printed products which, while on a declining sales trend, still remain profitable and well-read by certain key demographics. </p>
<p>What the events surrounding the Johnston Press have done is to complete a jigsaw whose outline was already well-known – that the eye-watering return on sales figures pocketed during the 1990s and 2000s were part of a recipe for the mess the industry now finds itself in.</p>
<h2>Printing money</h2>
<p>So what value remains in printing traditional newspapers, as opposed to an online-only approach favoured by titles such as The Independent?</p>
<p>There is plenty of <a href="https://www.thedrum.com/news/2018/06/14/abcs-uk-national-newspapers-continue-suffer-circulation-decline">evidence</a> that demonstrates the continuing demise of print. But the value of print is not purely economic in nature, and should not be placed in a silo away from the value it brings to news brands as a whole.</p>
<p>There is a negative correlation between the popularity of a newspaper and the trust the reader has in it. If you were to place the <a href="https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/sun-remains-most-read-uk-newsbrand-as-new-pamco-data-shows-guardian-and-observer-most-trusted/">sales and trust rankings</a> of the main ten titles in the UK side-by-side you’d see the order turned on its head. Trust is a valuable commodity that not only gives credibility to the printed product but also pervades into the perception of the online offering of the same brand.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1065538310335070209"}"></div></p>
<p>Take the Guardian. With one of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/oct/31/guardian-rated-most-trusted-newspaper-brand-in-uk-study">highest trust ratings</a> for a national newspaper – and despite its <a href="https://www.thedrum.com/news/2018/03/15/newspaper-abcs-guardian-rebrand-fails-boost-print-sales">relatively low print sales</a> – it has been able to leverage that emotional attachment and use it to develop an online contribution scheme that will enable it to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/membership/2018/nov/12/katharine-viner-guardian-million-reader-funding">break even</a> by April 2019. While the printed product may appear to be in decline, it still acts as a firm foundation for the overall news brand as it seeks to evolve.</p>
<p>Newspapers also remain an integral part of the profits in many media portfolios. Within Johnston Press, the printed offshoot of The Independent, the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/i-newspaper">i newspaper</a>, was the jewel in the crown, bought for £24m in 2016 and now being <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/oct/11/johnston-press-puts-itself-up-for-sale-i-newspaper-yorkshire-post">touted at a value of £60m</a>. At a regional level, concentrating resources and a focus on print remains a core and profitable component of several groups, especially those in private ownership, such as <a href="https://iliffemedia.co.uk/">Iliffe Media</a>, which owns a range of local newspapers.</p>
<h2>For the many</h2>
<p>But the perceived value of the newspaper format should not be limited to the balance sheet – there is value for the reader, too. And sometimes it takes a holistic view to fully appreciate what this consists of. While the web may be ideal for delivering bespoke content that can be accessed via search, the newspaper allows people an opportunity for a deep dive into the news – not only reading the stories they are primarily concerned with, but stumbling across material they would never have known about otherwise.</p>
<p>Stories that educate and inform them about their community, their country, their world. Curated for them by trained professionals, rather than through the vagaries of any unregulated social platform. Providing what society needs rather than what an audience wants.</p>
<p>There is a compelling argument that <a href="https://inforrm.org/2017/08/04/newspapers-how-near-is-the-end-brian-cathcart/">printed newspapers will cease to exist</a>, or may remain in existence as a niche offering. But freed from the shackles of shareholdings – and with a model that promotes a long-term sustainable future over short-term profits – there is an equally compelling argument that newspapers, and the journalism within them, can continue to be a universally valuable part of the media landscape for some time to come.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107453/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Bradley 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>There is still value in newsprint, but newspaper owners need to invest in their communities or face extinction.Mark Bradley, Director of Postgraduate Studies, Journalism Studies, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/900572018-01-15T14:26:58Z2018-01-15T14:26:58ZNew look Guardian is a riot of modern tabloid colours – but it’s still the paper I know<p>I almost missed the new tabloid Guardian on the news stand this morning. Without the trademark strap of dark blue colour across the top, I couldn’t spot it immediately. Not that I was expecting a shouty red-top design from Britain’s most stylish newspaper, but I wasn’t anticipating quite such an understated front page either.</p>
<p>Although the new tabloid masthead has a subtle modern blockiness, it seems positively traditional with its two-deck format and return to capital letters. Perhaps this is an attempt to reassure readers that the integrity of its news values has not shrunk along with its size. Or maybe it is just part of what the paper’s editor-in-chief, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/jan/15/guardian-new-look-online-katharine-viner">Katharine Viner, describes</a> as a simple, confident and impactful new font. </p>
<p>Whatever the rationale, its impact was a little lost on me this morning as I impatiently scanned the news stand. The old masthead, with its lowercase letters and palette of blues, stood out in a sea of black, white and red.</p>
<h2>Identity and expectation</h2>
<p>But maybe I just find change difficult? And, of course, a redesign should result in significant changes otherwise there’s no point in it. In the <a href="http://www.thedrum.com/news/2017/06/13/the-guardians-confirms-cost-cutting-move-tabloid-format">shift from Berliner to tabloid format</a>, The Guardian designers have succeeded in making these significant changes while keeping the title’s overall identity. </p>
<p>This is largely down to the fact that the new “Guardian headline” font is not so different from the old, it just has slightly sharper serifs (the little projections off the edges of the typeface). Also, they have maintained their commitment to giving pictures lots of room to shine, including the famous centre spread image, and have kept all that lovely white space around headlines and bylines.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"952833178800148481"}"></div></p>
<p>Big pictures and white space are crucial to The Guardian’s identity and its readers’ expectations – and it’s clear these elements have remained a major consideration in the new redesign. It’s no mean feat to fit wide gaps between columns of text, and substantial white space into a tabloid design without impacting on the length of stories and the size of the pictures. And there’s plenty to read in this new tabloid Guardian, maybe even a bit too much for a busy weekday, but readers need some value for money at £2 a go.</p>
<h2>In living colour</h2>
<p>Much of the redesign effort seems to have gone into the new range of bright, energetic colours throughout the publication and this really shows. The blue detail of the news pages in the main paper has been replaced with red in the bylines, pullout quote boxes, captions and page numbers. And it’s a nice red – bright but not shocking, which I think works well on the news pages.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201942/original/file-20180115-101498-1ljuybz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201942/original/file-20180115-101498-1ljuybz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201942/original/file-20180115-101498-1ljuybz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201942/original/file-20180115-101498-1ljuybz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201942/original/file-20180115-101498-1ljuybz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201942/original/file-20180115-101498-1ljuybz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201942/original/file-20180115-101498-1ljuybz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201942/original/file-20180115-101498-1ljuybz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">New-look lift-out G2 supplement.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Guardian</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yellow and turquoise are the colours of the sport pages with blocky black-on-yellow headlines that bizarrely bring to mind the front of Heat magazine. These garish reverse headlines on sport were a bit of a surprise – and I wondered if it was a mistake when I saw the first one. They don’t feature on every page, and I’m still not sure if this randomness is a good or bad thing. They also don’t feature on The Guardian’s new redesigned website, the old dark and light blue colours are still in play on the online sport pages.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201943/original/file-20180115-101502-1rmhkyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201943/original/file-20180115-101502-1rmhkyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201943/original/file-20180115-101502-1rmhkyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201943/original/file-20180115-101502-1rmhkyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201943/original/file-20180115-101502-1rmhkyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201943/original/file-20180115-101502-1rmhkyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201943/original/file-20180115-101502-1rmhkyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201943/original/file-20180115-101502-1rmhkyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The back page of the new tabloid Guardian.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Guardian</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The G2 features and arts supplement is a riot of pink, yellow, orange and turquoise, again somewhat reminiscent of a glossy celebrity magazine. The new bright palette works at its best in G2, the colours are engaging and carry the implicit promise of some interesting reads. They also make it easy to navigate the features, and I particularly like the yellow band highlighting prime-time programmes in the TV listings at the back.</p>
<p>The new Journal supplement – which features long reads, comment pieces and puzzles – is a more sombre affair with pale peachy pages and black or orange fonts, more suited to the opinion pieces and readers’ letters that it features. This pullout is very easy on the eye, it’s got an calm, uncluttered design, and it’s good to see there’s still room for a couple of opinion cartoons too. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"952889982523510784"}"></div></p>
<p>It has a very broad content remit – opinions and ideas from across the globe apparently, and only time will tell how this section will fare in the long term. Puzzles have been spread across both the G2 and Journal supplements, making them easier to share, which is a nice touch.</p>
<h2>Mixed bag</h2>
<p>On the digital front, the redesigned website looks clean and attractive with its colour-coded sections and plethora of pictures standing out against plenty of white space. Navigating the site is very easy, thanks to clear categories and a comprehensive drop-down menu in the “More” section. It’s definitely a worthy partner to the newspaper, or should that be the other way round?</p>
<p>The redesign of the newspaper is a bit of a mixed bag for me, but if it gives The Guardian a <a href="http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/guardian-says-new-tabloid-format-important-milestone-in-turning-finances-around/">new lease of life financially</a>, then it will have served its purpose.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90057/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arlene Lawler 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>Changing to tabloid from its distinctive Berliner format is a bold move. Our newspaper design expert hopes it will help The Guardian survive in print.Arlene Lawler, Associate Lecturer in Newspaper, Magazine and Web Design, Sheffield Hallam UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/398772015-04-13T03:41:33Z2015-04-13T03:41:33ZWhistleblowers may bypass the media thanks to new data laws<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77407/original/image-20150408-18044-gw8hnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A responsible media is cautious about what leaked information it will publish.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/alexcovic/4830461080">Flickr/Alex BuckyBit Covic</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Australian Government made some <a href="https://theconversation.com/data-retention-plan-amended-for-journalists-but-is-it-enough-38896">concession towards journalists</a> when the new data retention legislation was passed by both Houses of parliament last month. But that doesn’t mean a journalist’s metadata is protected from ever being accessed by authorities. </p>
<p>While much has been said about the importance of press and <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/metadata-laws-an-uneasy-compromise-on-press-freedom/story-e6frg6zo-1227272006672">media freedom</a>, another important aspect so far has received far less coverage: that seeking to discourage media involvement in reporting leaks on government practices might actually run counter to the national interest. </p>
<h2>Public interest test</h2>
<p>Under <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2015/mar/26/metadata-legislation-heads-to-final-vote-politics-live">the new law</a>, which will come into effect in 2017, the government and opposition have agreed to a <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-17/xenophon-journalists-metadata/6326858">secret warranting system</a>.</p>
<p>Current <a href="http://asic.gov.au/for-business/running-a-company/company-officeholder-duties/whistleblowers-company-officeholder-obligations/whistleblowers-and-whistleblower-protection/">whistleblower laws in Australia</a> offer some protections to public servants, but others generally receive <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/01/15/whistleblower-protection-law-comes-effect">very little legal</a> protection. Given the importance of the media to a functioning democracy, journalists are seen as deserving of special treatment.</p>
<p>Law enforcement or other relevant agencies will require a warrant to gain access to metadata –- the information about whom a journalist has been talking with and when – and these warrants must pass a “public interest test”, where a public advocate argues against the warrant. </p>
<p>But this must be kept secret, and should journalists report that such a warranting process is occurring, they’ll face up to <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/journalist-jail-threat-in-metadata-law/story-e6frg996-1227270296737">two years jail time</a>.</p>
<h2>Free to publish anywhere</h2>
<p>These new metadata laws, however, overlook the fact that traditional media sources are no longer the only method of large scale public communication.</p>
<p>When <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/wikileaks">Wikileaks</a> came into the public consciousness in 2006, it signalled a change in the relationship between the whistleblower and the public. Any potential <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/news/politics/2005/07/deepthroat200507">Deep Throat</a> no longer needed to go through <a href="http://www.npr.org/2014/06/13/321316118/40-years-on-woodward-and-bernstein-recall-reporting-on-watergate">journalists</a> to get their information out.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7Qe2Gri_YeU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The importance of whistleblowers in journalism.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Information is not something that can be controlled as it once was. Snowden, <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/chelsea-manning-21299995">Chelsea Manning</a> and <a href="https://wikileaks.org/">WikiLeaks</a> have shown just how porous informational barriers are these days, and the disgruntled insider is a huge issue for any institution that likes to keep things out of public view.</p>
<p>Modern history sees <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdezJrNaL70">many</a> <a href="http://www.thismachinekillssecrets.com/">different ways</a> that people have sought to get information about perceived government malpractice, from <a href="http://www.mostdangerousman.org/">traditional media</a>, to <a href="http://thefalconandthesnowman.com/">spying</a>, to more recent widespread release of personal information on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_events_associated_with_Anonymous">the internet</a>. </p>
<p>Any changes in public policy need to recognise the importance of this new informational world, because the media can act in ways that seek to prevent the release of operational or mission sensitive information. Think here of the release the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/the-war-logs">Afghan War Diaries</a> supplied by Manning to WikiLeaks.</p>
<p><a href="http://en.rsf.org/united-states-open-letter-to-wikileaks-founder-12-08-2010,38130.html">Reporters Without Borders</a> and <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703428604575419580947722558">Amnesty International</a> both criticised WikiLeaks for its failure to properly redact the names of sources in the war diaries.</p>
<p>The concern was that the keeping source names in the War Diaries placed lives at risk and undermined ongoing missions. Even <a href="http://scribepublications.com.au/books-authors/title/inside-wikileaks/">those</a> within <a href="http://www.thismachinekillssecrets.com/">Wikileaks</a> were concerned about the lack of concern shown towards personal information.</p>
<h2>A responsible media</h2>
<p>Compare this to the releases by Snowden, via The Guardian and others new outlets. The journalists in these circumstances sought <a href="https://citizenfourfilm.com/">some feedback</a>, albeit grudgingly, from national security agencies in order to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/nov/01/snowden-nsa-files-surveillance-revelations-decoded#section/6">remove or redact mission-sensitive information</a>.</p>
<p>Obviously for various governments around the world, they would prefer sensitive information not to get out at all, as they consider that the Snowden leaks were highly detrimental to the <a href="http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=121564">national interests</a> and might also have put lives <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/intel-heads-edward-snowden-profound-damage-us-security/story?id=22285388">at risk</a>.</p>
<p>If the choice is between a motivated insider passing information on to relevant journalists or simply dumping information wholesale without due care or consideration for its impact, it would seem that any sensible government would prefer to do what is possible to avoid a wholesale dump.</p>
<p>But the risk of a whistleblower’s identity being revealed through any successful request to access data that shows who a journalist has had contact with makes the option of a wholesale dump more attractive.</p>
<p>This is not to pass judgement on these high profile leaks, or indeed on the responses by governments.</p>
<p>Rather, that in considering how they treat individual journalists and the media more widely, governments around the world are faced with a fundamentally insecure informational environment. <a href="http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2014/06/the-urgent-need-to-shield-journalism-in-the-age-of-surveillance/">Journalists worldwide</a> are also feeling concerned about the possibility of maintaining the confidentiality of their sources</p>
<p>Seeking to discourage media in participation in the way that leaks are publicised can – in certain circumstances at least – run counter to the aims of protecting operational matters and could end up being detrimental to national security.</p>
<p>Of course, this whole idea runs on the notion that members of the media themselves act responsibly, and actively work with government agencies to protect mission sensitive information.</p>
<p>But if anything, this highlights the need for the government and the media to be able to work together. Laws that seek to undermine the public trust in national security practices and threaten the capacity for government agencies and the media could end up driving people to leak more important information than they may have otherwise done.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39877/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Henschke 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>If confidential sources can still be exposed by the government’s new data retention legislation, why risk leaking anything to the media?Adam Henschke, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/385142015-03-06T19:48:07Z2015-03-06T19:48:07ZResearch shows why Cameron is wise to avoid TV debates and stick to newspapers<p>David Cameron is facing a barrage of criticism for announcing that he is only willing to appear in one TV leaders’ debate - criticism that will only increase after the broadcasters announced they would “empty chair” the PM if he did not turn up at debates scheduled throughout April.</p>
<p>Naturally, the loudest boos have come from the opposition, which has variously called him a <a href="https://twitter.com/campbellclaret">coward</a> and a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-31742155">bully</a> for withdrawing from a proposed head-on debate with Ed Miliband.</p>
<p>But research from the <a href="http://electionunspun.net/">Media Standards Trust</a> suggests that Cameron might be wise to opt out. The Conservative party agenda is on far safer territory in national <a href="http://mediastandardstrust.org/mst-news/election-unspun-launches-today/">newspaper coverage</a> than on TV.</p>
<p>In the eight weeks of campaigning from January 5 to March 1, all the leading online national newspapers reported the Conservative Party to a greater degree than its rivals. While this prominence is most evident in the Daily Mail and Telegraph, perhaps most striking is the Conservative Party’s dominance in newspapers more traditionally associated with Labour support, including the Guardian, Mirror and Independent.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74098/original/image-20150306-13567-wpivlg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74098/original/image-20150306-13567-wpivlg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74098/original/image-20150306-13567-wpivlg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74098/original/image-20150306-13567-wpivlg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74098/original/image-20150306-13567-wpivlg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74098/original/image-20150306-13567-wpivlg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74098/original/image-20150306-13567-wpivlg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74098/original/image-20150306-13567-wpivlg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Articles mentioning each party as a percentage of all articles featuring one or more parties.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Media Standards Trust</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Conservative prominence in newspaper coverage extends to the reporting of party leaders, too. According to the Media Standards Trust, David Cameron has been the most visible leader since campaigning began in 2015. He has featured in over a third more articles than Miliband but has also received significantly more attention than Nick Clegg, Nigel Farage, Nicola Sturgeon, Natalie Bennett and Leanne Wood.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74165/original/image-20150309-13546-1mulx0p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74165/original/image-20150309-13546-1mulx0p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74165/original/image-20150309-13546-1mulx0p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74165/original/image-20150309-13546-1mulx0p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74165/original/image-20150309-13546-1mulx0p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74165/original/image-20150309-13546-1mulx0p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74165/original/image-20150309-13546-1mulx0p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74165/original/image-20150309-13546-1mulx0p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cameron rules the roost.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Media Standards Trust</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Of course, Cameron’s appearances alone don’t necessarily advance the Tory party’s agenda. But his party also benefits from the way issues are covered. The economy has been by far the most reported topic of late. Since <a href="http://ourinsight.opinium.co.uk/survey-results/conservative-lead-economic-trust-increases">opinion polls</a> repeatedly show voters trust David Cameron’s party the most with managing the economy, the attention paid to this policy plays to the Conservatives’ campaign tune.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74100/original/image-20150306-13543-16tq1kf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74100/original/image-20150306-13543-16tq1kf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74100/original/image-20150306-13543-16tq1kf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74100/original/image-20150306-13543-16tq1kf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74100/original/image-20150306-13543-16tq1kf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74100/original/image-20150306-13543-16tq1kf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74100/original/image-20150306-13543-16tq1kf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74100/original/image-20150306-13543-16tq1kf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Number of articles containing references to different policy issues, 16 - 22 February.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And while it would be difficult to argue that Cameron is a much-celebrated leader, even in the Conservative-supporting sections of the press, the coverage does appear to be putting him and his party in a good light. An analysis of online leader columns between February 16 and 22 suggests that, while Labour is subject to repeated criticisms, the Conservative Party receives more positive commentary than any other party.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74101/original/image-20150306-13564-tfeivv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74101/original/image-20150306-13564-tfeivv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74101/original/image-20150306-13564-tfeivv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=246&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74101/original/image-20150306-13564-tfeivv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=246&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74101/original/image-20150306-13564-tfeivv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=246&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74101/original/image-20150306-13564-tfeivv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=309&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74101/original/image-20150306-13564-tfeivv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=309&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74101/original/image-20150306-13564-tfeivv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=309&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Leader columns containing views on one or more political parties, February 16 - 22.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Media Standards Trust</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>News about David Cameron’s retreat from the debates led the morning and evening TV bulletins the day after the announcement. While the Guardian, Mirror and Independent had front page splashes about the TV debates on the Friday after the Tory’s letter was sent to broadcasters, between them these Labour supporting papers sell considerably fewer than the Conservative-supporting press. By contrast, the lack of <a href="http://www.thepaperboy.com/uk/front-pages.cfm">front page news</a> about the TV debates in the bestselling newspapers – The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Express and Daily Telegraph – was conspicuous by its absence.</p>
<p>But 48 hours later the broadcasters announced they would still stage the TV leaders’ debates and leave open the invitation to David Cameron. At this stage it remains unclear whether the debates will go ahead because “empty chairing” the PM could be open to legal challenge.</p>
<p>Cameron now has to decide whether or not he wants to risk sharing a platform with rival parties. It’s a bold move by the broadcasters that perhaps surprised the PM’s advisers. If not for the TV leaders’ debates, the campaign might have been fought on safer Conservative territory. </p>
<p><em>Gordon Neil Ramsay assisted in the analysis featured in this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38514/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Cushion 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>A look at column inches shows coverage plays into Conservative hands.Stephen Cushion, Senior Lecturer, School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/378402015-02-24T19:31:28Z2015-02-24T19:31:28ZFairfax has a plan, but it’s not the paywall<p>When Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting recently sold all its shares in Australian media company Fairfax, chief development officer John Klepec took the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/media-and-marketing/gina-rineharts-hancock-prospecting-takes-farewell-swipe-at-fairfax-media-20150206-138czi.html">parting shot</a> that Fairfax management had “no workable plan” to turn the company around. In reality, the ship is turning, although incredibly slowly. </p>
<p>In the first half of the 2015 financial year <a href="http://www.fairfaxmedia.com.au/pressroom/au---nz-press-room/au---nz-press-room/2015-half-year-results-announcement">Fairfax’s</a> profit dropped 86% from the previous year. But there are some positive signs when scrutinising Fairfax’s figures more closely. For example, the number of digital subscribers for Fairfax’s metropolitan newspapers, including The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian Financial Review, grew 8.2% from 146,000 to 158,000. The company’s revenue from digital subscriptions rose 61% from A$9.7 million to A$15.8 million. More positively, its digital advertising revenue rose to 14.8% to A$106 million. </p>
<p>The bad news is digital subscriptions represented only 1.7% of the company’s total revenue, and Fairfax is still strongly reliant on its print revenues. In the first half of 2015 financial year, print circulation and print advertising brought in A$242 million in revenue, almost 50% more than its combined revenue from digital operations.</p>
<p>To compare, in the 2014 fiscal year, The New York Times had 910,000 paid digital subscribers, a 20% increase from the previous year. The revenue from its digital-only subscriptions rose 13.6% from previous year, and the total revenue of digital-only subscriptions was US$169 million. This represents 10.6% of its total revenue. Clearly, Fairfax has still some way to go even though The New York Times might not be the fairest comparison point.</p>
<h2>Native advertising and classifieds the right remedy?</h2>
<p>When looking at the data more closely, interesting trends start to appear. It seems that paywalls have gone to the back burner as newspaper publishers are increasingly betting on native advertising, listing services and online classified advertising. Companies such as BuzzFeed have been dominating the native advertising market, and news publishers are now following suit.</p>
<p><a href="http://investors.nytco.com/press/press-releases/press-release-details/2015/The-New-York-Times-Company-Reports-2014-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-Results/default.aspx">The New York Times Company’s</a> 2014 results were boosted by digital advertising, and especially <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/native-advertising">native advertising</a> (sponsored content). In the fourth quarter of 2014, the company saw a 19% increase in digital advertising revenue thanks to its “paid posts” native advertising platform. Mark Thompson, chief executive of the company, commented that “we delivered digital ad growth for all four quarters, highlighted by double-digit strength in the second half of the year, including a 19% gain in the fourth quarter.” APN, owner of The Australian Radio Network, is also gambling with content marketing and native advertising. APN is taking a majority stake in the new company, Emotive, which specialises in native ads (editorial-style content).</p>
<p>American news publisher <a href="http://investors.nytco.com/press/press-releases/press-release-details/2015/The-New-York-Times-Company-Reports-2014-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-Results/default.aspx">Gannett</a> has also started to expand in online classified advertising and listing services. Last year the company took a controlling stake in US-based Classified Ventures, which runs the car sales site Cars.com. Thanks to Cars.com and its online job-site CareerBuilder, the company’s digital revenue rose 22.8% in 2014 from the previous year. In February this year, global publishing giant Axel Springer also formed a new joint venture in real estate advertising called Immowelt, in order to gain new advertising dollars. </p>
<p>Last year Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation and its Australian real estate website REA Group bought American real estate listing site Move.com. The acquisition has clearly boosted News Corporation’s profits, as in the second quarter of 2015 the revenues of its digital real estate services rose 50% from the previous year. </p>
<h2>Too little, too late?</h2>
<p>So they are all doing it. But what about Fairfax? Fairfax lost online classified advertising markets in Australia to Seek, REA and Carsales as the company’s management failed to understand the internet, and to purchase any of these companies. From its results, it’s obvious Fairfax has put its eggs in one basket: its real estate advertising site Domain to compete with realestate.com.au. In January Fairfax increased its ownership in Metro Media Publishing Holdings (MMPH) from 50 to 100% in order to expand its digital property businesses. MMPH has an extensive portfolio related to real estate markets, and it also includes reviewproperty.com.au. </p>
<p>Commenting on the 2015 half-year results, Fairfax’s chief executive officer Greg Hywood stated that “Domain continues to power ahead in expanding its national footprint”. In the first half of 2015, Domain’s digital revenue rose 37.8% from the previous year.</p>
<p>Fairfax is expanding its classified advertising and listings portfolio in order to build new digital revenue streams it desperately needs. But it could still prove to be too little too late. As the latest figures from <a href="http://www.crikey.com.au/2015/02/13/print-circulation-circling-the-drain-is-it-time-for-drastic-measures/">Audited Media Association of Australia (AMAA)</a> show, the weekday print circulation of the SMH fell 13% in the last quarter of 2014, and The Age’s 18% from the same time last year. In comparison, The Australian’s weekday total print sales declined 6.7% during the same period.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37840/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Merja Myllylahti 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>With digital subscriptions barely registering on the revenue front, media companies are staking their hopes on alternative revenue sources.Merja Myllylahti, Lecturer, Auckland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/194862013-11-07T19:41:31Z2013-11-07T19:41:31ZMaking sense of Fairfax’s paywall figures<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/34666/original/ghwxzmyk-1383805936.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The New York Times launched its paywall in 2011 and in the most recent quarter claimed US$37.7 million in digital subscription revenue.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andre-Pierre/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Media companies are failing to deliver transparency about their digital subscriptions, as <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21670811.2013.813214#.UnsciCdHKpC">my recent study</a> about paywalls found. </p>
<p>The research of paywalls in eight countries found paid online content presents roughly 10% of news companies’ total publishing or circulation revenue. This is not enough to make paywalls a viable business model in the short term.</p>
<p>In fact, trying to make sense of how many people are paying for access to online news content is much harder than you might think. Newspaper companies are disclosing very ambiguous figures about their online subscriptions, and are reluctant to reveal how much paywalls ultimately contribute to their bottom line.</p>
<p>The same can be said of Fairfax, which this week released new figures concerning its digital subscriptions. Chief executive officer Greg Hywood told investors that the company’s paywall “success has exceeded expectations”. </p>
<p>Fairfax launched paywalls for its mastheads The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald in July 2013. The readers of the papers can access 30 articles per month for free before the paywall kicks in.</p>
<p>According to Hywood, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald now have 86,000+ paid digital subscribers, and 102,000+ existing print subscribers who have signed up for digital access, or bundled subscriptions.</p>
<p>Fairfax doesn’t disclose how its print subscribers pay on top of their print newspaper, or if they pay anything at all. The idea of bundling is that if you offer a digital subscription relatively cheaply on top of the print subscription, people are more likely to take both.</p>
<p>For example in Finland, the leading national newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, charges its print customers only US$48 for the digital access on top of their print subscription. The Finnish paper claims around 42% of its readers pay for the digital content.</p>
<p>The parent company of the paper, Sanoma, doesn’t disclose any revenue figures for its paywall, but it seems that its bundling model is working reasonably well. </p>
<p>A quick calculation of Fairfax’s paywall revenue reveals that if the readers of its two mastheads paid for the cheapest digital-only package, A$180 dollars per year, Fairfax would make around A$16 million annually. Assuming an extra 102,000 readers would pay for a bundled package with the price tag of A$528 per year, Fairfax would earn A$54 million from these bundled subscriptions.</p>
<p>Based on these figures and rough calculations The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald would earn A$70 million from their bundled and digital-only subscriptions per year. This presents approximately 3.3% of the media corporation’s annual revenue.</p>
<p>I guess it is fair to say that these two mastheads would not save Fairfax from sinking, but extra revenue is welcome for any news publishing company nowadays.</p>
<h2>New king of content bundling</h2>
<p>In the US, some of the leading media corporations have sold off their newspapers, and a new block of media moguls has emerged. But the same challenge remains there – how to sell digital subscriptions to a public generally uninterested in paying for news.</p>
<p>Earlier this year Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post. Bezos has been hailed in media as a content “bundling king”. </p>
<p>He believes that people don’t buy individual stories, they buy packaged or bundled content. “People will buy a package. They will not pay for a story,” he told staff at the WaPo.</p>
<p>The Washington Post had put up a paywall a few months earlier, in June. It gives its readers 20 free articles per month before they are asked to pay. But Bezos intends to bundle content of his newly acquired newspaper into packages, lucrative to different groups and a different kind of buyer.</p>
<p>Amazon is already experimenting with different packages for its users. They are starting to offer combined print and digital subscriptions for magazines like Vogue, Wired and Vanity Fair.</p>
<p>And Amazon has a major strength compared to traditional news outlets. Its platform has a wide reach and a prominence, which the magazine’s own distribution channels don’t.</p>
<h2>Circulation stabilises, print readership high</h2>
<p>The latest reports from <a href="http://stateofthemedia.org/">PEW</a> and <a href="http://www.pwc.co.nz/global-entertainment-and-media-outlook-2013-2017/">PricewaterouseCoopers</a> suggest the decline in newspaper circulation and revenues has stabilised, although globally news publishing revenues from sales and advertising fell in 2012 to US$164 billion from US$187 billion in 2008.</p>
<p>PwC forecasts flat revenue growth for the newspapers in 2013-2017, and notes that “a long-term decline in newspaper advertising revenues means that circulation will represent an increasingly significant proportion of overall revenues”. </p>
<p>A recent study published by <a href="http://www.city.ac.uk/news/2013/aug/more-than-90-of-newspaper-reading-still-with-print-editions">Dr Neil Thurman</a> provides surprising findings. He observes that in the UK, an average of 96% of the time spent with newspapers was in print, not online. This suggests print newspapers are far from the death’s door, since the readers spent more minutes reading the print version of a newspaper than the online one. </p>
<p>Another study also suggests that print newspapers are surprisingly resilient and have loyal readership, at least in certain countries. The Reuters Institute <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/publications/risj-digital-report.html">Digital Report 2013</a> reveals that newspaper purchases are especially high in Japan, Italy and Germany.</p>
<p>The report also found the number of people paying for online news content has increased, although the numbers are still relatively low.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/19486/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Merja Myllylahti 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>Media companies are failing to deliver transparency about their digital subscriptions, as my recent study about paywalls found. The research of paywalls in eight countries found paid online content presents…Merja Myllylahti, Lecturer, Auckland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/179072013-09-06T05:43:57Z2013-09-06T05:43:57ZSpike the gloom – journalism has a bright future<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/30802/original/wq4dbsdb-1378383688.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">News with your Shreddies?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brendan Lynch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Whenever more than two journalists gather together to discuss the future of their business, the dialogue is usually depressing. This prevailing pessimism must change: we need a new conversation about what’s happening to news. What’s happening is better than many journalists think.</p>
<p>On the surface, there is a lot to be gloomy about. Jobs in mainstream journalism continue to be lost as those media businesses shrink. There’s a fine and eloquent example <a href="http://www.christinapatterson.co.uk/blog/index.php?id=26">in a blogpost by the excellent Christina Patterson</a>.</p>
<p>In London, journalists lay bets on which major newspaper will turn off its printing presses and take the huge gamble of trying to survive on digital revenues alone. Many bets are placed on The Guardian, which describes itself as “digital-first”, switching off print before its rivals. But my money is on the Financial Times taking that plunge before any other paper.</p>
<p>In the US, the New York Times, a newspaper worth a great deal less than it was a decade ago, sells the Boston Globe for a fraction of the price struck a few years ago. The Washington Post is sold, by kind but exhausted owners, to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos for a sum that would have seemed ridiculously small at the turn of the century.</p>
<h2>Adapt and flourish</h2>
<p>But this picture of deterioration is one-dimensional, incomplete and out of date. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that journalism is going to adapt and flourish; you just need to know where to look for it.</p>
<p>In a <a href="http://www.koganpage.com/editions/out-of-print/9780749466510">book</a> published this week, I try to dissolve the pessimistic mindset which sets the tone of so much commentary on journalism’s future. Here are a few things which the worriers should keep in mind:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Journalism is forced to re-invent itself at regular intervals and always has been. whenever the changing context of economics, law, technology and culture shifts the ground beneath it. Re-invention and experiment are the only constants in journalism’s history.</p></li>
<li><p>Journalists tend to confuse journalism with major daily papers. The “golden age” of newspaper journalism in the second half of the 20th century was, in reality, a long commercial decline. British national papers reached their peak total circulation in the early 1950s; the Daily Mirror’s highest sale ever was in 1966.</p></li>
<li><p>More newspapers were killed off by the coming of television from the 1950s onwards than have ever been closed by competition from the internet.</p></li>
<li><p>The internet made things worse for newspapers and was lethal to classified advertising income. But the decline of print began before the internet was built.</p></li>
<li><p>Demand for news does not seem to have fallen or even changed much in the last half century. What has imploded is the effectiveness of the business model of large, general-interest daily papers which require news reporting to be cross-subsidised by advertising revenue.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Ah, but you say, can “the press” be an effective check on the use or abuse of political power if it is weakened and fragmented by internet outlets who give away their news for free? How can journalists in the treadmills of 24/7 reporting find the time and space to dig out the hard stories?</p>
<h2>Institutional muscle</h2>
<p>Big stories driven by data leaks from Wikileaks and more recently by the American National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden have required the power of mainstream journalism institutions for the stories to be heard. Is that institutional muscle which protects the exercise of press freedom going to atrophy?</p>
<p>First, it’s not a given that today’s big journalism “brands” will go under: they face a horribly difficult task of adapting to radically changed circumstances but institutions will not fall. That’s what happens in deep disruption: some organisations adapt and survive, some don’t.</p>
<p>Second, the insurgents of news publishing fully intend to become the giants of the future. A few will, most won’t. In America, where newspaper income fell faster than in Europe (largely because profitability rested more heavily on small ads), there is now a solid if small group of online news businesses which cannot yet match the giants of print but have a viable business – and have done so for several years.</p>
<p>The poster girl for this group is the Huffington Post, but there are a cluster of other sites which have been in existence for a decade or more, don’t depend on grants or philanthropy and have a base of income and users solidly built.</p>
<h2>Renaissance in text</h2>
<p>I asked the founder of one of those sites now entering early middle age, Josh Marshall of <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/">Talking Points Memo (TPM)</a>, if he thought long-form and research and reporting would fade in the publishing era dominated by online. Marshall, whose site now employs almost 30 people in New York and is aimed at political wonks, said that a freer market for communication would cater for a wider range of tastes.</p>
<p>“The 8,000-word piece is not going to disappear,” Marshall said. “Words are very persistent and people want text. The last 20 years has seen a renaissance for text. Video is for entertainment. Details need words.”</p>
<p>Many of the online news sites in their early phases concentrate on building any audience by any means available. In a few cases, you can now see those sites moving into areas of more serious journalism which may have to be cross-subsidised by the more attention-grabbing material.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/">Buzzfeed</a>, a site which began by providing silly videos for people to swap when bored at work, is already into political coverage and aims to move into international affairs and business news. Today’s journalists treat this as a shocking route to success, ignoring the plain fact that journalism’s history is full of examples of successful subversion and disruption of the established order on just this pattern.</p>
<h2>Filling local gaps</h2>
<p>At a much more local level, online news sites are sometimes filling the gap left by shrinking local papers. In London, there could hardly be bigger and more potentially controversial planning decisions than those being taken for the redevelopment of the Elephant and Castle area on the south bank of the Thames.</p>
<p>That area has its own start-up online site called <a href="http://www.london-se1.co.uk/">SE1</a> – except that it’s not really a startup for it has been going for 15 years. Its finances are still fragile and most of its income is advertising; SE1 owes no money. The site’s founder James Hatts often attends planning meetings at which multi-million pound redevelopment schemes for the area are being debated and decided. He is, he says, “often the only reporter there (and often the only person in the public gallery at all)”. Which journalism serves local democracy better: the online version or beleaguered print?</p>
<h2>Radical change</h2>
<p>None of this means that “print” will “die”. Weekly newspapers and magazines are under pressure but nothing like the pressure which is bearing down on the business models of daily, general-interest papers. In some areas, the appearance of - or threat of - online rivals has revived long-established local newspapers. In the north-eastern towns of Grimsby and Cleethorpes, one new paper and one online news site have sprung up alongside the established paper, which has been overhauled.</p>
<p>The key to the future lies in journalists’ ability to adapt the work they do to a new context: the importance of what good journalism can do has not changed, but the context in which is it being done is changing radically. The good news is that the generative energy and quality of innovation needed to accomplish that are being devoted to solving the problem of a future business model. The signs of re-invention are scattered, small and hidden in the grass roots, often attracting less attention than loss figures and redundancies at major titles.</p>
<p>Journalism is coping with two crises which are wrapped together. The business model in which advertising supported reporting for print will not come back. The desperation caused by the slow decay of that income has triggered a crisis of confidence and credibility in printed news media – most obviously evident in the Leveson Inquiry in Britain which was triggered by the phone-hacking scandal.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/30805/original/rvfc7b4z-1378384766.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/30805/original/rvfc7b4z-1378384766.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=833&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/30805/original/rvfc7b4z-1378384766.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=833&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/30805/original/rvfc7b4z-1378384766.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=833&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/30805/original/rvfc7b4z-1378384766.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1046&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/30805/original/rvfc7b4z-1378384766.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1046&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/30805/original/rvfc7b4z-1378384766.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1046&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Leveson.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sean Dempsey/PA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Journalism is not going to evaporate as an idea because anyone, in the era of digital self-publishing, can claim to do it. Much changes: more people and sources of information can be consulted, news consumers can compare more sources faster. Four “core” activities journalists do are best done by people trained and experienced in them: verification, sense-making (analysis, opinion, context), eye-witness and investigative reporting. The first of those terms “verification” gives a clue to a shift which has come with the information-saturated world of today. One of journalism’s new challenges is managing abundant information. When journalism began information was scarce. Now it’s in glut: the problem is working out what’s true.</p>
<p>And old task in a new form. In the course of my research for Out of Print, I came to see that the “tilt point” has been passed. There are enough experiments under way in how to make journalism work in the digital age to give it a future.</p>
<p><em>George Brock is Professor and Head of Journalism at City University London and the author of <a href="http://www.koganpage.com/editions/out-of-print/9780749466510">Out of Print: Newspapers, Journalism and the Business of News in the Digital Age</a>, is published by Kogan Page</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/17907/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>George Brock 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>Whenever more than two journalists gather together to discuss the future of their business, the dialogue is usually depressing. This prevailing pessimism must change: we need a new conversation about what’s…George Brock, Head of Journalism, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/170262013-08-16T05:11:37Z2013-08-16T05:11:37ZAsylum seekers the latest in a long line of tabloid ‘folk devils’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29182/original/rwydgz4j-1376405948.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Same story, every time.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">malias</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Reports of the decision made by some Swiss towns to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/12/europe-treatment-asylum-seekers-inhumane">ban asylum seekers</a> from public spaces are depressingly familiar here in the UK. So too were the recent comments <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23599502">from Roman Staub</a>, mayor of the town of Menzingen, who stated asylum seekers should be banned from “sensitive areas” such as the vicinity of a school. He said: “This is certainly a very difficult area, because here asylum-seekers could meet our schoolchildren - young girls or young boys.” </p>
<p>The not-so-subtle subtext here is easy to decipher. Asylum seekers have become, in effect, the bogeymen of folk tales. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, it is this image of the asylum seeker – as outsider, invader and criminal – that has been a staple feature of the tabloid representation of asylum over the past 15 years or so. For the right-wing tabloid press in Britain the greatest threat to the social fabric of Britain is the continual influx into the country of asylum seekers and illegal immigrants.</p>
<h2>The same old story</h2>
<p>Barely a week passes without reports of asylum seekers casually entering Britain. They are, we are told, seduced by the lure of state offered riches, superior housing and a life of luxury. The consistent point is that Britain is too full and cannot afford the cost of hosting so many asylum seekers applying for refugee status.</p>
<p>A great deal of media attention focuses on numbers and cost to the taxpayer. Given the level of animosity, and the sheer amount of coverage, it is fair to say that (for sections of the British press) asylum seekers and refugees have become the latest in a long line of what Stanley Cohen defined as “<a href="http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/books/the-canon-folk-devils-and-moral-panics-the-creation-of-the-mods-and-rockers-by-stanley-cohen/410619.article">folk devils</a>”.</p>
<p>According to Cohen, certain minority groups become the subjects of moral panics. These are people who are perceived to exist apart from the core values of consensual society and are therefore a risk to the continued existence of accepted norms. The media, and in particular the press, have been instrumental in the demonisation of refugees, whipping up hysteria whilst calling for tighter immigration controls.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29180/original/ydt4xp7q-1376405729.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29180/original/ydt4xp7q-1376405729.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29180/original/ydt4xp7q-1376405729.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29180/original/ydt4xp7q-1376405729.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29180/original/ydt4xp7q-1376405729.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29180/original/ydt4xp7q-1376405729.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29180/original/ydt4xp7q-1376405729.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Yawn, pass the sugar.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">secretlondon123</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of the stereotypes that clearly emerges is of unwanted and threatening outsiders in British communities. Though the relationship between public opinion and media coverage is a complex one, what is evident from various studies of coverage of asylum seekers and refugees is the fact that the population of Britain is presented, via its right-wing press and television news, with coverage that is one dimensional, repetitive and alarmist.</p>
<h2>Strong views</h2>
<p>When Lord Justice Leveson submitted his report into the ethics and practices of the press in November 2012, <a href="http://tabloid-watch.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/asylum">he stated</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When assessed as a whole, the evidence of discriminatory, sensational or unbalanced reporting in relation to ethnic minorities, immigrants and/or asylum seekers, is concerning. The press can have significant influence over community relations and the way in which parts of society perceive other parts. While newspapers are entitled to express strong views on minority issues, immigration and asylum, it is important that stories on those issues are accurate, and are not calculated to exacerbate community divisions or increase resentment.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The situation in 2013 is little better. As I write, I take a trip to the Daily Mail website and find that in July the paper ran stories under these headlines:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2370416/Park-Lane-gipsies-sent-packing-Police-swoop-camp-central-London-offer-Roma-free-flights-home-fancy-it.html">Park Lane gipsies sent packing: Police swoop on camp in central London and offer Roma free flights home (but only if they fancy it)</a><br></li>
<li><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2356232/Defunct-UK-Border-Agency-paid-13m-year-legal-costs-immigration-cases-lost.html">Defunct UK Border Agency paid out £13m in a year for legal costs in immigration cases it lost</a><br></li>
<li><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2355208/Toll-mass-migration-UK-life-Half-Britons-suffer-strain-places-schools-police-NHS-housing.html">True toll of mass migration on UK life: Half of Britons suffer under strain placed on schools, police, NHS and housing</a>.<br></li>
</ul>
<p>And from the Daily Express:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/420865/EU-flooded-with-1-000-asylum-seeker-applications-EVERY-day">EU flooded with 1,000 asylum seeker applications EVERY day</a>. </li>
<li><a href="http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/416496/Fury-at-32m-bill-to-care-for-failed-asylum-seekers">Fury at £32m bill to care for failed asylum seekers</a><br></li>
</ul>
<p>This sort of reporting matters a great deal because, obvious though it may be, research tells us that the media is the most important and powerful force that helps shape public opinion about “controversial” issues such as immigration and asylum. </p>
<p>It’s no wonder, then, that there is a <a href="https://theconversation.com/british-people-are-wrong-about-everything-heres-why-16018">vast disparity</a> between what the British public believes to be the state of the nation, and the actual reality reflected by sober statistics. Average estimates of the total immigrant population were found to be two to three times higher than reality.</p>
<h2>The other side</h2>
<p>I don’t think anyone could deny that there are problems with the UK government’s policies toward immigration and asylum. What we need to do debate these issues calmly and rationally without resorting to hysteria and scare mongering. </p>
<p>What if the Mail, Express and the Sun told us that almost all asylum seekers are not allowed to work and are therefore forced rely on state support which can be <a href="http://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/policy_research/the_truth_about_asylum/facts_about_asylum_-_page_1">as little as £5 a day</a>? What if they told us, on their front pages, that crime levels in neighbourhoods that have experienced mass immigration from eastern Europe over the past 10 years has <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/apr/28/immigration-impact-crime?CMP=twt_gu">fallen significantly</a>? </p>
<p>And what if they actually appealed to our basic humanity? What if they concentrated on the underlying reasons for asylum seeking – the suffering and misery endured by people forced to flee their home countries? Well, that certainly would be news. News beyond the continual repetition of a few insidious, odious themes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/17026/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Jewell has received funding from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation for research into immigration.</span></em></p>Reports of the decision made by some Swiss towns to ban asylum seekers from public spaces are depressingly familiar here in the UK. So too were the recent comments from Roman Staub, mayor of the town of…John Jewell, Director of Undergraduate Studies, School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/167522013-08-07T01:52:17Z2013-08-07T01:52:17ZMurdoch and his influence on Australian political life<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/28810/original/gst7vhhg-1375837451.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rupert Murdoch's Australian newspapers have already come out swinging against the current government in the early stages of the election campaign.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Paul Miller</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2007, journalist Ken Auletta spent a great deal of time with Rupert Murdoch while writing a <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/07/02/070702fa_fact_auletta?currentPage=all">magazine profile</a> of him. Auletta observed that Murdoch was frequently on the phone to his editors and this prompted him to ask: “of all the things in your business empire, what gives you the most pleasure?” Murdoch instantly replied: “being involved with the editor of a paper in a day-to-day campaign…trying to influence people”.</p>
<p>Over the course of the 2013 federal election, Australia will experience a real time experiment which will demonstrate the degree of influence exerted by Rupert Murdoch and his newspapers on Australian political life. </p>
<p>That Murdoch has had an influence on elections previously, especially in the UK, is no secret. In the 1992 UK election, The Sun, his biggest selling tabloid in the UK and editorially a kissing cousin of Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, claimed victory on behalf of the Conservative party. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_The_Sun_Wot_Won_It">As the headline</a> famously bellowed: “It Was The Sun Wot Won It”</p>
<p>Could we see “It’s The Tele Wot Won It” on the morning of September 8?</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/28811/original/2xp9yqm4-1375838752.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/28811/original/2xp9yqm4-1375838752.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/28811/original/2xp9yqm4-1375838752.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28811/original/2xp9yqm4-1375838752.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28811/original/2xp9yqm4-1375838752.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28811/original/2xp9yqm4-1375838752.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28811/original/2xp9yqm4-1375838752.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28811/original/2xp9yqm4-1375838752.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Papers owned by Rupert Murdoch have never been shy in using the front page as a political bludgeon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Sun/News Corporation</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On Day One of the campaign (the Monday just gone), the Daily Telegraph staked a claim for the most thuggish <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/05/daily-telegraph-election-australia">headline</a>: “KICK THIS MOB OUT”. <a href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/another-huge-budget-shambles-now-were-30-billion-in-the-red/story-fni0cx12-1226690501676">Two days earlier</a> the Daily Telegraph’s headline was “PRICE OF LABOR: Another huge budget shambles”.</p>
<p>The headlines underlined the fact that when he chooses to, Murdoch uses his newspapers ruthlessly to make or break governments or parties. Given that he controls 70% of the capital city newspaper circulation in Australia, his moods and beliefs are a material factor during elections in Australia. Prime ministers and opposition leaders seek his favours but are grateful if they can just have his neutrality.</p>
<p>Political leaders do this because they have a keen sense of where raw power lies in election campaigns. They know that in the crucial state of Queensland that Murdoch’s Courier-Mail reigns supreme. In Adelaide, The Advertiser has no rival. In NSW and Victoria, he has the powerhouses of the Herald Sun and the Daily Telegraph.</p>
<p>After the 2010 election - which resulted in a minority Labor government - Murdoch summoned his Australian editors and senior journalists to his home in Carmel, California. He made clear that he despised the Gillard government and wanted regime change. In 2011, Murdoch met Abbott and told his editors he liked him. His newspapers (a couple of which had actually supported Gillard in the 2010 election) thereafter campaigned strongly against the Gillard government, particularly on the issues of asylum seekers and climate change.</p>
<p>Some regard newspapers as dinosaurs, but this is mistaken in my view. Newspapers continue to set a daily agenda, particularly in politics. They are responsible for the majority of online news which in turn feeds blogs and social media. Radio and television feed off newspaper coverage, creating an echo chamber, particularly in small state capitals. During election campaigns, the day begins at 4am when the party strategists review the morning’s newspapers and plan their campaign.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/28809/original/mnj3rnnf-1375837269.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/28809/original/mnj3rnnf-1375837269.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/28809/original/mnj3rnnf-1375837269.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=866&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28809/original/mnj3rnnf-1375837269.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=866&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28809/original/mnj3rnnf-1375837269.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=866&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28809/original/mnj3rnnf-1375837269.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1088&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28809/original/mnj3rnnf-1375837269.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1088&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28809/original/mnj3rnnf-1375837269.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1088&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Daily Telegraph front page, August 5.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/col-allan-to-cast-eye-over-australian-newspapers/story-e6frfkp9-1226686580304">arrival in Australia</a> of New York Post editor Col Allan has aroused <a href="http://www.afr.com/p/national/allan_puts_punch_back_into_news_hHeGfA2cYTy02WpFU7AUjJ">much comment</a>. Allan is a radically conservative editor whose newspaper led the charge against Barack Obama in the <a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/item_S6iXH45stH6gujTk5rptKP">2008</a> and <a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/mitt_will_get_the_jobs_done_9hpevJPvBnMgJ0GMyGb0GO">2012</a> presidential elections. Allan is a loyal lieutenant of Rupert Murdoch’s and is particularly close to Lachlan Murdoch.</p>
<p>The reason for Murdoch’s dramatic intervention in the current election has caused some debate. One interpretation of Murdoch is that he acts only for commercial advantage. Reflecting this, Paul Sheehan in the Sun-Herald <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/murdochs-vicious-attacks-on-rudd-its-business-20130803-2r65x.html">argued</a> that Murdoch wants to destroy Rudd and Labor because they are building the National Broadband Network (NBN). The NBN’s capacity to allow the quick downloading of movies and other content would be a threat to Murdoch’s Foxtel TV operation, so the argument goes.</p>
<p>Whether true or not, this underestimates Murdoch and reduces him to a comic book capitalist. If commercial advantage was Murdoch’s real measure of success, he would have closed newspapers like The Australian, London’s The Times and the New York Post many years ago. All lose money. The Australian, for example, which lectures the nation about the need for a level playing field and free markets is <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/axe-hangs-over-news-titles-20120627-212u9.html">reportedly subsidised</a> to the tune of A$25-30 million for its losses per year. The New York Post has <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/apr/15/new-york-post-murdoch-plaything">never made money</a> under Murdoch. The Times has <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2011/jan/15/newsinternational-rupert-murdoch">been in the red</a> for many years.</p>
<p>Murdoch’s personal politics are more ideological than most people think. His pick for US president last year was Rick Santorum. Murdoch <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-03/murdoch-backs-santorum-for-us-president/3756980">praised his “vision”</a> for the country - yet Santorum opposed birth control and wanted to ban abortion. At one stage four of the likely contenders for the Republican nomination were on his payroll as commentators on Fox News.</p>
<p>In Australia, Murdoch’s newspapers - subsidised or not - give him a seat at the table of national politics. From this position he is determined to exercise the kind of influence which he was honest enough to admit to Ken Auletta.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/16752/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David McKnight receives funding from the Australian Research Council to research the political commentary of News Corporation.</span></em></p>In 2007, journalist Ken Auletta spent a great deal of time with Rupert Murdoch while writing a magazine profile of him. Auletta observed that Murdoch was frequently on the phone to his editors and this…David McKnight, Associate Professor, Journalism and Media Research Centre, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/135482013-04-17T20:07:15Z2013-04-17T20:07:15ZPaddy Manning was wrong - in defence of advertorials<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/22558/original/znwbcxtx-1366176002.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Like them or loathe them, advertorials are now a recognised part of the mainstream press, and a key source of revenue for struggling media organisations.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Dean Lewins</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>RMIT professor Sinclair Davidson has <a href="http://theconversation.com/paddy-manning-got-it-right-australian-business-media-is-failing-its-customers-13494">recently defended</a> the actions of journalist Paddy Manning, who was dismissed from Fairfax after writing an <a href="http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/04/08/fairfax-journo-hits-out-fear-and-favour-in-afr-takeover/">article in Crikey</a> critical of what he called “advertorial creep” in the Australian Financial Review. Manning was particularly scathing of a <a href="http://www.afr.com/p/business/companies/why_labor_just_doesn_get_it_VkiSJ9hGnMamcCHKYJ864K">recent advertorial</a> run by the AFR sponsored by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.</p>
<p>Manning’s “<a href="https://theconversation.com/paddy-manning-the-fairfax-watchdog-eats-one-of-its-own-13327">suicide mission</a>” appears to have worked though: the Commonwealth Bank’s sponsorship of the “First Person” column in the AFR has <a href="http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/cba-sponsorship-lost-after-fairfax-sacking/story-e6frfkp9-1226622013161">reportedly been pulled</a>.</p>
<p>Yet Fairfax, like many other reputable publications, has been running advertorials for decades. But the transition of the advertorial format online has not been received well. American magazine The Atlantic recently <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/after-scientology-debacle-atlantic-tightens-native-ad-guidelines-146890">ran into controversy</a> when it introduced sponsored content, even though it used a format (an article identified as sponsored accompanied by display ads) that had been tried and tested in print many thousands of times. What has changed?</p>
<p>Advertorials, as Davidson points out, are neither advertisement nor editorial. The ethics of each of these are individually complex and dynamic. Taken together, they should be a moral minefield. But there is reason to believe that advertorials are not as insidious as the other aspects of the commercial trend described by Manning <a href="http://theconversation.com/churnalism-on-the-rise-as-news-sites-fill-up-with-shared-content-and-wire-copy-7859">and others</a>.</p>
<p>From the perspective of the client, advertorials can look like manna from heaven. They have the overt appeal of editorial, which carries the gravitas of professional journalism. Readers want the fact-checked, non-partisan newsworthiness that a byline provides.</p>
<p>For the journalist assigned to writing them, they can be a debasing exercise in soul-selling. In the eight years I spent working at The Age newspaper I met many disenchanted journalists asked to write advertorials and copy for advertising supplements who went out of their way to ensure their own name appeared nowhere near the published article.</p>
<p>A radio DJ who spruiks auto parts while reading out the traffic report is not being asked to do anything which conflicts with their professional code of ethics. A journalist who does the same in print, however, is being asked to engage in a fundamentally different activity from their chosen profession. </p>
<p>For the reader, advertorials have the potential to be deceptive and distracting. The often tiny print disclosure at the top of the page serves to alert readers to the crucial distinction between paid content and professional editorial content, but the size and stature of this disclosure correspondingly diminishes the value of the advertorial to the client. The less emphasis is placed on the disclosure, the greater the value to clients and the greater the potential for deceiving – and possibly turning away – readers.</p>
<p>The publishers then have a complex decision to make. They must consider every angle: the journalistic integrity of the publication, their obligations to often fickle readers, as well as the need to turn a profit.</p>
<p>In the sponsored article which was the straw that broke Manning’s back the disclosure to clients was crystal clear; this was no “<a href="http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD/pc=PC_310821">cash-for-comment</a>” scandal. Although in a supremely ironic twist, for readers using <a href="http://adblockplus.org/en/chrome">AdBlock Plus</a> or AdBlock for Chrome, the disclosure was missing. An application intended to protect browsers from advertising content inadvertently exposed AFR readers to a far worse form.</p>
<p>There is likewise no suggestion that the AFR has lost or will inevitably lose its ability to comment critically on its sponsors’ activities outside of the advertorial pieces. If an agreement – written or implied – to do so exists, it has not been provided by Manning or anyone else close to Fairfax. It would be devastating, if true.</p>
<p>And if a tendency for Fairfax to modify its coverage of advertorial clients has emerged, this too would be a terrible finding, for just the reasons both Manning and Davidson suggest. The much criticised <a href="http://www.crikey.com.au/2007/06/26/crikey-bias-o-meter-the-newspapers/">right-wing bias</a> at The Australian is a proper cause for concern, and the scrutiny paid to the impartiality of the ABC may not always reveal dramatic shortcomings, but is a legitimate line of inquiry. Commercial favouritism is not a hallmark of journalistic integrity any more than political partisanship.</p>
<p>We do not have any evidence that advertorials have this pernicious effect.</p>
<p>The crux of Manning’s argument, however, was not that advertorial creep is immoral, it was that advertorials don’t work. Because no-one reads them, they lack value. As Davidson notes, they risk damaging the Fairfax reputation without adding to its bottom line.</p>
<p>Yet the same has been said of the advertising industry for eons. Surely no-one likes Harvey Norman advertisements on the TV, yet it would be irrational for Gerry Harvey to have purchased so many if they didn’t work. The success or otherwise of this new brand of advertorial will be tested by the market. In the end, their value will be assessed by the CBA and other potential clients. Their effect on the readership and the publication’s reputation will need to be assessed by senior staff at Fairfax, before any negative impact has lasting damage.</p>
<p>Advertorials disclose openly to readers what <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3737523.htm">“exclusives”, “drops” and re-worked press releases</a> published without critical comment fail to do. These other forms of “churnalism” conceal their biased sources and are arguably more successful in their deception than the tiny-print disclosure.</p>
<p>The cuts to newsrooms are clearly demoralising editorial staff, who are under pressure to produce quality journalism in less time with fewer resources. Advertising revenue has evaporated and sustainable online subscription models are still being tested. Disclosing to readers other sources of income may be distasteful and may be difficult for journalists to swallow, but they and their readers should take heart: at least it’s honest.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/13548/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clare McCausland worked in the advertising department of The Age from 1995 to 2002.</span></em></p>RMIT professor Sinclair Davidson has recently defended the actions of journalist Paddy Manning, who was dismissed from Fairfax after writing an article in Crikey critical of what he called “advertorial…Clare McCausland, Research Integrity Project Officer, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/125952013-03-04T02:31:55Z2013-03-04T02:31:55ZFairfax shrinks in size, shrinks from hard decisions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/20858/original/rrv6qnms-1362362348.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Age has gone tabloid, but missed an opportunity to be brave.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Julian Smith</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald today managed the long-anticipated <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-04/smh-and-the-age-go-tabloid-to-survive/4550998">shrink</a> to a tabloid format without any major loss of dignity.</p>
<p>No shrill <a href="http://www.frontpagestoday.co.uk/australia/herald-sun/newspaper.cfm?frontpage=25738">DIRTY ROTTEN CHEATS</a> headlines or the like (100 drug probes launched. All major sports involved!) that regularly greet us from the front of Rupert Murdoch’s papers. No <a href="http://www.frontpagestoday.co.uk/australia/herald-sun/newspaper.cfm?frontpage=26512">MAD DOG HUNT</a> screamers about sex offenders on the loose or <a href="http://aap.newscentre.com.au/fsu/130203/library/key_players_-_government_&_opposition/30388814.html">CHAOS, WHAT CHAOS?</a> accompanied by images of a smiley Kevin and a stern Julia.</p>
<p>Instead, it was staid old business as usual for Fairfax’s flagship newspapers as they sedately switched from broadsheet to what the publisher, in European parlance, prefers to call a “compact” format for their Monday to Friday editions.</p>
<p>A shame, really.</p>
<p>The change of format was the perfect opportunity for Fairfax to inject some energy into its product while maintaining adherence to sound news values.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the tone of The Age’s <a href="http://www.frontpagestoday.co.uk/australia/the-age/newspaper.cfm?ShowRSS=10&frontpage=26615">front page</a> today is so lacking in confidence and life-force that it might as well have gone into caps with DO NOT RESUSCITATE.</p>
<p>There might be some folk gathered today around some water-cooler in some building having an animated chat about whether it was a jammed end connection or lightning that caused the <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/new-evidence-challenges-cause-of-kilmore-firestorm-20130303-2fetu.html">Kilmore-East power line</a> to fail, with tragic consequences, on February 7, 2009.</p>
<p>They might also be asking each other if they’ve seen the washed out image of a power pole that The Age chose as its seminal image for March 4, 2013.</p>
<p>But I doubt it.</p>
<p>In shrinking its two major metropolitan dailies, Fairfax seems paralysed by fear of the popular notion that broadsheets are up-market and tabloids are for the low-brow. This nervousness can largely be attributed to the widespread disdain essentially serious folk have for the sex, sleaze and sensationalism of Murdoch’s “red-top” UK tabloids.</p>
<p>What Fairfax fails to take into account is that sophisticated news consumers are aware that size doesn’t matter when it comes to serious journalistic content.</p>
<p>Fairfax’s tabloid-sized <a href="http://www.afr.com/">Australian Financial Review</a>, for example, is a world away from the German broadsheet <a href="http://www.bild.de/">Bild</a>’s popular mix of bare breasts, celebrity gossip and ultra-conservative political rhetoric.</p>
<p>But what the AFR and Bild have in common are confidence and strong senses of identity, qualities that currently appear under threat at The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, particularly so at The Age.</p>
<p>It might be unwise to judge a book by its cover or a newspaper by its size, but any paper’s front page tells us all we need to know about its remit. The front page is what sells papers.</p>
<p>Fairfax’s biggest mistake today was not breaking free from the old “dull but worthy” cliché in the face it presents to readers.</p>
<p>In Melbourne, the Herald Sun had it all over The Age with <a href="http://www.frontpagestoday.co.uk/australia/herald-sun/newspaper.cfm?frontpage=26610">SECRET TAPES BOMBSHELL</a>, a story revealing how, despite Premier Ted Baillieu’s public reassurances to the contrary, his chief of staff had provided succour to a disgraced former advisor to the Police Minister.</p>
<p>And, of course, Herald Sun readers were offered a free footy DVD. Beat that!</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/20857/original/fzcmdh43-1362362347.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/20857/original/fzcmdh43-1362362347.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/20857/original/fzcmdh43-1362362347.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/20857/original/fzcmdh43-1362362347.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/20857/original/fzcmdh43-1362362347.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/20857/original/fzcmdh43-1362362347.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/20857/original/fzcmdh43-1362362347.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Sydney Morning Herald managed the switch to tabloid better than The Age.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Tracey Nearmy</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Sydney Morning Herald did slightly better than The Age with a rosy-hued silhouette <a href="http://www.frontpagestoday.co.uk/australia/sydney-morning-herald/newspaper.cfm?frontpage=26613">shot</a> of morning joggers heralding “A new dawn” (which could just as easily been captioned “A new yawn”) and a catchy story about the allegedly “catastrophic” fire threat on Sydney’s trains – apparently a key adviser on fire safety has reversed his recommendation to government on the need for new ventilation shafts in train tunnels.</p>
<p>The damnable thing is, get beyond the underwhelming front pages and the content of Fairfax’s new little papers is rich with well-presented, solid reporting on a wide range of issues.</p>
<p>The lift-out section <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/life/the-buzz-20130301-2fbzy.html">Pulse</a> covers health, science and something called “personal well being”. It’s a good read. Likewise <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/new-look-same-great-tv-coverage-20130228-2f9aa.html">The Guide</a> provides lively and comprehensive television coverage.</p>
<p>Sport has wisely been shifted from the back of Business Day to the back of the paper itself.</p>
<p>Arts enthusiasts must wait until later in the week to see if their interests will be adequately catered for. This is one field where Fairfax must establish a clear point of difference with its down-market, celebrity-obsessed competitors.</p>
<p>It is to be hoped the overall standard that we’ve seen today can be maintained in light of the increasing pressure on Fairfax’s remaining staff. (Crikey last week <a href="http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/02/06/more-stories-more-pictures-earlier-deadlines-fairfax-goes-compact/?wpmp_switcher=mobile">reported</a> on a leaked email that reveals Sydney Morning Herald weekday editor Richard Woolveridge has advised his “battle-hardened” staff they’ll be expected to generate up to three times the stories to “satisfy the compact’s daily appetite”.)</p>
<p>The crucial question is whether the change of format will be sufficient to seduce new readers (and advertisers) and keep existing ones.</p>
<p>If Fairfax can harness some front-page “Read All About It!” chutzpah and maintain today’s overall journalistic quality, it will deserve to survive and thrive. </p>
<p>That, readers, is a big if.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/12595/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jill Singer was a columnist for the Herald Sun from 1997 to 2012.</span></em></p>The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald today managed the long-anticipated shrink to a tabloid format without any major loss of dignity. No shrill DIRTY ROTTEN CHEATS headlines or the like (100 drug probes…Jill Singer, Lecturer in Journalism, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/125112013-03-03T19:30:06Z2013-03-03T19:30:06ZThe end of an era for Fairfax: but does size matter?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/20790/original/87f9p5g2-1362099635.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Will reading habits change with paper size?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Fairfax Media</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>After 159 and 172 years respectively, the broadsheet tradition has ended for the weekday editions of The Age and Sydney Morning Herald (SMH). Today, both these Fairfax Media mastheads became tabloid-sized newspapers for the first time. The question is: does size matter in terms of editorial content? Will we, as readers, see a change in the content and selection of stories in these smaller Fairfax newspapers?</p>
<p>According to Fairfax CEO Greg Hywood, the answer is no. He has <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/business/media-and-marketing/fairfax-mastheads-go-compact-not-tabloid-20130221-2et9r.html">emphatically argued</a> when explaining the rationale for the size switch (to save costs through the closure of the Tullamarine and Chullora printing plants) that the “compact” versions will contain the same “quality journalism” as when they were broadsheets. </p>
<p>But media scholars are divided on the question of whether newspaper size influences content, and in turn, the role of the press in strengthening democratic accountability. </p>
<p>Some, such as British academic <a href="http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/jomec/contactsandpeople/profiles/franklin-bob.html">Bob Franklin</a>, associate tabloid newspapers with downmarket stories – with an emphasis on crime, celebrity gossip and sport reporting – to attract a wide audience and to sell more advertising. While this approach satisfies readers as consumers it might fail to address the needs of readers as citizens. </p>
<h2>Bad press</h2>
<p>Hywood has not explicitly stated that the company would pursue a “downmarket” approach when The Age and SMH change size, and he was deliberate in using the term “compact” rather than tabloid. One can guess that this is because of the pejorative connotations with British “red top” tabloids, such as the now defunct News of the World, which was responsible for the phone hacking scandal that saw journalists tapping into the voicemail of a murdered child, celebrities and others, in search of “news”.</p>
<p>Long before this scandal, tabloids were dogged with a reputation for prurience and sensationalism. A London pharmaceutical company coined the term tabloid in the 1880s to describe compressed tablets. Tabloid newspapers were disparagingly seen as easy-to-digest “compressed” news, the domicile of “yellow” journalism and the “penny” press in the nineteenth century.</p>
<p>Academic <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/brian-mcnair-193/profile_bio">Brian McNair</a> identified new lows of journalistic sleaze that emerged from British tabloids in the 1970s and 1980s threatened traditional press freedom in Britain and created a “widespread perception” about tabloids. He called this <a href="http://www.bjr.org.uk/data/2003/no1_mcnair">“bonk” journalism</a>, and its cousin “yuck” journalism — graphic coverage of sex, the bizarre, the pathetic and the tragic.</p>
<h2>Size and prejudice</h2>
<p>Globally, in 2013, the distinction between the editorial content of the broadsheets compared to tabloids cannot be simply determined by page size. </p>
<p>Previously, larger format papers were associated with a high income-earning readership, and considered a mark of style and authority. This divide blurred when many large format papers converted to “compact” to make it easier for the commuting reader, and to ultimately bolster sales. These papers were more accurately termed “elites” referring to their content, rather than their size, to distinguish them. Such mastheads include The Times, The Guardian, The Independent and The New York Times. Their content shows a commitment to the coverage of politics, foreign news and investigative reporting.</p>
<p>In Australia, the symbolic and physical difference between the two sized newspapers still largely existed up until today. The broadsheet papers of the SMH, The Age and The Australian generally attracted readers from a higher socio-economic background, often termed A and B demographics. </p>
<p>Of course there is one notable exception to this finding in Australia and that is the Australian Financial Review. This tabloid-sized national business newspaper also has an AB demographic and an editorial focus on politics and, as my research has found, a strong record for investigative reporting.</p>
<h2>Content is king</h2>
<p>Looking at the compact newspaper versions published today it is impossible to make any strong statements about whether size matters for Fairfax. That will only be known with time. </p>
<p>What is known is that globally, over the past five years, about 80 daily newspapers have converted from broadsheet to tabloid in a bid to boost circulation and revenues in response to the political economy of the mass media. But swapping to compact size for circulation gains has also proved not to be sustainable for most beyond a few years. </p>
<p><a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780847695713">British and Swedish research</a> has shown press content, including the elites, is moving slowly but inexorably toward “tabloidisation”. This means mastheads’ style and content had changed with more emphasis on “soft news”, negative news, celebrity gossip, sex and crime reporting. </p>
<p>My own research has found the same features in the news pages of Australian broadsheets over time. The premium news pages today has fewer stories, bigger pictures and more advertising now compared to each decade before since the 1970s. Editors had also shifted their lead-story focus toward crime stories and away from international reporting.</p>
<h2>Editor’s picks</h2>
<p>Franklin argued that the move toward tabloidisation of content has resulted in different editorial priorities, including less investigative reporting. My research has found that Australian broadsheets have produced a significant pool of investigative journalism in Australia, which was more than double the contribution of tabloids. </p>
<p>Significantly, the research showed that when Australian broadsheets became tabloids their investigative reporting diminished. The three examples were Brisbane’s Courier Mail, the Adelaide Advertiser and the Newcastle Herald. </p>
<p>In this finding is a cautionary tale for Fairfax: size does not necessarily shape content (as the Financial Review has so far shown) but the political economy of newspapers demonstrates that it can. Whether it does or doesn’t largely depends on the power and editorial perspective of the editor – one free of the editorial compromises that corporate responsibilities of a masthead can bring. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/12511/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Carson was once a journalist at The Age, and has submitted a
PhD about the future of Australian broadsheets.</span></em></p>After 159 and 172 years respectively, the broadsheet tradition has ended for the weekday editions of The Age and Sydney Morning Herald (SMH). Today, both these Fairfax Media mastheads became tabloid-sized…Andrea Carson, Honorary Research Fellow Centre for Advancing Journalism , The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/114872013-01-08T03:34:51Z2013-01-08T03:34:51ZMedia is missing climate in heatwave story<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/19016/original/fhn245rm-1357602187.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It's easy to find the human angle in heatwave stories, but climate change has them too.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jocelyn Durston</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As Australia stares at “<a href="http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/the-heat--and-dry--is-on-20130102-2c5lg.html">a once-in-20 or 30-year heatwave</a>”, with temperatures over 40 degrees, it is likely that more extreme weather events similar to this are in store for us. The probability of this occurring is well researched. (For example, <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/barry-w-brook-5743">Professor Barry Brook</a> has previously outlined <a href="http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/02/03/is-there-a-link-between-adelaides-heatwave-and-global-warming/">Adelaide’s situation</a>.)</p>
<p>Australia’s media largely fails to link climate change to the heat. There have been more than 800 articles in the last five days covering the heatwave. Fewer than ten of these also discuss “climate change”, “greenhouse gas”, carbon or “global warming” (from a 3 -7 January 2013 <a href="http://www.dowjones.com/factiva/sources.asp">Factiva</a> news source search conducted on 7 January at 4pm).</p>
<p>Even with the occasional mention, these articles often obscure the link. Tim Blair’s <a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailytelegraph.com.au%2Fnews%2Fopinion%2Ftravels-no-issue-for-rich-high-flying-carbon-kings%2Fstory-e6frezz0-1226548481282&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNHGElGP_P8qCXIC2mvskQPaKrRX2Q">Carbon Kings</a> story in the Daily Telegraph is a good example. It reports on a tweet from Sydney Morning Herald columnist <a href="https://twitter.com/Peter_Fitz">Peter FitzSimons</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Peter: Will the politics of carbon tax/climate change alter with this extraordinary, sustained heatwave hitting the southern states?</p>
<p>Tim: It’s called summer, Peter, and the carbon tax won’t make any difference.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Death caused by extreme heat is usually of interest to the media. For example <a href="http://www.pwc.com.au/industry/government/assets/extreme-heat-events-nov11.pdf">370 people died</a> from extreme heat in Victoria during the same week that there were 173 deaths in the 2009 Black Saturday fires.</p>
<p>For the future, a <a href="http://www.pwc.com.au/industry/government/assets/extreme-heat-events-nov11.pdf">PWC report</a> shows extreme heat in Melbourne could, without mitigation by 2050, kill more than 1000 people in a heat event. Climate change is likely to increase both extreme heat events and bushfire danger - as discussed in a recent <a href="https://docs.google.com/a/greenmode.com.au/viewer?a=v&q=cache:Tx5YCY3Y5-8J:www.climateinstitute.org.au/verve/_resources/bushfire.pdf+&hl=en&gl=au&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESiIuKd1lxw4bZoNy19uxv6YR3ma8vYhnWMreLEaPV3_wia7Ye7Y7cfnR1lN349RPKmWsBoP5R7b3hzAgWJElZNuuXl_b68kfxLJFofFqp5pUgUQLb6Z15zokTCcfaJ4hYLcrdpf&sig=AHIEtbRYEsLMrKtM1p1beJo-TGieo5pLlA">Climate Institute briefing paper</a> and by <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/environment/weather/prepare-for-more-scorchers-gillard-warns-20130107-2ccve.html">Prime Minister Julia Gillard</a>.</p>
<p>What could change a large proportion of our reporting?</p>
<p>Numbers and threats like these seem to be losing salience with the Australian public, or at least our media. The lack of reporting certainly aligns with research that demonstrates “<a href="http://www.academia.edu/373169/Fear_Wont_Do_It_Promoting_Positive_Engagement_With_Climate_Change_Through_Visual_and_Iconic_Representations">Fear Won’t Do It</a>”. Could this be a reason why Australia 21’s <a href="http://www.australia21.org.au/publications/press_releases/12/Nov/dcf825c77aa62751e87257c701a0ce89.pdf">Beyond Denial: managing the uncertainties of global change</a> argues that “our leaders and the community at large are still in denial (or studiously unaware) of the realities of global change”?</p>
<p>Climate change and sustainability practitioners need to address these issues. This is where more of the same, more figures, statistics, research and evidence might be necessary but are not going to be sufficient. While statements like the Prime Minister’s are important we need to go further. Some of the standout interventions highlighting broader approaches include Futerra’s <a href="http://www.stuffit.org/carbon/pdf-research/behaviourchange/ccc-rulesofthegame.pdf">Rules of the Game</a> (principles of climate change communications) and the <a href="http://www.apa.org/science/about/publications/climate-change.aspx">American Psychological Association Task Force on the interface between psychology and global climate change</a>.</p>
<p>What is also clear is that climate change is a complex, tangled problem. Moreover, unlike a public health campaign - such as one to stop smoking - it is difficult to talk about the evidence and avoid <a href="http://www.futerra.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/RulesOfTheGame.pdf">creating fear without agency</a>. That is, people may worry about climate change, but feel there’s nothing they can do about it (unlike smokers, who can stop).</p>
<p>As this is a complex, multi-systemic problem, no short article like this one can offer a silver bullet solution. For general principles however we need to remember the strong call to avoid what philosophers and futurists, such as Ken Wilber and Richard Slaughter, call “<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328798000561">flatland</a>”. Flatland is a social perspective which insists that if we can’t measure it, it does not matter. In this “flatland” we lose sight of the fact that “<a href="http://www.peccuv.mx/descargas/pdf/docuteca/A%20values-based%20approach%20to%20vulnerability.pdf">values play a significant role in climate change debates</a>”. Consequently, we often focus just on statistics, research and other directly measurable, objective evidence.</p>
<p>On agency, the <a href="http://www.wbgu.de/en/home/">German Advisory Council on Global Change</a> tells us that far from being unable to make a difference:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Individual actors can play a far larger role in the transformation of social (sub)systems than the one that has been accorded to them for quite some time.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The council, a scientific advisory body to the German government, places individuals as one of four pillars for a sustainability “Great Transformation”. For more, see its beautifully written report: <a href="http://www.wbgu.de/fileadmin/templates/dateien/veroeffentlichungen/hauptgutachten/jg2011/wbgu_jg2011_en.pdf">World in Transition: A social contract for sustainability</a>.</p>
<p>Tying this together, and back to this week’s media, the call is to highlight what we care about. This might be the impact on the elderly, care for our gardens, our pets, as well as our awe of nature around us or adrenalin sports in it. We need to do so recognising that this is a narrow tailored approach for individuals and communities. </p>
<p>A good example of targeted peer-to-peer engagement is <a href="http://www.acfonline.org.au/be-informed/climate-change/climate-reality-project">Al Gore’s climate ambassadors</a> program that has now presented personally to 7.3 million people globally. Models like this - prioritising engagement around what we love and value - can narrowcast to individual cares. Ultimately this drives demand for good news coverage.</p>
<p>Personally, I’ll remember to talk, <a href="http://greenmodesustainabilitydevelopments.blogspot.com.au/2011/09/resolving-climate-change-paradoxes-do.html">blog</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/simondivecha">tweet</a> more on agency than fear.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/11487/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Divecha 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>As Australia stares at “a once-in-20 or 30-year heatwave”, with temperatures over 40 degrees, it is likely that more extreme weather events similar to this are in store for us. The probability of this…Simon Divecha, Environment Institute , University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/110912012-11-30T04:31:26Z2012-11-30T04:31:26ZInvestigative reporting thrives amid doom and gloom for broadsheets<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18204/original/xjfwt4vn-1354243599.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=666%2C1179%2C5668%2C3724&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Printed journalism may be struggling, but there's cause for optimism for investigative journalism.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Newspaper image, www.shutterstock.com/Claudio Divizia </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When print journalists fill Parliament House tonight to learn who among them has won a <a href="http://www.walkleys.com/walkley-awards">Walkley award</a>, the list of finalists already tells an untold truth: newspaper investigative journalism is still strong.</p>
<p>Contrary to reports about the death of print, there is cause for optimism about the future of investigative reporting in newspapers.</p>
<p>While it is true that these are tough economic times for newspapers across the Western world as advertising revenues and circulations decline, empirical research shows a rise, not fall, in Australian print investigative journalism over seven decades.</p>
<p>The line between investigative journalism and daily reporting can be blurry, but generally investigative journalism takes time and research to produce stories that are in the public interest, rather than merely interesting to the public. It is important because, as the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/interactive/2012/nov/29/leveson-report-executive-summary">Leveson Inquiry</a> has noted, investigative journalism can hold those with power to account.</p>
<h2>Who wins Walkleys?</h2>
<p>My research found that since 1956, when the Walkleys <a href="http://www.walkleys.com/history">began</a>, newspapers produced more Walkley-winning investigative journalism than any other medium in Australia — with broadsheets outperforming general news tabloids.</p>
<p>The exception was the 1960s when tabloids dominated, particularly those with longer deadlines: Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph and Melbourne’s <a href="http://www.emelbourne.net.au/biogs/EM01520b.htm">Truth</a> were standouts. Evan Whitton’s 1969 investigation for Truth, “The Ugly Cloud” blew the whistle on police extortion of backyard abortionists.</p>
<p>Not only has the quantity of investigative journalism increased over time, reporting standards have not fallen, as some fear. Academic Bob Franklin wrote of the British press that newsrooms were altering their reporting priorities: “newspapers seem less concerned to report news, especially…investigative stories”.</p>
<p>Using multiple, independent methods, my key findings, to my own surprise, did not support this concern regarding Australian broadsheets. Since 1956 until 2011, the most prolific mastheads for awarded investigations have been The Age (together with the Sunday Age), marginally ahead of the Sydney Morning Herald, followed (in equal third) by The Australian and Australian Financial Review.</p>
<p>However Franklin’s words spoke truth for broadsheets that shrank to tabloids, such as the Adelaide Advertiser and Queensland’s Courier Mail. As tabloids, their Walkley-winning investigations faded as their reporting priorities changed. This is a cautionary tale to The Age and SMH, which are expected to convert to compacts next year. However, size of itself is not the problem: the Financial Review shows award-winning investigations can prosper in tabloid form.</p>
<h2>A history of investigation</h2>
<p>Australia has a proud history of investigative journalism. It came to vogue in the 1970s with the glamorisation of the Washington Post’s Watergate investigation; and the Age editorship of <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/perkin-edwin-graham-11370">Graham Perkin</a> (1966-75) who exported the idea of London’s Sunday Times specialist investigative unit to Australia. The 1970s also saw more university graduates choosing journalism as a career.</p>
<p>The late 1970s and early 1980s witnessed circulations peaks, while print advertising revenues flowed like “rivers of gold”. There were stories with significant public outcomes such as royal commissions and public figure jailings. The significant contributions of broadcast media to investigative reporting must be recognised, especially ABC TV’s Four Corners, ABC radio’s Background Briefing, and commercial TV programs, such as 60 Minutes, Sunday and others.</p>
<p>Chris Masters’ 1987 Four Corners story about police corruption in Queensland, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2011/08/08/3288495.htm">“The Moonlight State”</a> was an example of what academic Julianne Schultz describes as the media becoming “equal contenders” with the powerful, rather than subservient messengers.</p>
<p>In the 1990s, editors favoured magazine-style feature and entertainment stories to bolster circulations. Newspapers grew fatter as they filled with pullout lifestyle sections, but like television current affairs, they lost audience share. Even 60 Minutes declined in clout as its audience slipped away. Still, broadsheets, including the Courier Mail, produced the most award-winning investigations in this decade.</p>
<h2>Adapting to change</h2>
<p>Tension exists between profitability and the expense of providing quality journalism, but it seems broadsheet editors recognised investigative journalism supports brand credibility. The 2000s saw a resurgence in investigative reporting. US academic Phillip Meyer argues that in the digital age newspapers can remain viable with smaller audience share, if they retain trust and influence. Giving readers evidence-based journalism, largely outside the domain of bloggers, empowers mastheads to demand political accountability vital for a well-functioning democracy.</p>
<p>To produce investigative reporting, my research shows broadsheets have adapted to changed economic conditions. These include: greater sharing of editorial resources within a publishing group; creative use of existing resources, such as foreign correspondents concentrating on investigative stories; and targeting investigations to specific subjects.</p>
<p>A recent, significant development is print collaborations with alternative media, such as the New York Times working with philanthropically funded website ProPublica, to produce Pulitzer-winning investigative journalism for a mass audience.</p>
<h2>The support of institutions</h2>
<p>Investigative journalism is never easy. Chris Masters told me, “even when you want to say goodbye to stories, you can’t because you spend years defending them in court”. </p>
<p>For this reason, institutions matter. Established media provide legal, financial and moral support to journalists. Very few Australian online news providers have resources to cover these expenses. Strategic partnerships with media and non-media institutions, including academia, could fulfil this role, and are starting to. This year hundreds of editorial jobs were cut across the media sector, so what happens to investigative reporting now depends on how broadsheets continue to adapt.</p>
<p>Importantly, rather than viewing the digital sphere in opposition to print media, collaborations allow both to provide transparency and accountability of our democratic institutions. </p>
<p>Online media is fast and efficient at promoting stories and reaching new audiences. Mastheads lend credibility and institutional support. Combined, investigative journalism’s future is cause for optimism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/11091/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Carson 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>When print journalists fill Parliament House tonight to learn who among them has won a Walkley award, the list of finalists already tells an untold truth: newspaper investigative journalism is still strong…Andrea Carson, Honorary Research Fellow Centre for Advancing Journalism , The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/77252012-06-18T20:38:47Z2012-06-18T20:38:47ZRinehart’s tilt at power is bad news for public debate<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/11815/original/q257w6dr-1339977700.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Gina Rinehart's involvement in Fairfax is unlikely to alleviate an already polarised and fragmented media discourse in Australia. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There are numerous indications that mining magnate Gina Rinehart <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/business/rinehart-steps-up-fairfax-pressure-20120615-20fom.html">seeks to take control of the Fairfax media group</a>. What are the likely implications of that move, and how would it affect Australian society and democratic discourse? I focus on two aspects of this potential development: the impact that different media outlets have on their audiences; and the likely consequences of an increasingly fragmented media landscape on societal discourse.</p>
<p>Concerning the first issue, there is ample evidence that bad media can do considerable harm.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/?nid=&id=&lb=hmpg">Professor Stephen Kull and colleagues</a> at the University of Maryland have been keeping track of key beliefs among the American public for many years, and their data are as revealing as they are concerning: long after the search for “Weapons of Mass Destruction” (WMD) proved futile after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, large segments of the U.S. public continued to believe in their existence.</p>
<p>Similarly, in 2010, nearly 45% of the American public erroneously believed that scientists are evenly divided on whether or not climate change is occurring — when in fact an overwhelming majority of experts supports the consensus view, endorsed by virtually all scientific organisations around the world: that the Earth is warming due to human activities.</p>
<p>Even more revealing is that the extent of such mistaken beliefs varies dramatically with Americans’ preferred news source. Consumers of Murdoch-owned Fox News were most likely to be misinformed on a range of issues, whereas those who primarily listened to National Public Radio (roughly comparable to our ABC) were most likely to be attuned to reality. Of course, this pattern may arise because people who are already ill-informed or less educated are more likely to tune into Fox, whereas people who are better informed or educated prefer to listen to National Public Radio. In other words, Fox may be a victim of its audience, rather than the other way around.</p>
<p>Although this possibility cannot be ruled out, it is rendered less likely by a further aspect of the data: the extent to which Fox-consumers were misinformed increased with how much they watched their preferred channel. Those who watched Fox daily had a particularly tenuous hold on reality, whereas those who watched Fox “rarely” or “only once a week” escaped relatively unscathed and resembled occasional listeners of public radio. Increased consumption of National Public Radio, by contrast, increased the accuracy of people’s perceptions, and daily listeners of National Public Radio were generally the best-informed people across a number of studies spanning nearly a decade.</p>
<p>What does Fox News have to do with Gina Rinehart?</p>
<p>We don’t know yet, but the data of Professor Kull and colleagues should alert us to the fact that when a media organ pursues an <a href="http://hij.sagepub.com/content/17/1/3">agenda in preference to reporting accurately</a>, the consequences for society can be dire. And given that we already have several <a href="https://theconversation.com/carbon-pricing-policy-in-the-media-3746">agenda-pursuing propagandistic organs in Australia</a> whose <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/category/the_war_on_science/">disregard for accuracy</a> is legendary, the spectre of a mining magnate taking control of the major competition must be reason for concern, even if the exact consequences of that move cannot yet be anticipated.</p>
<p>This concern must be balanced against the views of some commentators that “new media”, such as internet blogs, will compensate for the demise of conventional media. On this more optimistic view, it doesn’t matter who owns Fairfax and it doesn’t matter what Rupert Murdoch does because few people read their newspapers anyhow. Instead, the internet provides a smorgasbord of alternative information that permits readers to remain accurately informed.</p>
<p>There are indications that this optimism would be misplaced.</p>
<p>This brings us to the second issue: the consequences of fractionation of the media landscape.</p>
<p>One of the reasons Gina Rinehart’s moves on Fairfax have met little resistance is that the conventional business model of the print media is under great duress. It is precisely those alternative outlets on the internet and the multitude of offerings on cable TV that have curtailed the opportunities for large print-only media corporations. </p>
<p>There is every reason for this trend to continue because the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13527266.2010.484573">fractionation of media audiences are in the interests of advertisers</a>. For example, purveyors of adult incontinence products do not want to shell out gazillions to advertise to a broad audience on national TV — they much prefer to pay less for ads that air on a smaller network whose audience, however tiny, has exactly the right demographics. Those commercial pressures will likely result in a continued fractionation of media offerings into cyber- or cable-ghettos that satisfy the needs of one — and only one — demographic segment of the population. (It must be noted that this is a future scenario on which there is some agreement, although there is considerable debate about the current extent of audience fragmentation. But the trend seems clear.)</p>
<p>It is possible, therefore, that the <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/media/fairfax-becomes-target-for-private-equity-break-up/story-e6frg996-1226388114905">large print-oriented Fairfax will be broken into smaller components</a>, and there has been speculation that this break-up is one of Rinehart’s intentions.</p>
<p>So, what of it? And why would any of this matter?</p>
<p>There is evidence that fragmentation matters a great deal because it leads to increasing polarisation of public discourse and “epistemic bubbles”; that is, isolated communities in which facts are shaped to suit the beholders ideological needs. People tend to visit internet sites (especially blogs) that conform to their own views. In consequence, it becomes advantageous for politicians to make extreme statements. </p>
<p>Research by <a href="http://www.economics.harvard.edu/pub/hier/2002/HIER1956.pdf">Professor Ed Glaeser and colleagues</a> has shown that if politicians can preferentially address their own supporters, they are more likely to make extreme statements. This extremism becomes worthwhile only if a politician’s extremism attracts more supporters than are repelled on the opposing side. Thus, audience fragmentation is a necessary prerequisite for extremism because if a politician’s statements were processed by a broad national audience, then there is a strong incentive to pursue the “median” voter rather than make extreme statements.</p>
<p>We are therefore facing a pernicious chain of consequences. Modern technology has enabled the creation of a multitude of information channels; commercial pressures are likely to facilitate the creation of isolated “cyber-ghettos”; and, as a result, society is likely to become more polarised and politicians more extreme.</p>
<p>Those trends cannot be healthy for democratic discourse and the well-being of civil society. Opposing those trends is a difficult challenge, and that challenge is unlikely to be aided by an increased involvement of Gina Rinehart in the Australian media.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/7725/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephan Lewandowsky receives funding from the Australian Research Council and other public institutions to conduct research in the public interest. He has no commercial interests of any kind.</span></em></p>There are numerous indications that mining magnate Gina Rinehart seeks to take control of the Fairfax media group. What are the likely implications of that move, and how would it affect Australian society…Stephan Lewandowsky, Chair of Cognitive Psychology, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/77342012-06-18T05:56:07Z2012-06-18T05:56:07ZDeath by 1,900 cuts: will quality journalism thrive under Fairfax’s new model?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/11851/original/vfyzmy4s-1339998106.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C11%2C1964%2C1296&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fairfax Media's Melbourne's printing operations in Tullamarine will be closed down under a radical restructure of the company.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It was less than ten years ago that Fairfax Media’s The Age opened its shiny, new printing presses at Tullamarine. </p>
<p>Billed at the time as “state-of-the-art”, the then Premier Steve Bracks opened the $220 million plant with much fanfare. Back then, The Age’s share price was trending up rather than down. The company’s ten-year high was $A4.80 during a peak in the market in late 2007.</p>
<p>How times have changed. Next came the GFC and, by late 2010, the media stock had fallen to $1.45 — a 70% drop. That was shocking then. Now, the stock is barely above 60 cents. The company’s largest shareholder, Gina Rinehart, is knocking loudly on the boardroom door, demanding a couple of seats on the board despite no previous media publishing experience.</p>
<p>It is in this context that it should be of no surprise that Fairfax Media’s CEO Greg Hywood has taken decisive and dramatic action. His latest news overshadows last month’s snap announcement that 66 sub-editorial jobs were moving offshore to New Zealand. </p>
<p>Today, he has revealed that the major Fairfax mastheads will have online paywalls, the printed versions of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age will move to a tabloid-styled size, and that 1900 jobs will be lost in the process. These radical changes may be positive news for shareholders, but they can only be regarded as a negative for quality journalism and Australian pluralism. </p>
<p>Former CEO Fred Hilmer’s vision of the Tullamarine printing press, which he lavishly described in 2003 as an “idea that has become a reality”, is also about to be no more.</p>
<p>Fairfax Media is not only closing the doors at the architecturally award-winning Tullamarine plant, but also at Chullora in Sydney’s west, which prints the SMH, Australia’s oldest masthead. This announcement is an historical moment for Fairfax Media’s broadsheets. And it is a sad one.</p>
<p>The closures are expected to save the company $235 million a year by June 2015. Of the job cuts, it has been revealed today that 150 will be editorial and will be lost within months across five of the company’s major mastheads. This follows a series of redundancy rounds of editorial jobs in recent years.</p>
<p>There is already a noticeable difference between the tabloid-style presentation of the online versions of Fairfax’s publications, using popular crime and celebrity stories to attract ‘click-bait’ to get more viewers, so as to attract more advertisers. </p>
<p>Following from the examples of the online versions, it is unconvincing for Hywood to assure readers that changing the SMH and The Age to a “compact” print version will do no more than change its layout, and not its tone and style.</p>
<p>This announcement also shows that once again the company is expecting its journalists to do more with less. But the real sting in the tail for readers seeking quality journalism is Hywood’s statement that there will be “…greater sharing of editorial content across geographies and across platforms.”
What this means is that instead of getting separate stories out of Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne on the same subject from different journalists - who might each take a different perspective from one another - readers in each of these states will get one viewpoint from a single journalist. </p>
<p>This is not fearmongering. It is already happening with Fairfax Media consolidating and closing some of its foreign bureaus and relying on stringers or wire services to provide stories once written from a staff journalist. Fairfax has also recently created one national investigative unit, and for a few years now it has combined some editorial resources in its national political bureau. </p>
<p>The concerning consequence of this is that it shrinks the number and diversity of viewpoints available to Fairfax readers. Another consequence is that the power of a few journalists and editors who remain on staff becomes more concentrated in the public sphere. </p>
<p>Journalists with large picture bylines are becoming bigger than the mastheads they work for — this is happening abroad too. Think of Andrew Bolt or Michelle Grattan. In a departure from her methodical reporting style, Grattan in April this year called for the Prime Minister Julia Gillard to resign. Is this the role of a press gallery journalist with four decades of reporting experience? Has the pressure of digital deadlines caused journalists to develop their persona in such a way that they depart from traditional reporting in preference for more sweeping opinion pieces in order to be first and to be noticed?</p>
<p>Of course, it can be argued that the rise of online and social media is an important counter to this consolidation of traditional news resources and increasing lack of diversity. There is some merit here and it does not have to be a dichotomous argument. There are some terrific, considered online publications that have secure funding to ensure their survival. The Conversation is a clear case in point. </p>
<p>However, it is also true that the news audience (including the digital sphere) has become highly fragmented over the past two decades. This means that established media companies in Australia remain the dominant gatekeepers of opinion and news, despite dwindling print circulations. Politicians and those seeking to influence the public sphere still seek to penetrate the digital and print pages of traditional mass audience media.</p>
<p>The question is: if Fairfax expects its journalists to do more with less, will there be enough divergent voices to ensure diversity of viewpoints? With the almost certain rise of Rinehart to the Fairfax board, will there be guaranteed editorial independence to ensure the conservative interests of the business elite do not unduly influence the media from within the print duopoly that is Fairfax and News Limited? </p>
<p>It is hoped that the single mention of “quality journalism” in Greg Hywood’s statement today is not reflective of its level of priority in the company’s future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/7734/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Carson previously worked at Fairfax as a journalist at the Age.
</span></em></p>It was less than ten years ago that Fairfax Media’s The Age opened its shiny, new printing presses at Tullamarine. Billed at the time as “state-of-the-art”, the then Premier Steve Bracks opened the $220…Andrea Carson, Honorary Research Fellow Centre for Advancing Journalism , The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.