It was June 4 2014. That was the date the British public learned that, in spite of their relatively free media, the power of the state – as expressed by the executive and the judiciary – was poised to…
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (red helmet) is briefed about tanks containing radioactive water by Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant chief Akira Ono.
EPA/Sankei Shimbun Pool
Ashley Ng, WEHI (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research)
Many readers will know the name Mark Willacy, an Australian journalist who was the ABC’s North Asian correspondent for five years. On March 11, 2011, he would witness events that would redefine Japan as…
How did the media cover treasurer Joe Hockey’s first federal budget?
AAP/Lukas Coch
In the lead-up to the Abbott government’s first federal budget, there was one standout headline that stole attention from “exclusive” pre-budget leaks: WHY I’VE GOT A PACKER UP MY CLACKER In terms of tabloid…
In a digital world dominated by a few media conglomerates, start-up initiatives like The Charta and First Look in the US should be welcomed.
Andy Piper
The digital era has led to increasing challenges for western and traditional news media business models. Media outlets are facing steady declines in revenue, while the migration of advertising online has…
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch may still bestride the world like a colossus, but the world is shifting under his feet.
AAP/Dan Himbrechts
In the late 1980s, shortly after Rupert Murdoch’s News Ltd had swallowed the Herald and Weekly Times to become the print media behemoth that it is today, I found myself working on the subeditors’ table…
Last summer the World Economic Forum (WEF) invited its 1,500 council members to identify top trends facing the world, including what should be done about them. The WEF consists of 80 councils covering…
Some people are looking for a new kind of journalism.
Ted Eytan/Flickr
The Guardian and The Washington Post have been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for their work in bringing to light documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. It is fashionable…
White Paper magazine offers ‘the distilled wisdom of RN’ in written form.
Constantine Belias
This month, ABC Radio National (RN) launched a pilot digital magazine, White Paper, which presents “the distilled wisdom of RN” in a monthly interactive offering delivered free to your tablet. Newspapers…
Access to independent information about what is going on locally is essential to a healthy democracy and vibrant community. News, views and information are the life-blood of engagement and action. For…
The Daily Telegraph gave extraordinary prominence to the allegations against former speaker Peter Slipper, then relegated the dismissal of the case to page 17.
nofibs.com.au
The Sydney Daily Telegraph’s reaction to an Australian Press Council ruling that it breached the council’s “fairness and balance” principle raises concerns about the council’s relationship with the big…
What’s behind Al Jazeera’s frosty relationship with the Egyptian government?
AAP/Terry Scott
In 1999, then-Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak visited the small, dusty Al Jazeera compound in a suburb of the Qatari capital of Doha. “This matchbox! All this noise is coming out of this matchbox?” Mubarak…
Yahoo has launched a new app aimed at making reading the news easier. News Digest is the latest invention from Nick D’Aloisio, Yahoo’s 18-year-old recruit who found fame with Summly, another app that takes…
DIdn’t see that coming: within a decade of opening, Fairfax’s $220 million Tullamarine printing plant was on the market, driven by falling print newspaper sales.
AAP/Julian Smith
After more than a century of a “life of plenty” with its lion’s share of a seemingly ever-growing advertising market, newspapers have fallen on hard times. The turmoil in the news media is not confined…
Hailed as the US ‘Queen of the mommy bloggers’, Heather Armstrong’s Dooce.com has made her one of Forbes’ ‘Most Influential Women in Media’ and is a US$1 million a year business.
Forbes
Making the personal political has long been a feminist project. But parenting blogs — known popularly, but often with a special sort of sexist sneer as “mummy blogs” — increasingly run the risk of making…
The hacks and flacks of old in Frith’s ‘A Private View at the Royal Academy, 1881’
Wikimedia Commons
Public relations and arts journalism are inextricable. And so, unlike in other areas of the media, the influence that PR has on the arts sections of newspapers and magazines is not so contentious. But…
Media studies? Another great idea!
Photo by Chris Boland / www.bolandactorheadshots.co.uk
On Wednesday evening, after an afternoon of lecture preparation to teach my Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies class “Doing Media Research”, I settled down to watch Newsnight. Alain de Botton, “philosopher…
The Saturday Paper will be the first new print paper in several decades, and editor Erik Jensen hopes to find a profitable niche in an industry that is quickly shedding circulation and staff.
Phil Gyford
Businessman and publisher Morry Schwartz’s decision to appoint a 25-year-old, relatively unknown journalist to edit the first serious newspaper launched in Australia in more than four decades might be…
Philanthropist Graeme Wood has pulled funding from longform journalism venture The Global Mail, but is this really another nail in the Australian media’s coffin?
AAP
There are no great surprises in the announcement by Wotif founder and philanthropist Graeme Wood that he will no longer fund not-for-profit online journalism venture The Global Mail (TGM). According to…
Can you handle the digital revolution?
www.shutterstock.com
It was something of a moment in the evolution of news in this country. Last week, while we were still digesting the revelation that The Independent, which had been acquired by its current owner for just…
Read between the lines, and you’re reading the truth.
Sean Dempsey/PA
This week, the World Association of Newspapers begins investigating the condition of press freedom in Britain, while national newspapers report that a chief constable wants Channel 4 to hand over material…