A senate inquiry has called for the Commonwealth Bank (CBA) and Australia’s corporate regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), to be investigated by a Royal Commission. The…
In the aftermath of disasters like the Boston marathon bombing, footage from citizen journalists is sometimes the ‘only option’.
marsmettn tallahassee/Flickr
User-generated content has become “a central element of the news gathering process,” says the controller of BBC World (English) Richard Porter, in a recently-released international study by the US-based…
Treasurer Joe Hockey has commenced defamation proceedings against several Fairfax newspapers over the ‘Treasurer for sale’ story.
AAP/Dean Lewins
Treasurer Joe Hockey’s decision to sue Fairfax Media for defamation over the now-notorious front-page story “Treasurer for sale” raises interesting questions about politicians suing to protect their reputation…
If Kiama residents want to know what’s happening in their town, the local newspaper is generally the only place they’ll be able to read about it.
Gavin Anderson/Flickr
After residents in the NSW coastal town of Kiama woke to the sound of emergency sirens earlier this week, chances are they grabbed a copy of the local newspaper, the Independent, to find out about the…
The media landscape has been transformed in so many ways … and yet …
JD Lasica
Many of the men I knew who ran newsrooms in the 80s and 90s were womanisers, drunks, bullies, and gropers. Some were just sleazy. And any woman, of almost any ambition, was cold or bossy or had too many…
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…
Rural and regional newspapers are training grounds for young journalists – and they tell the stories that really affect local communities.
AAP Image/Alan Porritt
I remember the day I started work at what was then The Imlay Magnet in Eden. It was 1991 and I had taken the job straight out of my journalism degree at the Canberra College of Advanced Education (now…
Fairfax staff are on strike today in protest against cuts to the picture departments at the company’s mastheads.
AAP Image/Julian Smith
In the documentary Gallipoli from Above, an Australian production that recently aired on ABC TV, Hugh Dolan, author of 36 Days: The Untold Story Behind the Gallipoli Landings argues that at 4am on April…
Morry Schwartz is hoping quality journalism will help The Saturday Paper succeed.
Charis Palmer
At a time when the print media in Australia is under intense economic pressure the weekend proved to be a super Saturday of change with the revamping, rebadging and launching of major mastheads. Fairfax…
The New York Times launched its paywall in 2011 and in the most recent quarter claimed US$37.7 million in digital subscription revenue.
Andre-Pierre/Flickr
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…
Where will Rupert Murdoch’s influential broadsheet The Australian focus its agenda now that there has been a change of government?
AAP/Dean Lewins
How does a newspaper of strong ideological preferences - such as News Corp broadsheet The Australian - respond when there is a government in office that more closely shares its ideology than did the previous…
Twitter data showing an apparent drop in the number of Tweeps sharing Fairfax opinion articles is, in fact, explained by a change in the way the publisher names its URLs.
AAP Image/Paul Miller
UPDATE: Fairfax has responded to a column published on The Conversation – and an earlier version of this story – that linked the introduction of the publisher’s pay wall to an apparent slump in the number…
Media giant Fairfax has been plagued by board troubles and company indecision, according to a new book.
AAP/Julian Smith
In the same week that Colleen Ryan’s tell-all book Fairfax: The Rise and Fall hits bookstores, Fairfax’s two biggest metropolitan newspapers will place their content behind a metered digital paywall. If…
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.
AAP/Dean Lewins
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…
Fairfax’s Richard Baker and Nick McKenzie are two of the five journalists currently involved in legal disputes for not revealing their sources.
Image supplied by MEAA
The protection of confidential sources is an ethical and legal minefield for journalists in Australia, despite the introduction over the past two years of so-called journalists’ privilege in several jurisdictions…
Two companies control 88% of Australia’s print media assets.
AAP/April Fonti
Australian media, and in particular the print media, stands out internationally among advanced democracies for its extreme concentration. Three owners – News Limited, Fairfax Media and APN News and Media…