bronwen clune

Thought it was worth pointing out a great piece in Crikey today by Dr John Cokley from The University of Queensland  about the MEAA’s role in the Fairfax sackings.

I’ve been having similar thoughts - I’ve yet to see an MEAA event advertised that seems to have any grasp of the changes taking place in media - other than to point out that its happening.  Dr Cokley writes:

The future of journalism rests with journalists, not with the owners and managers of the processes of capital designed to deliver journalism. This is the incredibly simple distinction which MEAA officials have failed to make explicit – perhaps even to realise – in the current stoush (and in all previous ones I’ve witnessed since I paid dues from 1981-1995).

You can read the full piece here.

If you are one of the journalists standing in a picket line outside The Age and SMH, I have to ask - do you realise how pathetic you look?
If there was a journalists equivalent to the forlorn lovers “He’s not into you” I’d be suggesting you read it. It’s time for some straight-talking, so forgive me if my words sound harsh and unsympathetic, but it’s not like the writing hasn’t been on the wall for some time now. Break-ups are tough, but you can get over this and move on to better, brighter things.

Let’s start with the basics. Fairfax and other news monoliths like it cannot survive in the future. I almost feel silly having to say that, but there it is. Fairfax made a bold first move by being quick to get traditional reporting into an online format, but I guess they took it for granted that the memory of those early days would sustain the audience. Seems like you may have as well. But it’s crunch time and you have some choices to make. The good news is there is an opportunity to redeem yourself.

David Kirk has made you an offer and is calling for volunteers before compulsory redundancies. Your relationship is clearly strained and here he is giving you a dignified out and you choose to beg him to take you back? Where is your backbone, your fire, your passion for news? Has Fairfax got you so wrapped around its finger that you think the only way you can be a good journalist is to stay with it? Guess what - people produce good news outside of news corporations everyday. And you can too. Take the divorce settlement and learn to stand on your own feet again. You are better off investing in a relationship with your audience - you’ll find it infinitely more rewarding.

Flickr and Getty Images have announced a deal where Getty Images will peruse Flickr images looking for anything that can be used in magazines, newspapers and other publications. If they find any suitable images Getty will contact photographers directly and share any revenue with them. As far as I have read there is no financial arrangement between Flickr and Getty. It’s a really interesting arrangement and anyone who has spent time (I can get lost there for hours) looking at Flickr “interestingness” photos will know that there are some amazing images out there done largely by amateurs. This is a great example of the internet opening up opportunities for content creators and producers outside control media. Ironically though those images are being sold back to control media

So I wonder then what this will do for creative commons - if people release photos under a full creative commons license then it’s a good assumption that those images will be discounted by Getty as they have no “intellectual property” which can be monestised . There are a lot of amazing images that people share under cc - most images on this blog I source through Flickr cc and it would be a step backward if these stopped being shared. I guess the opportunities and number of images that can be used by Getty will be limited, so the impact might not be that great. There is still no news on what sort of payment photographers will get, and that could also factor how many images remain copyrighted on Flickr.

I’m interested to see how this develops and what other people think about this.

Some months I feel like a sad excuse of a blogger and this is one of those months. My excuse - time, travel and a lot on my plate. But it doesn’t help shake that feeling of regret that I don’t make a bigger effort. So before the timeframe to blog about Pubcamp really becomes embarrassing, I better stop with the excuses already!

Pubcamp was an event put on by itechne, of which I know very little about other than it took the initiative spear-headed by my Twitter associate Jed White to put on an event to discuss the future of media. The event was held in Sydney and then Melbourne and I was lucky enough to be invited to both to debate the subject that: “The world of new media choice is a dagger to the hearts of content producers and creators alike.” You can guess that I was for the negative. The topic came about through a discussion with my opponent Richard Walsh who firmly believed this to be the case. Actually, less so by the time we got to Melbourne as we had been trading emails on the subject and I made some inroads to his thinking. Jed also invited me to give a presentation at the Melbourne event and I’m told they should be available online shortly. I did have grand plans of writing out my talks here, but I’m afraid that may take a while

But I did want to mention one of the terms I coined in my presentation. Whenever I hear the term “mainstream media” it’s always fallen short for me in regards to what it describes. In fact a lot of online media sites, some not considered “mainstream” still operate under the same principals of what we are trying to break away from. It occurred to me the difference between media as we know it and the media we are trying to foster in the future is about control. So I prefer now to talk about “control media” over “mainstream”. Control media seeks to “control” content distribution, information, its audience. Its journalists even I guess the alternative term for new media then could be “free media” - it works on lots of levels, but I haven’t fully thought that one through yet.

I also just wanted to add some thoughts into the ring about the event. For me it was a great opportunity to get together and put the future of media in the spotlight - outside of overpriced and often stuffy conferences that really don’t open the issue up for anyone to contribute to. Both events were free - and I’m sure they would have not been cheap to put on - which meant that every day people genuinely interested in media could come along. And come they did. There was a great Twitter turn out and really I think the Twitterati added the edge to the event. It’s not important to me that we didn’t really leave with any real conclusions, but rather that there is an obvious and passionate desire to reconstruct and improve on media as we know it. I’m sure answers will flow as we move forward, but I do hope that we leave some of the shackles of the past in the past. There’s no point in trying to control media in a free media world and the sooner we let go, the sooner we’ll start to find answers. I’m happy to be one of the first to jump, hopefully I’ll land before the others - either that or be splattered on the ground. Care to join me?

Image found here and used under Flickr cc.

YouTube has long been the soil bed of many budding citizen journalism initiatives and now its taken steps to recognise and encourage the efforts of those users with the launch of a Citizen News channel. They have employed a news manager to locate and bring together citizen journalism efforts around YouTube and pull them into the news channel.

According to the YouTube blog:

Thanks to better, cheaper, and easier access to video equipment, there’s an amazing amount of news being reported on YouTube every single day by citizens in all corners of the globe. You’re conducting interviews with local community leaders, doing weekly reports on the latest campus news for your school television station, and investigating untold stories you think the world should know about. This stuff is fantastic, but we want to see more from you all and to bring more citizen journalists into the fold.

It will be interesting to see how the channel is used by people - I can’t imagine it being used as a news destination site because the breadth of news interest is just too wide and a lot of citizen journalism content is very localised (hence my decision to launch local norg sites). But, it’s definitely going to be an interesting showcase of how people are using online media to produce and distribute content. The possibilities are endless - at the very least it should help people recognise the potential that we all have to create, distribute and engage in news.

Here’s an introductory video from the YouTube news manager Olivia:

I read last night that Scott Karp received US$2.75M funding for his company Publish2, which is described as

An online news aggregation platform, designed to empower journalists to discover, organize, and rank the most important news — to benefit their own reporting, their newsrooms, and all news consumers on the web.

I like Scott’s thoughts on media and hats off to him that he’s done more than just dwell on ways the media landscape is changing, but taken those ideas and is doing something with them.

From what I’ve read Publish2 is a tool for “professional” journalists and I was intrigued to read this on the Publish2 website, describing how it works as a news aggregator:

The emphasis, by the way, is actually theirs. Things is, I have a couple of problems with a few of the concepts behind Publish2 and admittedly it is only from my limited understanding about what they are trying to do:

1. If news organisations are using it as a guide to rank importance and emphasis on a story or even do research it is just further diluting the different perspectives/voices or alternate concerns of a particular issue. If information is “easily accessible” then it’s just likely to be rehashed. If wrong information is easily accessible, it just becomes an accepted truth.

2. The point about “taking back control” is SO problematic - in fact, there’s a little WTF? that goes off in my head every time I read that sentence. So journalists set up their own “digg” to decide what’s important - so what? What does that add to anyone outside of being a journalist and then again - so what? Unless journalism has been about writing stories for other journalists and I’ve missed something, then again - so what? Isn’t it much better that journalists understand what is important to their AUDIENCE - the amateurs.

The pressure on journalists to be better at their job is greater than it’s ever been before, but the key to improving the media landscape is not to add to the false kingdom of journalism, but for journalists to go and and get dirty with the amateurs. Publish2 sounds like it’s just adding to “professional” media’s problems.

It’s not even really ‘news’ anymore that the newspaper industry has experienced the worst drop in advertising revenue in more than 50 years. But I found this quote from the Newspaper Association of America’s latest report quite interesting:

“Even with the near-term challenges posed to print media by a more fragmented information environment and the economic headwinds facing all advertising media, newspapers publishers are continuing to drive strong revenue growth from their increasingly robust Web platforms,” John Sturm, president and CEO of the NAA, said in a statement. 

Could this be a tipping point?

Looking at the SMH headlines this morning left me with a rather sinking feeling. The good news is there are so many inspirational news stories out there, the bad news is that so few of them are reported or at the very least given any news priority. I remember being in a news conference years ago as a cadet at The West Australian, when the pictures for the day were placed on the editor’s table to decide which one would make tomorrow’s front page. There were two similar pictures for different stories, both of fairly young kids holding toys and looking into the camera. I can’t remember the exact details of the stories behind the photos, but one was about a child who had come out on the winning end of a rare cancer. The other story was about a child waiting for a procedure with little immediate hope in sight. Guess which one made the front page? The good news story eventually appeared in the back news pages (technically, the pages that appear after the Letters to the Editor).

Just a quick shout out to Rich and Grum and for the stellar job they did on Scouta TV - episode 0.

Scouta TV is a new podcast covering the most interesting videos that come through Scouta recommendations.

I love the videos they picked and I think the show has a lot of potential. The biggest controversey to date appears to be what they ought to wear

I’m sure it will only get better as they find their groove and get their post-production techniques down pat. But for a first off it was great and worth watching if you haven’t done already.

I love receiving mail in shiny silver envelopes - you can pretty much guarantee it’s not a bill.

So I was pleasantly surprised to find one waiting for me at home. Even more surprised that it was an invite to the Walkley Awards with a loving letter that said all the right things like “Australia’s best media”, “massive contribution” and “vital work”. Let’s just ignore the fact it’s a standard issue letter and assume that they really want me to attend, should I go?

I don’t want to attend and just be another guest, I want to be the Walkley star! The Glen Milne of 2007 Only not escorted out and much loved and admired.

I’m thinking of wearing a T-shirt that reads something like “Make way for new media”. Oh, and I need a date that will agree to wear a shirt that reads “Broadcast TV is dead”. So what do you think? Should I do it?

UPDATE: I’ve said yes, so if I can get myself organised I’ll be there!