Soiled Nappy

The depth of knowledge that you or I possess relies on the consumption of local news and current affairs. From a barrister residing in inner city Melbourne to perhaps a plumber from Frankston, the Australian news landscape should provide thorough analysis for everyone. Well the landscape is changing Ladies and Gentlemen and there is a massive crater emerging amongst the tranquil natural formations. The observable ignorance of many Australians is worrying. This said we cannot blame people for burying their heads in the suffocating sand of Who Weekly and MX Magazine when their heads are slapped with ill conceived journalism the moment they raise their cranium to smell an Age Newspaper Rose. The problem is not just confined to print, television current affairs has caught an unwanted virus with the Bolt Report a good example of the throbbing, red welt inflicting journalism’s crown jewels.

The problem stems from a panic within the industry. The heart palpitation that journalism is becoming insignificant, that it is being strangled of life by a 40075.16 km (the earth’s circumference) long boa constrictor, the internet. People can get anything online; news, gossip, video, opinion, penis enlargements and an update of what Ashton Kutcher had for breakfast. It is a veritable room of coloured balls enveloping spasmodic minded cosmopolitans hungry for quality information. Each coloured ball signifies an atom of information, just enough to entertain someone, not enough to inform them. There are examples of decent online journalism; Crikey! The Huffington Post, MediaWeek, the New York Times and dare I say WikiLeaks? Let’s leave that chestnut uncracked. The problem with these journalistic sites is that they are lost like a soiled nappy within the coloured balls of information; they are hard to find. One cannot go to a newsagent and find a selection of these sights, they must be found through word of mouth or analysing ‘top 100 news blogs’ lists. Google is not a newsagent, it is a search engine. If you pay enough money and do enough research, when someone searches for ‘news’ you can have your site pop up that involves; “News on how you can pierce your own eyelid”. Finding thorough journalism on the internet is difficult and is too often a difficulty the public refrain from tackling. This is an unknown and uncertain environment for informed journalism. Questions are raised as to how to compete in such an environment and how long standing business models should be amended to address new competition. Media that relies on traditional journalism is like a raft at sea, no longer moored to the land it once knew.

Smart phones and the I-pad have made this situation worse. People now have portable access to the internet matching the traditional newspapers only trump card, portability. Tech heads and simply heads are reading news on the go, yet now it’s free. They also have access to many news sites within one piece of technology. They can flick from The Age to The Herald Sun to The Australian all within two tram stops. Video is also accessible so instead of watching 7:30 the public will watch a video bloggers summary of anything controversial that may have been telecast across the current affairs landscape, Abbot’s stuttering to an alleged Hey Dad sexual assault. The public receives a restricted perspective that stunts the growth of personal knowledge. The internet combined with this technology delivers information quickly, portably and succinctly. Detail and thoroughness are not key aspects to such a platform, just enough of a hook to get a reader to click on a story.
So what is traditional journalism to do? How can we ensure quality journalism survives and sails its raft to solid ground.

Such a question takes my mind back to the famous boxing bout in Zaire, Africa, The Rumble in the Jungle. George Foreman was the current heavyweight world champion and had to defend his title against a resurgent former world champ, Muhammad Ali. Foreman had a powerful punch and was feared for his sheer physical dominance. Ali had skill, talent and speed. Although I could recount the whole build up to the fight and its events, I feel it would simply be for my own pleasure rather than for yours. The point is that Ali didn’t attempt to match Foreman for strength, power or size. He stuck to his own strengths, speed, agility and tact and won the fight.

Does boxing have anything to do with the current state of journalism, yes, yes it does, and this is not to be questioned. Instead of Australian current affairs and print media attempting to match the online world strength for strength, they must concentrate on their own. The Age or other newspapers in the same vain are not pretty or even remotely attractive when they attempt to capture the strategy of the online world by offering colourful pages, more society and entertainment news and a more compact format. The Bolt Report’s use of Michael Kroger, Mark Latham and of course Bolt makes more of a case for increased funding for mental health than for quality journalism. Content is king. The strengths of traditional journalism are thorough investigation, quality writing; analysis and of course the crossword. These must not be sacrificed in the name of competing against “new media” and online information. Content is what makes people watch current affairs shows and makes them open up a newspaper, not artificial colour. If traditional journalistic providers continue with the strategy they are at the moment, they will lose the fight and we will all be poorer for it. So to win the economic fight for survival traditional journalism must stick to quality content and avoid sinking to the level of colourful mediocrity.