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Friday 16 August 2019

The Job of Journalism

When did journalism go wrong?

From my research of the Canberra Times, my local paper, which began in 1926, editorial opinions starting entering their paper around the 1970s. So editorial opinions have been with us for around 50 years. How this changed people's views and ideas back then we can't know. But today opinions, views, and commentary in newspapers have a major effect on the views of the people who read them.

Opinion columns are one of the most popular parts of a newspaper today. As I have said, I fail to understand the popularity of opinion columns, but it is most likely that their popularity is due to the content of these opinions reinforcing people’s views.

Regardless of whether these views are right, wrong, inaccurate or are just outright lies pushed by editors who want to drive an issue, in my opinion, they have no right being in a newspaper. Opinions are not news. Opinions are cheap, facts are hard but rewarding.

I attended the 2019 Kenneth Myer Lecture on Thursday 15.08.2019 at the National Library of Australia. The speaker was the well-known UNESCO Chair in Journalism & Communication at the University of Queensland, author, and journalist, Peter Greste. 
Peter Greste

He spoke about Press Freedom in Australia: And why it is in Crisis. He also talked about the need for a 'Press Freedom Act' and making sure it contained an appropriate mix of rights for security agencies and the press.

I managed to get to ask him a question after his speech. My question was "With the amount of comment, opinions, and views in newspapers today, do you feel that this has pushed governments towards eroding press freedoms?"

His answer was yes. "This has indisputably helped to erode press freedom around the world.", Greste said.

It does not look like that media outlets are looking at or even thinking about curbing the commentary in their newspapers. So they can probably only expect their press freedoms to be further eroded the more vocal and one-sided they become. 

It's clear that some editorials are balanced and probably do produce positive outcomes. It's also clear that the rubbish that is purported to be editorials and commentary by some is doing nothing but harm and further disrupting a disjointed world.

I hope to one day get a job in a paper where I am allowed to report on security, political and civil matters without hindrance from our government and its agencies. But if newspapers continue to push out so much commentary, there might be no journalists jobs available because governments might restrict their activities to a point where no reporting of issues is possible.

Let's hope that media outlets find a balance and work with governments and vice versa to maintain the continued reporting of the news, which we all know is vital for a democracy.

Saturday 10 August 2019

Can Digital Journalism be Trusted?

If everything is digital today is it reliable?


Today's media environment seems to be complicating matters. We know that almost everything we touch in the digital world, that someone somewhere can see our fingerprints on what we have accessed.

Some media groups are so worried about being spied on that they document their investigations on computers that are not connected to the internet, or in fact, some create their content on typewriters. Certain media outlets tell people to only submit stories and tip-offs through snail-mail and will not speak to informers or whistle-blowers over any sort of phone. 

Are they paranoid? Not in the least. If you've seen the stories from Australia and around the world of governments, criminal and business agencies tracking, finding and harassing, charging and killing journalists, you'll know they are not paranoid.

With the click of a mouse button, anyone can put anything out across the world today. That doesn't mean that people are going to see it or can find it, but the more outrageous it is, the better chance it has of being found.

Where does all this lead to for the consumer? In fact, is the idea of the traditional audience/consumer for media information obsolete now?

Society is dramatically different today than it was 20 years ago. Many traditional businesses and social models have been disrupted, broken and some have even disappeared. Everyone is talking at everyone else, and who is to be trusted? 

The way that technology has advanced and the public's consumption of media has changed, some are even predicting that written content will disappear in the future; when that is, no one is game enough to state. 

In one of my journalism classes, the question was asked, who has a traditional TV in their house? Everyone in the class put their hand up; there were more than 50 students. But then, the teacher asked, who does not watch that TV? About 30% of the students put their hands up. They were getting their news and entertainment on their computers, tablets, and phones.

Our digital news is vastly different from what happens on TV, radio and in print. Is digital news reliable? No, it is not. It cannot be trusted. Someone with an axe to grind, a group with an untested view and even traditional media outlets are pushing out fake, incorrect and unreliable news. It's no wonder people are predicting the death of the written word and traditional media when for the sake of getting the most hits, people are publishing crap.

Digital media is measured and created on how many people are clicking stories. They are not measuring audience engagement, interaction or reactions to stories other than where and how many times stories are shared. 

But, there are groups who are fighting against all the noise of misinformation and outright lies. It looks like that almost nothing you read or see online can be trusted, and I'm of the opinion that today, that is the only thing that can be trusted. Don't trust anything you read, hear or see online. Because the chances are, someone has manipulated it to gain some benefit for themselves.

Unless you fact-check and cross-check everything I have just written, you cannot know what I'm saying is true.