Matthew Ricketson

Working for less: the aftermath for journalists made redundant in Australia between 2012 and 2014

ABSTRACT While media organisations continue to lay off journalists in Australia, the long-term outcomes of mass redundancies are just beginning to unravel. A key finding from a survey sample of 225 Australian journalists who exited their jobs between 2012 and 2014 is that while just over 60% of respondents continued to work wholly or partly in journalism roles, income loss was significant across the board. This is partly explained by the precarity of work experienced by many participants post-redundancy. But lower incomes were also noted amongst those who remained in full-time journalism positions: indeed, those who moved to full-time roles in other professions were likely to be earning more. Meanwhile, the finding that those aged over 50 faced the most significant drop in income points to particular problems faced by older workforce participants.

When slow news is good news: Book-length journalism's role in extending and enlarging daily news

The imperative on speed in the news media, combined with the inverted pyramid form of news writing, have well-documented strengths, enabling important information to be communicated quickly and clearly. A preoccupation with this part of journalism practice, however, within the news media industry and among scholars, obscures what James Carey has called the “curriculum of journalism.” To be properly understood, Carey argued journalism needs to be examined as a corpus that includes a wide range of materials extending to book-length journalism. Longer articles and book-length works add substantially to the store of relevant and newsworthy information. They also significantly enlarge public understanding of people, events and issues of the day by exploring them in depth, usually by taking a narrative approach in the writing. This article brings to the fore the contribution of these slower forms of journalism by examining immediate and longer-term coverage of two historic news events: the dropping of the first atomic bomb, at Hiroshima in 1945, and the invasion of Iraq by United States-led forces in 2003. It argues that the valuable contribution of these forms of journalism has been underappreciated, though recognition is growing.

The Australian's Media Supplement: A Lapdog, a Watchdog, an Attack Dog or All of the Above?

The modern news media comprise powerful institutions that require the kind of scrutiny they direct towards other influential institutions. The 50th anniversary of The Australian offers a timely opportunity to examine how fairly and accurately the national daily newspaper has reported on its parent companys strengths and weaknesses, and those of its commercial rivals, as well as covering overall trends in the media industry. The article argues that when The Australians Media section began in 1999, it substantially expanded for readers the available range of news and views about the media. However, the section never reached its advertising revenue targets and in recent years has lost much of the revenue it once had. Over the past decade, the section has become increasingly narrow-minded in the range of its coverage, tone and approach.

Digital news report: Australia 2015

This report gives a clear picture of how the Australian news consumer compares to eleven other countries surveyed in 2015: Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Spain, UK, USA and urban Brazil. The Digital News Report: Australia is part of a global survey by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford. Further in-depth analysis of Australian digital news consumption has been conducted and published by the News & Media Research Centre at the University of Canberra.

Australia: State Aid to Newspapers—Not a Priority

State subsidies for the production of newspapers have not been a major issue in the development of the Australian newspaper industry even though the industry has benefited from a variety of direct and indirect forms of government assistance during its 200-year history. Some of the measures sought to assist industry development while others sought to support access to a diversity of news and opinion. While the potential effects of heavy concentration of media ownership on the diversity of news and opinion have been a major preoccupation of Australian policymakers in recent decades, subsidies to the newspaper industry have rarely been an issue of public debate. Nonetheless, a consideration of support to news activities was included in the terms of reference of a federal government-initiated media inquiry in 2011. The inquiry’s report, however, stopped short of recommending newspaper subsidies but did acknowledge the difficulties facing the industry as it grapples with structural changes to the business model that has sustained it for many years.