You Can’t Handle the Truth!

If the world of politics is now so dominated by spin and media management that ‘reality’ is whatever you choose it to be, what’s the proper role of journalism?

It’s to find the truth and report it, right? Journalists are employed to serve their readers and viewers by cutting through hype, digging out red herrings, challenging misleading statements and exposing what’s really going on. You would think so, wouldn’t you? (more…)

Not in it for the Money

Why go into journalism? The industry that employs you is in decline, the on-the-job training is virtually non-existent, the business model is broken, the hours are long, the work involves endless and mindless churning of pregurgitated material, and the pay is lousy. Most of the population rate you just above used car salesmen and now the major media companies are farming off jobs to sweatshops.

Yet people are spending more time with news than ever as the technology that enables the creation, distribution and reception of news grows every more sophisticated. It’s just that no-one can work out how to make money out of it. (more…)

Enclosing the Digital Commons

The great showdown between Rupert Murdoch’s global media interests and public broadcasters looks set to intensify as the News empire joins forces with Apple in launching the world’s first iPad newspaper.

The $30 million tablet-only publication The Daily, whose launch has been postponed a few days from the scheduled date of January 19 while subscription software details are sorted, is being sold as the possible saviour of mainstream media journalism after more than a decade of decline. (more…)