The union representing Australian journalists has released a report on the state of the profession. ‘Life in the Clickstream II: The Future of Journalism’ is the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance’s second such survey, updating an inaugural effort two years ago.

For anyone familiar with the plight of the media in recent years, the findings are depressingly familiar. These  boil down to the perpetual search for a new business model in the online world, excitement over the possibilities offered by new technology marred by a lack of investment in skills and training, journalists being asked to do more with less, the axing of jobs (700 in two years), the centralisation of production, the increasing pooling of resources, the deterioration in quality and the loss of younger audiences in particular.

Perhaps not surprisingly for a union-led study, the underlying expectation in the study is that the solution to many of these problems (which have been around for at least 10 years) will come from inside the mainstream media industry, the decaying 20th century information factories that employ most journalists.

Much appears to be hanging on the success of the iPad applications, although an Essential Media study of the public would appear to undercut this. Asked whether they would be prepared to pay for online news content, 91 percent of respondents said ‘no’. This would not suggest a positive outcome for News Corp as it contemplates extending its paywall experiment to Australia.

There is also very little discussion in the report about the role that expert blogs could pay in the long hoped for renaissance in the industry. It is remarkable that there is absolutely no mention of the Grogs Gamut episode and what this might suggest for the mainstream media industry. And the role of Possum in providing much needed deep analysis and balance to public issues in the past year also goes unremarked. Perhaps the MEAA does not consider the work of these bloggers to be journalism. I would disagree.

And that’s really what’s missing from the report, which purports to be about the future of journalism but is really about the future of the industry where most journalists are currently employed. That’s a separate issue, as important as are the future livelihoods of many of my friends and former colleagues.

The future of journalism is a subject that needs to be tackled a little more widely than that. And it may yield better answers than are found in this particular industrial survey.

Categories: Uncategorized

2 Comments

Anonymous · December 10, 2010 at 9:32 AM

Try as I might it's difficult to summon much concern for their future. I understand now why survey after survey through the years has (have?) found journalists to be near the bottom of professions held in the public regard. (Not including you in this, Mr Denmore, or the other good journos out there, current and ex.) The past couple of years I found to be a real eye-opener.

macca · December 12, 2010 at 2:26 AM

I don't have much sympathy for most journalists…especially News Corp ones.

Murdoch ordered them to build a petard…they did so…..willingly.

Were/are they really so dense that they couldn't see that they would be hoisted on it?

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