Australian Studies in Journalism Australian Studies in Journalism ISSN 1038-6130 Published by the Department of Journalism, University of Queensland Number 8 1999 The changing role of a newspaper editor Jack Waterford 3 How newsroom failures limit readership gains Kerry Green 18 Chakravarti v Advertiser Newspapers: lessons for journalists Rhonda Breit 37 The corruption watchdog condemned the media criticised in letters to the editor Stephen Tanner 60 Corporations and collectives: an overview of Australian newspaper companies 1860-1920 Denis Cryle 83 The provincial press and politics: NSW, 1841-1930 Rod Kirkpatrick 96 Cosmetic surgery magazines: mass mediating the new face of medical practice Anne Ring 118 Accentuate the negative: reality and race in Australian film reviewing Alan McKee 139 Teaching journalism in the information age Stephen Quinn 158 Pacific newsrooms and the campus: some comparisons between Fiji and Papua New Guinea David Robie 176 News media chronicle: July 1998 to June 1999 Rod Kirkpatrick 197 Australian journalism research index Anna Day 239 Book Reviews 333 Number 8 1999 Australian Studies in Journalism Australian Studies in Journalism ISSN 1038-6130 Published annually by the Department of Journalism, University of Queensland. ASJ is an interdisciplinary journal dedicated to promoting research and scholarship on journalism and the news media in Australia. Editor John Henningham Professor of Journalism, University of Queensland Associate editor Rod Kirkpatrick Editorial Advisory Board Lawrence Apps, Curtin University; Warwick Blood, University of Canberra; David Bowman, Sydney; Allan Brown, Griffith University; Creighton Burns, Melbourne; Paul Chadwick, Communications Law Centre; Sir Zelman Cowen, Melbourne; Denis Cryle, University of Central Queensland; Liz Fell, University of Technology, Sydney; David Flint, Australian Broadcasting Authority; John Herbert, Staffordshire University; Dame Leonie Kramer, University of Sydney; Clem Lloyd, Wollongong University; Ranald Macdonald, Boston University; Neville Petersen, University of Western Sydney; Julianne Schultz, ABC, Sydney; Rodney Tiffen, University of Sydney; Graeme Turner, University of Queensland; Ian Ward, University of Queensland; Paul Wilson, Bond University. Address: ASJ, Department of Journalism, University of Queensland, 4072, Australia Telephone: (07) 3365 12720 Fax: (07) 3365 1377 Subscriptions: $15 per year Manuscripts: ASJ welcomes articles and reviews. Submissions will be sent to appropriate members of the editorial advisory board or to other referees for anonymous evaluation. All manuscripts offered for publication should be sent in duplicate. If accepted, authors will be asked to supply a final version on disk. For further information, please contact the editor. Production: Grant Dobinson E-mail: [email protected] Internet: http://www.uq.edu.au/jrn/asj/asj.htm Indexed by APAIS and ComIndex The changing role of aAustralian newspaper Studies editor in Journalism 8: 1999, pp.3-17 3 The changing role of a newspaper editor Jack Waterford Newspapers face new challenges because of the ready access readers have to alternative sources of information, including the burgeoning Internet, as well as the problem of journalists connecting effectively with their readers. Editors are expected to have more understanding and responsibility for marketing and revenue, and to produce quality newspapers while the proportion of their editorial staff deployed to revenue-raising work is increasing. The new environment creates fresh opportunities, with rewards for imagination and energy but core professional values in journalism must be maintained. ne of the things which editors and journalists are currently Omuttering about under their breaths is the feeling that there has never been a time in which journalists, particularly newspaper journalists, have been less influential within the corridors of government. A John Howard, one might remark, is not much affected by what he reads in newspapers, though he is said to pay rather more attention to how the Sydney Daily Telegraph plays things than the way, say, it is played by the Sydney Morning Herald or the Age. When he speaks to journalists at all, it is usually in controlled doorstop interviews, in which he rattles off some pre-prepared line for the broadcast media and does not submit himself to questions. And he goes on to talkback radio, where he can speak directly to his audience without having his words twisted by or interpreted by a journalist. At best, most of the time, the print journalists who are reporting him are confined to picking up and quoting from the transcripts issued by his office, and, perhaps, weighing the spin placed upon it by his retinue against the spin placed upon it by his enemies. The transcripts, those who are mordant about the fate of newspapers might note, are available on the Internet. 4 Australian Studies in Journalism It is not merely the lack of access, or his, and his colleagues unwillingness to submit themselves to close scrutiny which is the problem. Whether because of that or otherwise, the problem is that very little of the agenda of the politicians appears to be being set by newspapers. The politicians might well be running on some of the issues which are on the newspapers front pages, but, all too often, the newspaper is doing not much more than reporting what has been said by others. All too often, however, the newspaper has played little role, other than as a transmitter, of disclosing fresh facts to which the politicians have been forced to respond. All too often, one might add, while one is continuing down this mordant line, there has been little news which has first been brought to the attention of readers by the newspaper anyway. It is not merely the fact, which has been going on for more than a generation, that radio and television, (and now the Internet) can and do bring spot news to the attention to most potential readers 12 or more hours before a newspaper hits the street. It is not merely a function of the fact that, within the past few decades, the broadcast media have ceased to draw up their news budgets from the front pages of the morning newspapers, but instead edit their material in such a way that it is, as often as not, the writers who are following them. But it is also a reflection that the more serious broadcast media, particularly the ABC, are running extensive analysis and commentary as well as spot news, and where the influence and expertise of, say, a Laurie Oakes, a Kerry OBrien or a Fran Kelly can stand up against anything that print has to offer. Now add to this the fact that newspaper circulations are in long- term decline, and are now running at levels possibly a half of where they stood a generation ago. Add in, moreover, the evidence of increased use of the Internet. This is going up not only in absolute terms, but particularly among that class of people who are very information hungry, whose loyalty, one might think, is most critical for the survival of the newspaper. The changing role of a newspaper editor 5 We used to say, after all, that among the advantages of the newspaper over other media was the fact that it conveyed information in a permanent form, that it typically could provide more space, and thus more information and more detail, than any alternative, and that the production cycle also allowed that time for reflection whereby one could get context, analysis and understanding. It is by no means clear that any of these advantages still exist, or that, where they do, that they will continue. There are, of course, some things that can be put against such gloom. One might note, for example, that newspaper profits have never been higher. Nor have their shares prices. Virtually every Australian newspaper of any substance has invested tens, sometimes hundreds, of millions of dollars in new printing presses over the past decade, investments which are calculated on being around for a long time. It is true that the circulation of newspapers has fallen, but the size of the average newspaper has not: the consumption of newsprint by metropolitan Australian newspapers has doubled in a generation and is still increasing. That newsprint, of course, is increasingly going into new sections thick with advertisements focused on lifestyle, and motoring, and food, and wine and travel and computers and so on, which claim to be successful in attracting or holding on to readers. Anyone who publishes a newspaper, of course, accumulates an incredible amount of data. Increasingly that data is being recycled for profit in a range of ways on Internet sites, in syndication among other newspapers within a group, in focused material directed at particular audiences, and, around the world, if not so much in Australia, which has its cross-media rules, in television, radio and pay broadcast media. The use of some of these media to transmit printed material may seem, at first sight, a risky thing, because its availability elsewhere might seem to threaten resort to the base medium, the newspaper itself. Yet, if there are risks, they are ones which owners have put themselves in good positions to control. It is no accident that media companies, and ones based on print at that, dominate the content of most news web sites, in Australia or around the world. 6 Australian Studies in Journalism Even the supposed threat to newspaper revenue from electronic classified advertising can be exaggerated, especially in situations where one player dominates a local market. It is quite true that the computer can do a better job of classifying an advertisement than a newspaper. If its all on a computer, and you are, say, wanting to buy a house, you can search for that house by locality, or number of bedrooms, or by access to facilities, or price range or a host of other things. In due course, probably now in some places, you will be able, once you fix upon a particular house, to do a virtual walk through it, or inspect its plans, or visualise it once the hallway is painted green.