Future-real news: Part the First

Me old china plate Frank Fukuyama wrote an article in Foreign Affairs back in January/February this year called "The Future of History". The title was interesting, of course, if only because some years earlier, Fukuyama, in a provocative essay full of fin-de-siècle moribundity to match that of my muse and his peers a century earlier, had declared "the end of history". This moribundity was proven to have been necessary, what with 9/11 and the subsequent Invasion (never mind "Mission Accomplished"; ignore the faux-patriotic music that accompanies the bizarre intro; obviously just another media student being obscure for the sake of obscurity, and being rewarded for it with it); Y2K and the advent of the "new" Britney Spears which made everybody wish that their computers actually were blasted back to the Stone Age. The article itself was disappointing, dealing as it did in generalities only. The one good thing that came out of this article - tangentially, as it happened; why is everything a tangent with me? - was that I beat that other member of the western-suburbs intelligentsia - if there are any others interested in signing up, we meet up on an antisocial basis - in reading the article on generalities. I rewarded myself after this quiet little victory - can't say we were expecting it, Dave, but if we get on a roll we could go places - by reminding myself how moderately intelligent I am. But then again, as is so often the case, that's kindling for another fire. Hume would suggest I commit my kindling for another fire to the flames. But then again, that's kindling for another fire.

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Having started my Journalism course at the most prestigious university in Victoria - if not Australia - for this degree, I obviously can impart my wisdom on to all of you news-loving neophytes. What will follow is a shortish - hopefully - account of what I believe to be the future of news in this country and indeed the world.

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Forget about Finklestein. That's the headline. The byline would be: News from the Future. This cheeky little minx has come back in time to warn us all about the dangers ahead. No, Ms. the Future has not committed some paradoxical act, like killing her third cousin-twice removed or sharing sheets with the creepy greatvncle while he was still sober, and sane. 

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In the Journalism course (B. Comm. (Journalism)), students are required to consume a minumum of news each day. Thus spoke the main lecturer for first-year Journalism (codename "Marvin"). We were told the following consumptives would suffice:

• 1x The Age
• 1x The Herald Sun
• 1x commercial televison nightly news 
• Possibly maybe if you're good ABC News nightly, plus daily Crikey
• 1x Local newspaper (I get three times the fun, which means I can potentially read thrice about how some guy did some thing) (Bonus points if you live in Geelong and read the "Addy".)                                     

It is a bit rich of me to intimate that I actually have a life, and so am unable to consume all of this great media. Clearly, arguing from this position would be quite untenable. Like Satre with his French cigarettes and French funny hat and French letter (I'm talking about the çedilla, naturalement) and French pessimism, I wonder, "What's the point?" So, I will argue that too much priority (resources &c) is placed on news reporting and not enough on investigative journalism. Hopefully, the two concepts are distinct to you, dear reader, as they are to me. I will explain the two, and the difference(s) anon. If you feel you have no need for my condescension, then you can skip to question 9. 

News reporting: Basically the domain of big media corps, the job is to report events in a generally-linear fashion. Important here is to address the Five W's and One H inherent in each story: Who, What, Where, When, Why, How. The business model internationally is essentially comparable to dogs fighting for their master's scraps: the bigger beasts get the still-raw meat, while smaller dependents have to make do with gnawing (isn't "gnawing" such a great word to write - the esthetic appeal is immense) with twice- and thrice-chewed bone. Locally, due to a market that takes its inspiration from the breeding habits of our southern neighbours, it more resembles flies around a maggoted corpse, trying to eke out every last drop of life-information. There is no real point investing in news reporting, as I will explain in further detail in a minute, as it will always be there. News, much like New York City, never sleeps. Being a reporter in NYC, as much as people would love it there, must be quite chaotic. The whole point is that if you are interested in creating a new "journal" then you shouldn't bother with trying to stalk the Lord Mayor or risk your life in a warzone for the sake of your byline on the front page. Chances are, someone else from CNN or Reuters or Associated Press or whatever is doing it already (Cr Doyle watch out), and doing it better than what you ever could. In our interconnected technological age - where Twitter posts are the new press conferences - finding an original hard news story -  that no other journalist, citizen or citizen-journalist put their byline on - is akin to striking gold in an underwater coal mine: it may happen, but you best just leave it to the experts      

Investigative journalism: This is the gold standard. This is the pound sterling. This is Rule Britannia. This is what all journalists should aim for and this is what I am aiming for.

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A tangent: in setting up this blog, I have never really explained its modus vivendi properly.In my opening post (yes, I am about to quote myself), I wrote, rather facilely, that the blog will show this "neo-Marxist, poste-modern society from the point of view of a humble western suburbian wog". Whatever that means. Never mind about the "western suburbian wog" - the handle reflected the then-title of the blog - and just keep in mind that if you check the rest of my posts - if you are that bored - then you will realise I did not mention the words "neo-Marxist" or "poste-modern society" (an ironic spelling, to be sure) in any of them. Great themes, but no expansion. Why? Because at that point in my life - going through the rigours of VCE, life, &c - I was not prepared to do serious research into what are ultimately interesting but demanding concepts - concepts which need to be studied thoroughly. 

A logical and sensical question at this point would be: what is the purpose of your blog? Another logical and sensical question would be: can you please hurry up so I can return to my life? And the answer to both questions is "Yes".

Seriously, what I found in setting up this blog is that it is simply not possible to respond to every single news story in a substantive manner - this is what makes Twitter great. The expectation is lowered as to the content of a 140-character post as opposed to an average 3-paragraph rant. Even so, I don't have the need to respond to every single news story on Twitter. Why? The chances are that you will post something that someone has roughly written, or you will even copy someone else verbatim, even though you can't tell the other from a bar of soap. The problem lies as it does with the maths: You have as maximum 140 characters to tell the world how you feel. Not many characters to start off with. If you write about any given topic, you are fairly limited in the order of your characters. That's one aspect. The other is the amount of users. Our starting point is a stat that says there were 300 million Twitter users as of last year. Let's say, hypothetically, that English-competent (second-language users included) users number a third of that, 100 million. Let's say a global event garners a third of that, ~30 million tweets, (if anyone has more accurate stats, please pass them on) it means that that the chance of you, using a minute precondition (140 characters) that exists on a massive scale (30 million), writing what someone else has already roughly written, or writing something verbatim, unintentionally, is pretty high. It doesn't augur well in a world which values original thought. Where the world goes, so I go. Now, hopefully (!) you understand the point I am trying to make, and the actual purpose of this blog. Honestly, I don't have the time, or the will, to write on every news story that comes out. What I want to achieve in this blog is sharpen my writing, while also have a little bit of fun with it, using interesting ideas and concepts as stimulus for posts, as opposed to actual news stories. News stories that I do comment on are tangential to my ideas, as this post should prove. Some will try to comment on every single story of a particular trope (politics, arts &c) that is made known. Good luck to them. Give them a witty blog title, and they're away. I think the accoutrements of writing should be subservient to the writing itself. Some people think otherwise. Again, to them I wish them nothing but good luck. 

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On with the show. As I wrote, hard news is quite finite. However, investigative journalism is infinite. After all, there are now seven billion people on God's green Earth, and at least some should have a sellable story. After my tangent above, hopefully it is apparent why I favour investigative journalism over hard news, videlicet it is not as frantic as hard news, and actually requires research skills beyond knowing how to parse.

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Clearly, there is a place for hard news. Otherwise, how would we actually know about anything that is occurring without reading a 2000 word thesis about it. People want the facts, damnit, and by George we're gonna give it to them. Or at least Google News is. Whether you like it or not, this is essentially the future of news. Limited resources will mean less focus on constant reporting when some other can do it better anyway. According to a study by the Jonkoping International Business School in Sweden, 81 percent of a newspaper's income is derived from advertising revenue. What such a majority means is that editors and owners must find reasons to convince advertisers not to withdraw their funding. My prediction, for what it's worth, is that advertisers will increasingly dominate editorial discretion, to the point where they're paying journos' salaries directly. This already happens, apparently, at mX (according to a little birdie of mine). It may sound obvious - and the insidious relationship with PR attests to this - but it needs to be repeated often enough to ensure consumers know exactly what they're headed for. Luckily, not all news organisations are pressured in such a way. In an unrelated interview with Deputy Editor of crikey.com.au, Jason Whittaker explained that there has never been "pressure at Crikey from our owners or managers to cover or not cover a particular story". One can of course almost expect funding by advertisers on small organisations - pocket money from blog advertising will hardly alter content, and working at the mX is not necessarily the place to pick up the Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year award - but we should be worried about the deleterious influence on larger organisations. (A quick qualifier about my thoughts on mX: I understand that many workers/students want the news on the train home, in a simple fashion. One of the drawbacks about The Age and The Australian is simply its size - you simply can't read a broadsheet while standing up or even sitting down, especially in the peak periods. This actually raises another question: why can't papers be broadsheet in quality but tabloid in dimensions? Surely this has been answered by someone. Anywho, back to mX. Yes, if reading the news in sparse details is a crime, then I am guilty many times over. I don't have any problems from the consumer's point of view. But. But it should hardly be an aspirational goal as a long-term move for a budding journo. As an entry point, fine,whatever. Really, once you're in you're mid-twenties, it's time to move on, for a couple of reasons: 1) You need to challenge yourself once again and find a place where you can achieve more greatness - become the Überjournalist, to paraphrase Nietszche - and 2) Others want a turn! You've had your chance, now onya bike. That was fairly quick, wasn't it?) Ike Eisenhower spoke of the military-industrial complex; what we should be aware of now is the editorial-advertising complex. Complexes which are positive - like Crikey's - are the exception, not the rule.     


A little side note about the News of Google: in my 8 weeks volunteering as a newsreader on SYN FM, using Google News is the most efficient means of collecting information about important events. The next step for any wannabe aggregator is to synthesise information from cited sources to create a precis of events, focussing on the elements of a hard news story, videlicet the Five W's and the One H. I hope you're reading Mr. Page.   

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There it is. The point of my rant was in the two paragraphs above. The mind boggles. 

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Part the Second will focus on the legal issues facing newsrooms. I told you earlier to forget about Finklestein: If you did, great. If you didn't, even better. If you shrugged your shoulders, well okay then. I want to explore censorship and self-regulation and the whys and the wherefores of each argument. This will require a bit of research, so check in a couple of weeks/next year/next life/whenever. 

Part the Third will be about the rise of Big Data. It's an interesting concept, and has much to do with the future of journalism: How do we make sense of an increasingly-enumerated, and not innumerate, world? What do sets of numbers have to do with journalists? Why can't we leave the numbers to the eggheads and the boffins? 

Stay tuned.

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One less Bob

Bob Brown announced his resignation from the Australian Greens and Federal Senate earlier today. As a person totally unknown to Mr Brown, I wish him all the best in his future endeavours as he seeks "the other green pursuits, including writing, photography, a little music and bushwalking with [his] good companion and partner, Paul Thomas". 


I only mention this because of an earlier post in which - tangentially, I may add - his name was dropped. I was referring to his "global parliament" speech - not that crazy when you think about it for more than five seconds.  


With the founder now ready to move on, how will the Greens fare in uncharted waters? Hopefully, all that Christine Milne - as new Leader - does in the name of the Greens will be in the name of its members right around the nation and of course its 1.8 million voters at the 2010 election. 


Good luck Bob, and thanks for your work, most of which was done when I was either unborn or politically unaware. 


Who will take his place as ideologue in the Parliament? Bob Katter, perhaps?

A Morgan-atic Marriage in Melbourne

Pollster Gary Morgan wants to be the next Lord Mayor of Melbourne. Good luck to him.

What has ruffled my feathers in this case is that Morgan is trying to make the jump from making a crust asking people what they would prefer to be the case - and making a comment about it to journos - to making a crust asking people what they would prefer to be the case - and making a comment about it to journos.

Seriously, (!) my beef is not with Gary Morgan. How could it be? I have never met him, so I can't attest to his credibility or lack thereof.

The bone I would like to be picked has almost been picked clean (thanks, Lindsay Tanner), but I shall do so regardless. This has to do with my desire to sharpen my metaphoric teeth as opposed to deriving protein-packed goodness (too far?).

The point is that the jobs of pollster and politician seem to be so similar. Hell, were they only monosyllabic words, no one could tell the difference. Okay, that's stretching it, but it seems to me that they are doing each other's jobs: pollsters are running the country* (by dictating the national conversation) and pollies seem to run to a focus group every time there arises an issue in which multiple perspectives are to be considered.

Should Mr Morgan be elected, how would he derive feedback from his policies? Would he use his experience (he has quite an impressive CV) in business or his experience in polling? One would hope that it is the former, considering the candidate has already been quoted as saying he is "more interested in business activities" than the current Lord Mayor - apparently Cr Doyle is "more interested in social activities". (The Age, 13/04/12).

The ironic thing - or not; I don't know, make up your mind - is that I wanted some polling numbers to add a bit of content to this point. Alas, it seems to be too early in the race for that old chestnut. I shall be watching Roy Morgan - the company Mr Morgan's dad founded in 1941 - with earnest.

*I realise the link is a little old but it serves the point adequately. You could argue, quite reasonably, that the 26th Prime Minister - Kevin Rudd - was deposed by his own party to make way for the 27th - Julia Gillard - because of poor polling numbers. It is one thing for leadership change to occur during Opposition - the party in minority wants the best possible chance to gain a majority at an election (and a large part of that is the reputation that the leader has. A poor leader will guide his or her party only through Opposition.) - but it was indicative of a party - still - under the wraps of polling. Yes, the Liberal/Country Party Coalition in the late 60s had a leadership crisis of their own while in power, but it was apparently caused by party distrust. The same occurred in 2010, obviously, but the distrust was not causa sui, as it was in the late 60s. I submit that in Labor's case, the distrust was directly influenced by bad polling numbers for K. Rudd. What is bad for the Labor Party is that Gillard's numbers as PM have been much worse on occasions, yet she hasn't been replaced. This doesn't make the Labor Party noble, or willing to stick it during the rough times. This makes the party look inconsistent. If there's one thing people hate with governments, or with authority in general, it's inconsistency. Given this context, I am not willing to predict a landslide at next year's scheduled election; stranger things have happened in politics.

Darkness at the break of noon

Damn. I've just realised I've written the perfect header for a Good Friday post. As it is now Easter Monday when I am writing this, I have two options:
1) Wait 363-odd days (leap year yada yada) and post then
2) Carry on like a sporting chap

The problems with 1), as you can imagine, are many and varied.They range from the highly-probable (the world ending before then) to the almost-certain (my forgetting to carry through with this cunning plan) to the very-unlikely (my actually getting a life and not needing this activity to keep me in a state of lucidity and semi-sanity). Well, they're all non-zero probabilities, so each may occur, according to the synthesis of "naive inductivism" by my good mate A.F. Chalmers. 2) seems like a more preferable option.

I don't know what the point of the previous paragraph was.

Anywho, I wanted to share this video of Bob Dylan singing "It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding" velocemente. 

Related to the previous post, videlicet my little tribute poem.

The reason why I find this video special is that it goes for 5 and a half minutes. That's right, a quickened version of a song goes for 5 and a half minutes. Original studio recordings also found on your Tube go for about 10-11 minutes. Keep in mind that this is Dylan singing the words quickly, not a shortened version of the song. Were one to utilise the fast forward function on Media Player, (yes, I have, incidentally on many Midnight Oil songs. I'm obsessed with the Oils at the moment. More on them in another post, perhaps. If you wanted commentary on modern pop culture, well, you're in the wrong place) a standard 5 minute song would last for about half that time. This is the same ratio. I've listened to the full, drawn-out version (not on my bandwidth however, thank god, or I'd never hear the end of it). It's slow. It's understandable (unusual for Dylan) but it's painfully slow. I also have  My dad has a copy of Dylan singing a reasonably-quick live version in 1980, which goes for around 6 minutes. But it's just...I mean...Since when do "fast" versions of songs go for a 5 and a half minutes? Are there any other examples?  Remember, on radio (and yes, I do actually know what I'm talking about for once, well sorta anyway), the longest song will last 4 minutes. And that's probably pushing it. Good onya Bobby, for breaking the mainstream. Plenty of Bobs I know break the mainstream: Bob Brown, Bob Carr &c. Oh, if you want interesting, read Bob Brown's recent speech about "global parliament". It's well delivered, and it certainly didn't deserve the crap that was hung on it by the mainstream media. It's a trope that warrants further thought, and by that I don't mean the four- and five-letter words that I could use to describe the debate the in this country today. Which is another interesting trope, that can't be debated in Australia today. Regression, regression everywhere.

From one Bob, to another Bob, to another Bob, back to the second Bob, back to the first Bob, take it away:

Bob Dylan #1

The following is my rudimentary attempt to join the ranks of Matthew Arnold, Shakey, and my muse, among others. It is dedicated, as you can probably gather from the title, to that one-and-only, the great Bob Dylan. You can criticise anything you want, obviously, except with regards to what metre I wrote in: I do not know, and frankly do not care. Expect more to come. 

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