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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