Print journalism worldwide is heading down the drain and there is pretty much bugger all we can do about it. In every mainstream news outlet in the US, the UK and here in Australia the death knell is ringing and it's getting louder and louder and louder. And what section of the newspaper will probably feel the initial brunt of this? One guess.
If you haven't discovered The Monthly magazine, I advise you to pop down to your friendly, local newsagency and pick up a copy. This month's issue (June) is still as insightful and relishing as ever, most particularly for an article, War of Words, that ex-Sydney Morning Herald editor Eric Beecher has penned.
He begins the article with this very real summation; "It would be difficult to overstate the serious media’s anxiety about the future of quality journalism. This anxiety stems from an old dilemma – is journalism a public trust or a business? – overlaid on a new dilemma: that as the internet matures into a successful commercial medium, the funding model for quality commercial journalism is collapsing. This is no longer simply a debate about the role of press barons like Rupert Murdoch. It is now about whether the owners of quality commercial journalism – predominantly the owners of the world’s major newspapers – are prepared to accept lower profits and diminished share prices in order to continue funding costly but important journalism. There can only be one conclusion: in your dreams.”
To clarify his statement, consider these US newspaper sales figures he quotes; "Industry profitability - the profit earned from every dollar of revenue - has fallen from 22.6% in 2002 to 17.8% in 2006. Newspapers' share of media advertising has declined from 24.9% in 1990 to 15.8% in 2006... And the picture is even worse when it comes to younger readers: only 35% of 18-34 year-old Americans read a daily newspaper last year. The figure was more than 70& in the early 1990's."
The arts desk of the Sydney Morning Herald are feeling this global pinch. Beecher points out that "at Fairfax Media, historically the home of Australia's best commercial journalism, the mood is grim. Journalists at its flagship newspaper, the Sydney Morning Herald, recently launched industrial action over the company's decision to cut 35 jobs following two earlier rounds of editorial redundancies".
The situation is not just felt at the Sydney Morning Herald, but all the major dailies around the country. They now find themselves in the position whereby once an arts journalist goes, they are not replaced. The SMH arts desk journalists Clare Morgan, Richard Jinman, Bryce Hallet, Angela Bennie and Valerie Lawson must be feeling the strain. Is it any wonder that so much content filling the arts pages is now book reviews from academics and freelance writers, press release articles and feature stories pulled straight from The Guardian, The Times or The New York Times?
But what will happen when even those respected newspapers can't provide quality arts content to the SMH? What will the SMH do then? It is not an unfathomable prospect. Just this week, Lyn Gardner, reviewer for The Guardian, explained how reviews were being 'squeezed' and 'now I seldom get to write more than 300 words'.
Beecher goes on to quote New York investment banker and former NY Times reporter Steven Rattner who is "considering new models for the news business. He proposes not-for-profit status for journalism." Rattner states that "instead of having billionaire moguls as proprietors, we could try to turn them into philanthropists who found non-profit organisations to buy and operate their local papers."
This is an extraordinary situation that will become desperate for arts journalists and arts interested readers across the country. We have already seen the beginning of a down grading in quality and it is going to get worse. It is going to be more 'entertainment' focused, more 'celebrity' focused and the arts pages as they are presently known will very likely evaporate.
Newspapers within ten years will barely exist in print editions and will have to exist without relying on the volume of advertising or classified revenue that they once did. Costs will be cut, arts articles will be even further diluted and readers will turn to the alternative's - blogs, independent websites and other online sources. Which they are already doing.
Sydney's online presence is presently not a good example, but this shift is occurring in a major scale very close to home. In Melbourne we really have an extraordinary situation opening up with its organic and now prolific online arts journalism and criticism coverage. Not only is there Alison Croggon's Theatre Notes, but we also have Chris Boyd from the Herald Sun blogging away, as well as Matthew Clayfield's excellent Esoteric Rabbit, Matt Scholten, Melbourne Film Blog, Mink Tails, Richard Watts... the list goes on and they are all listed here. This is not to mention the independent arts websites, Aussie Theatre, Australian Stage and my sometime employer ArtsHub.
But can pages such as this or any other blog or independent site guarantee the quality and quantity that the mainstream could once be proud of and without the finances? With the proliferation of blogs, will we get to the point of critical mass and a saturation of opinion? George Hunka of Superfluities has already expressed a disatisfaction with the present blog roll of arts sites saying "online theatre criticism is becoming just as fragmented and prone to simplistic reductionism as that in the mainstream media."
Thomas Friedman of the New York Times touches on this proliferation in an article re-produced in the Herald last week.
"When everyone has a blog, a MySpace page or Facebook entry, everyone is a publisher. When everyone has a mobile phone with a camera in it, everyone is a paparazzo. When everyone can upload video on YouTube, everyone is filmmaker. When everyone is a publisher, paparazzo or filmmaker, everyone else is a public figure. We're all public figures now."
It's all very well for us to be public figures now at the whim of blogs but who will have time to do quality research and articles and who will pay for them? It won't be Uncle Rupert, or the shareholders at Fairfax. Why would they when they can get quick, easy and cheap content from international news outlets?
At present the arts blogs that exist generally provide a wonderful alternative to sit beside the mainstream outlets that has arisen out of a dissatisfaction with the diversity and quality of their content. But where will that reference point go to when that mainstream starts to disappear. Do we need some sort of self-devised regulatory system? Or is the future with publically funded media? Even the ABC is now boggled eyed at how they should move ahead with their online content.
I attended a small panel last weekend at PACT Youth Theatre in Sydney's inner west. Tessa Needham from Australian Stage, Briyoni Treesize from Reeltime and Eliza Sarlos from fbi Radio were in discussion with Tiek-Kim Pok about criticism in today's society. It was a discussion that would never have happened five years ago... young online commentators throwing ideas around about the role of critics and the impact of their new voices within it.
Unfortunately, they didn't really get their hands dirty and part of me thinks this comes from a certain naivety. I don't think people realise the position that the online commentators are presently in and how quickly the whole state of affairs is going to alter. Quality content will soon be reliant on independent commentators and online sources, squeezing out and diluting the mainstream as it loses revenue.
There is a public demand for quality content but the boundaries are shifting with who can provide this quality within the print and online medium. It's all very well to have the blogs, but how can we maintain (even advance) the quality and the sophistication? Where will it all end up? Will this revolution end up being for display purposes only?
Image: safecom.org.au
10 comments:
Good questions, Nicholas. (Although I've never read anything by Thomas Friedman that displays either insight or style, and that quote seems par for the course).
I think we're in chaos theory territory, to be honest. I have a few theories on how things might evolve, but who knows? What I do think is that it's an exciting time to be a blogger, and that quality is up to us - if the newspapers can't provide it, we can. Or not. As the case may be. Quality is hard work after all, and not everyone's prepared to do it, especially for nothing.
It's a well known syndrome with newspapers that are failing - bump up the advertising percentage, drive down the quality, in a frantic attempt to lift profits, and then circulation drops again, so everything squeezes a bit more. It's what they call a vicious circle. It's probably a better tactic in the long run to bump up quality and lose money for a while, but it sounds unlikely that anyone is going to be that visionary. Which I think is bad news, but, let's face it, it's been bad for longer than people care to admit.
Anyway, much more to talk about...
I think we're in chaos theory territory
Delivery of information via the internet is really only in its infancy, whereas where can the printed medium go from here? My guess is nowhere. At the moment, people are trying to make sense of the overwhelming volume of 'stuff' online. As the technology matures (and it's moving at a tremendous rate by historical standards), we'll see people increasingly being able to control what information they receive and how they receive it.
Where things go from here, I think is largely dependent on the techonologies developed to filter and control the flow of online information. Whether this creates new opportunities for writers or whether some forms of paid writing are consigned to history remains to be seen.
I never knew that Friedman had such an ordinary reputation... It is the first time I have come across anything he has written.
You are absolutely right about how long the quality has been disappearing and to be honest, I should probably stop barking on about it... It's rarely the journalists fault and all decision is top-down.
New SMH and The Age boss Brian McCarthy was quoted in The Bulletin as saying the following about newspapers and the coverage of Iraq:
"It's a debate we need to have, the mix of local versus national or international stories ... I know it (Iraq) is important for the world and for us here in Australia and I'm not underestimating it in any shape or form. But the reality is we are about selling newspapers and that Iraq to me now is a boring subject on page one."
If that's his view of Iraq, I can only imagine how he looks upon the arts.
Nicholas surely this is an opportunity for critics to solve that age-old problem, having the guts of their review cut out by some philistine sub editor! Whenever I have asked a critic why their review didn't mention a particular actor/director/writer when their work had been outstanding, invariably I get the response, "I did, but the sub cut it." So why not just have all critics put a weblink at the bottom of all print reviews, where people can go to read the uncut version?
That is precisely what happened to me last week with my review of Othello in The Daily Telegraph. Of course, I put the full text up on here, warts and all.
I believe that Chris Boyd of the Herald Sun does the same and Benito di Fonzo puts his full text articles on his blog.
It would be nice if the Fairfax reviewers did the same... but as we know they are having a lot of problems with their website as it is, without some pesky theatre reviewer causing more trouble.
Well I encourage you and all theatre reviewers to have a weblink where interested readers can find the full version. I think theatre companies would appreciate it as well, especially smaller ones that can't afford big ads, as a nice positive quote (if there is one!) from the online review could make a difference to ticket sales.
There are many reasons, st genesius, why we don't/can't/shouldn't post uncut reviews on-line.
Firstly, if I'm paid for a review, the publisher is entitled to first print (and sometimes digital) run. Publishers expect -- and demand -- some kind of scoop or exclusivity. When I do "republish" on-line, it's usually days, weeks or even months after the review hit the presses, out of courtesy to my employer.
Secondly, my contributor agreements with various publishers mean that I am protected from defamation actions, but anything I put on-line isn't behind that shield. Reviews are sometimes cut for other reasons that just space!
On occasions, I'll post edited transcripts of interviews (John Banville, Athol Fugard, ...) that I've conducted for feature articles. I used to suggest to Fairfax that they print a URL at the end of the article with a "further reading" pointer but they always declined. (They wouldn't even run transcripts on their own site. Separate worlds...)
After 18 months, my blog is still a rough combo of formal reviews, off-cuts, archives, essays and the (very) odd rant. I've been a bit reluctant to make it more bloggy...
Thank you Chris for the clear explanation. Where might I find yor blog?
Apologies Chris, I was totally wrong about your blog!
I have an understanding with my editor that I will post the full text of my reviews on the day of publication and so far (the once) it works well.
I always outline that it is a full text version of the publicated one with a link to the publisher.
The Daily Telegraph does not publish their reviews online. In fact they don't publish any arts articles online. Hence my decision to whack it on my site.
Defamation action is an interesting one, especially in light of the case against the Fairfax restaurant review.
As editor, sub editor, writer, reviewer etc etc of this blog, I have to be well aware of the defamatory laws and posting the full reviews is my own responsibility.
You can find Chris' excellent blog at:
http://chrisboyd.blogspot.com/
Thanks guys.
That's great, Nicholas, that your editor is cool with you posting the whole thing on the same day.
The Herald Sun, like the Tele, doesn't post performing arts reviews on-line. (The Financial Review puts all of my stuff on-line, but (1) you have to find my copy and (2) you have to pay $3.30 per piece -- that's more than the price of the entire fucking newspaper -- to read it!)
Exciting news that Alison Croggon has accepted the gig as Melbourne critic for the Australian (especially given the fact that the Oz puts virtually all of its reviews on-line, at least for a time) while Thuy On's on maternity leave.
Obviously Alison won't be feeling any trepidation -- given her experience at the Bulletin and Radio National &c. -- but the big challenge will be condensing her ideas into 400 words!
Given the 'half-life' of print-only reviews is extremely short, it's great to have a lasting on-line life for reviews... And that, together with some excess critical steam, is why I started blogging.
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