I think it’s better to picture Gretel saying it.
<img src="http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/gretel.jpg"
Over at Public Opinion, Gary Sauer-Thompson has a tantalising thought:
It’s probably asking for too much, but it would be appropriate if the casting changes in our political theatre were accompanied by similar arrangements in our media.
Gary links to an interesting piece by Sydney Uni Politics Prof Rod Tiffen, who goes into detail about the partisan palaver of the News Ltd. punditariat, and explains why, even if the Ackermans, Albrechtsens and Shanahans of the world hang on in the event of a Rudd victory, they’ll lose much of their relevance with the end of their cosy “insider” status on the Howard dripfeed.
Gary concludes:
Despite what our educational culture warriors would have us believe, 30 odd years of communist postmodernist teaching has served us rather well. Unlike the skills shortages we’re suffering in other areas, we’ve managed to produce quite a few bright young things well equipped to replace the current crop.
Take a look at the offerings at the ABC’s Unleashed or New Matilda’s PollieGraph. The thing that strikes me about so much of it is that, unlike most of what passes for commentary at the moment, many of these people do their political analysis from a social perspective, as opposed to the politics/media bubble that bears no relation to real life.
Too bad the democratic process doesn’t also apply to political journalism. Liberal MPs wouldn’t be the only ones worrying about their seats.
“By George, Gary’s got it.”
Australian Idolator
Big Bullshitter
“You are the weakest pundit. Goodbye!’
Survivor: Canberra
And oh yes, the advertisers have voted.
OK, I’ll play the “let’s start an internet rumour game”.
I heard it directly from a very important insider at The Oz, that most senior journalists and editors loathe the young cadets who are emerging from the unis with journalism degrees. I’m not sure whether this is specific to the columnists mentioned in the above post, but it’s an interesting general point nonetheless…
It was explained to me in these terms, “journalism used to be learnt as a trade, and the current crop of veterans all learnt it that way, and they’re suspicious of anyone coming through with tertiary qualifications.”
In particular, the grey-hairs can’t stand all the critical-reading malarkey that these young cadets learn through advanced studies in English or Culutural or Media Studies. Which to me is very puzzling, given journalism’s long-held anti-authoritarian bent and the profession’s self-perception that they instinctively question everything…
Now, there may be many good reasons to be suspicious of people with tertiary qualifications, but if this attitude is one shared by the Albrechtsons, Sheridans, Shanahans etc. then they’re either hypocrites (if they have degrees) or philistines (if they don’t). Self-hating conservatives, perhaps?
From the public opinion piece:30 odd years of communist postmodernist teaching”
Can someone please explain: what is “communist postmodernist”?
It’s logical and gratifying to believe that all those Murdoch hacks will be frozen out, but I am not so sure. Inevitably the Rudd government will be like all others, with ministers leaking against each other, and some of the leaks will go to senior writers at Murdoch papers, like that mendacious midget Milne.
On the other hand the culturel war gravy train of appointments will cease forthwith. The question is whether their terms should be allowed to run off of whether they should all be purged immediately.
Much better would be a Culture Warriors Truth and Reconciliaton Commission.
In return for a place in a well-endowed Media Relations Advisory Board, Murdoch’s Myrmidons would have to satisfy a properly constituted judicial enquiry that they have divulged all their nefarious dealings with the Dark Forces of the Howard Ascendancy, with the Exclusive Brethren, and with the Neocons, Vulcans, Rapturites, Christians for Israel, and the like, of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy of American fringe politics.
Mercurius, old journalists denigrating the training of their younger breather is as old as the craft itself. And this is not unique to News Ltd.
The fact is that 90 per cent of what the kids learn in their “media studies” courses is irrelevant to what they do in journalism, which requires skills that really can’t be taught in university – a way with words, energy, cheekiness, curiosity about how things work and a refusal to take the authority-sanctioned answer for anything at face value.
The story is really that a lot of the “grey hairs” at the government gazette have forgotten those values.
This is not to denigrate all that post-modernist theory about ‘narratives’ and ‘texts’, but when you’re 20 minutes from deadline with 600 words to write and no-one is calling you back and the sub-editor is screaming at you for the copy, Foucault is really not going to come in very handy, you know?
It’s funny watching the Murdoch Monkeys struggle with harsh realities. Howard is giving away billions while simultaneously warning that Costello’s economic “tsunami” is just over the horizon. Paul Kelly today says this is “a complex message”, while Milne says it’s “audacity defined”.
Me, I’d just call it “irresponsible lies and hypocrisy”, but what do I know. I haven’t even got a journalism degree.
It was interesting to hear Peter Garrett’s post-gaffe comments:
“We” suggests the whole Rudd government will cut him off. But Price and his ilk know how this game works. There will still be plenty of juicy tidbits, and plenty of Big Business dollars, from the opposition benches. And IF Howard can squeak a win, Price’s loyalty will be royally rewarded.
Anyway, Rudd paid his homage to Murdoch early on, and he isn’t any announcing any big media ownership changes, or other policies that might upset Rupert. Look how Murdoch supported Tony Blair. We have already seen the future.
Howard will be commemorated as Teh Greatest PM Evuh, and the monkeys will pressure Rudd to support Murdoch’s Big Business agenda. Plus ca change.
Change the monkey or give them new typewriters, it won’t make a difference. We’ll have to wait till the Old Man dies for any real change.
One monoculture replaced with another? Not my idea of progress.
Most culture warriors are old Trotskyites, who relish the idea of small cells of partisans sniping from vantage points. It will be interesting to see them wrestle with the failure of eleven years of conservative government, even more so to see who complains when they are eased out.
Well said, sir. The only disagreement I’d have is with the phrase “what they do in journalism”. You seem to cling to an ideal of what should be done, whereas what journalists do is basically rehash press releases with no investigative component whatsoever.
That’s really what’s I’m saying. Journalists have become glorified typists and word processors, cutting and pasting from pre-fabricated publicity material while cheerfully running the narratives dictated by crusty old spinmeisters who used to populate newsrooms in the days when most news ‘releases’ were spiked.
Ahh – how cynical the culture warriors are! Plus ca change indeed. Inevitably the Prices, Joneses, Shanahans, Ackermans et al of this world will survive and even prosper. Why? Because they sell.. In their corner of the world they have an audience of devotees who have the time and the money to buy the products their sponsors promote, both from the commercial world and from the political world.
Thus, irrespective of the government we have, these people will have carriage on our airwaves and in our newspapers and even on sites like this. So (hopefully) will balanced journalists and even left wing journalists. Maybe I’m being naive but isn’t that what democracy is all about?
Mr Denmore, your graciousness towards theory is heartening. It has made my day. As an unrepentant purveyor of academic ‘postmodernism’ I can only agree that Foucault is utterly useless in the scenario described. The real contribution of media studies is in understanding how the media functions, not in understanding how to function within the media. Whether that helps or hinders journalists, I don’t really know.
As for those other qualities: it really depends on your lecturers (and tutors). There are those in the academy who encourage curiosity, wordplay etc, though they may be few and far between. In my experience there are many seasoned journalists doing tertiary teaching and bringing with them a strong sense of the culture of journalism. I wouldn’t argue that those skills you list can simply be transmitted, but I do think they can be fostered and encouraged in the right conditions. When I think back to my days as an undergraduate, the journalism part of the program was always a hive of activity. It was certainly enough to convince me that journalism was not for me, no matter how well I might’ve done in media studies.
Which is my point about media studies. For those planning a career writing critiques of the media, it is perfect training, although how you can make a buck out of it is the big question.
I spent 26 years in journalism and without trying to sound like some reactionary old fart, the industry really started to go off the rails when people started talking about it as a profession rather than as a trade or craft.
A lot of the kids who go into it these days do so as a path toward ‘branding’ themselves and becoming celebrities. They are performers who want the visibility that media bestows.
The fact is that in an age when information is immediate and celebrity is everything, news has become commoditised and the old craft of writing a balanced, accurate, compelling account of fast moving events under time pressure is no longer appreciated. Only the wire services like Reuters still venerate this, but it has no commercial value.
As straight news is no longer a differentiator and investigative journalism is so expensive, newspapers have opted to plaster their front pages with ‘analysis’ (in reality opinionated spin). The bigger the spin on events, the bigger the bucks. So working journalists are slowly assimilating the view that their role is about writing to an agenda and weaving the facts around a pre-ordained view of the world.
I guess a media studies graduate might call this a dialectic paradigm of context, or something.
Donna,
No.
This has been another edition of Simple Answers to Stupid Questions.
Struggling to get comments through, so this is a bit briefer then the first ‘draft’.
“A lot of the kids who go into it these days do so as a path toward ‘branding’ themselves and becoming celebrities. They are performers who want the visibility that media bestows.”
This may relate to the rise of opinion and editorial, and to the way journalist to author path in topical non-fiction (long form op/ed?) is now well-trodden here. I wonder whether this also relates to the US model, where being a writer implies being a journalist at some point.
It’s a joke. The culture warriors are always banging on about all those evil communists and postmodernists in the teaching profession, how standards are plunging etc.
Price and Jones on radio are different because they have a single voice, and it’s measurable. Akermanand Bolt could vanish tomorrow and circulation wouldn’t drop at all.
The analysis is not a differentiator because they’re all in the same press gallery reading all thes ame press releases and punishing everyone who strays from Teh Line. There are massive cost savings to be made in getting people into the field, surely. The last piece of investigative journalism I remember is the Peter Reith phonecard thing, and it is rubbish to say this is expensive. Besides, every business knows you have to spend money to make money. I have no idea why the journalist responsible didn’t win a Walkley and get snapped up by one of the major outlets.
Andrew E, the two big outlays in journalism are wages and pages – the costs of printing and labour. The pages will swell to the size of the advertising take. The job then is to fill the white spaces between the ads.
As an editor whose bonus depends on keeping your margins fat, you’re better off splurging on a handful of big-name columnists who pontificate on an issue of the day without doing any research or interviews, than on a couple of dozen straight news journalists who cost you big in out-of-office expenses. In any case, you pick up that commoditised news You from the wires for nothing, and add your own spin on the top.
It’s not strictly true in journalism that big investigatory pieces pay off to the bottom line, particularly now that in the internet age that “scoop” that you invested tens of thousands of dollars on has a shelf life of a couple of hours. In economic terms, the yield from exclusivity is lower than the yield from manufactured outrage and contrariness.
A fascinating thread.
Mr Denmore is right, of course: many of the traits of good journalism are things that can’t be taught. But I do think there is a role for quality journalism schools, and I note that John Henningham’s Jschool has an outstanding record in placing its graduates in full-time work.
I myself trained as a research scientist before taking on the role as Editor of UQ’s student newspaper, Semper Floreat (not that I’m exactly an employed journalist, if you’re reading this Centrelink take note!). While sticking needles into brain cells might not be everyone’s cup of tea, I did learn a lot from my outstanding supervisor Peregrine Osborne, whose unshakable commitment to empiricism taught me a lot more than about journalism than I realised at the time.
But it is also true that the culture warriors will struggle in the time of a Rudd ascendency as the general mood of the nation changes against them. After all, on most of the big picture items of the 2000′s, the culture warriors have the weight of evidence against them: Iraq, climate change, gay marriage, stem cells. I suggest we might see a lot more interest in the Murdoch dailies from opinion makers in the mould of what I might call the sceptical left, particularly as conservatism seems to have left the facts behind in its pursuit of what Fox calls “fair and balanced” reporting.
Even so, I don’t expect the crew-cuts at The Oz to put down the cudgels any time soon.