Tag Archive for 'publishing'

Government: Don’t feed the trolls

Published
by
Mark
2 weeks, 1 day ago
in Authoritarianism, Crime, Ethics, Feminism, Life, Media, Politics, Race, Sociology and The Web
. 24 Comments

The last couple of weeks have seen a fair bit of furore about those intertubes. Anna Bligh wrote to Facebook about the defacing of a couple of memorial sites for a child and a teenager who’d been murdered in Queensland. Nick Xenophon suggested an Internet Ombudsperson, a suggestion Kevin Rudd applauded. There’ve also been numerous controversies about high school students posting racist groups, or offensive ones (for instance, effectively calling for attacks on sex workers). All this no doubt warrants condemnation – but it’s also worth observing that only a certain subsection of offensive content (usually involving children in one way or other) comes to the attention of the media and politicians. Little outrage is directed to the much larger subset of racist groups on Facebook (which don’t happen to be set up by high school kids), or the everyday misogyny that permeates much of the online space.

There’s no doubt that there are problems with Facebook’s method of dealing with offensive content. But the fundamental errors in this debate are twofold:

(a) Social networking sites are far more akin to phone networks than a traditional publishing model. A huge multiplicity of users constantly and simultaneously post content. Unlike talking on a phone, it leaves a permanent trace, but it’s a much better analogy;

(b) The direction of causation is the wrong way round. It’s not that the internet encourages people to do dumb and wrong things. It’s that people do dumb and wrong things, and they do them on the internet too.

The noise coming from politicians, and the ’solutions’, make one wonder whether they understand at all how social networking works. Part of the problem is one very easily resolved through taking more responsibility on the part of group creators for the little bit of the internet they set up, and using privacy and content management tools intelligently.

There’s an interesting take on all this from Colin Jacobs of Electronic Frontiers Australia, from whom I’ve borrowed the title of this post, and for a deeper examination of the issues, I’d also recommend the Oxford Internet Institute’s report on balancing freedom of speech and child protection online, which seeks to find some common ground between interlocutors who often seem to talk past one another.

To the beat of a different drum

Published
by
Mark
3 months, 1 week ago
in Blogging, Books, Writers & Writing, Culture, Media and The Web
. 17 Comments

With a fair bit of ado, the ABC launched its new opinion website, The Drum, on Monday.

It’s edited by Jonathan Green, formerly of Crikey, to whom congratulations are due, as they are to Sophie Black who’s had a very well deserved promotion to the top gig at that thing on the internet.

Margaret Simons, writing at her Content Makers blog, discusses two inter-related aspects of this ABC initiative. She first riffs on a piece by Media Watch’s Jonathan Holmes, which questions the distinction between analysis and opinion, which apparently grounds the ABC’s dictates to its own journos (“analysis good, opinion bad”). Simons then looks at the cult(ure) of personality attached to high profile journos, and questions whether non-witty, non-pretty, non-Tweeting writers are perhaps missing out in a new age of “audience engagement”. She also worries about objectivity, which is another distinction which is hard to maintain.

All these are worthy points for discussion, though I’d also be interested in what people think of the quality of the writing and analysis to date. I’ve already noted some Crikey writers, such as Greg Barns, who may have come across with Green, featured (though Barns does have a tendency to pop up in a lot of places). Whether the ABC should cast its remit rather wider is another issue – which, of course, circles back to the glam/Twitter/name issue…

My own view is that it’s harder than some might assume to find good writers with different takes. It might well be that identifying, developing and mentoring such new voices would be a most valuable contribution. But that’s almost a full time publishing/editorial gig in itself, and it may be incompatible with the ABC’s desire to have an immediate impact. We shall see.

It might also be something we could make a small contribution to here…

Australians for Australian books

Published
by
Mark
4 months, 1 week ago
in Books, Writers & Writing and Markets
. 188 Comments

In a second piece of good news to come from the Federal government today, the Productivity Commission’s mooted changes to the import regime for books have not been accepted.

The argument about consumer benefit was always spurious – the purported reduction in prices would have been small (and well run public libraries exist precisely to stock books for those for whom marginal prices are a real impact), and the effect would have been to reduce the range of titles available – both because it would have enabled large retailers to further dominate the market and because of its impact on local publishers.

Nevertheless, Guy Rundle is right to say that the interests of authors and publishers are separable, and to highlight the fact that it’s the provisions in the US-Australia free trade agreement preventing particular support for Australian literary production which are the real – but largely ignored – issue.

However, it should be very pleasing to see that governments are not so prone to accepting all free market ideological arguments on trust. And to see the Labor backbench able to influence government policy.

It also might be an appropriate moment to consider what good the Productivity Commission actually serves.

Update: Spike.

Ben Naparstek, The Monthly and the Julia Gillard “biography wars”

Published
by
Mark
5 months, 2 weeks ago
in Books, Writers & Writing, Ethics, Media and Politics
. 106 Comments

A truly bizarre editorial decision from Ben Naparstek, who occupies the chair at The Monthly, has resulted in the publication of a review of Jacqueline Kent’s biography of Julia Gillard by Christine Wallace, who is writing a rival biography of the Deputy Prime Minister for Allen & Unwin.

Wallace, in her review, describes the Kent book, The Making of Julia Gillard, as a “political quickie”. I’ve read it, and that’s fair comment, though Kent does cast a fair bit of light on aspects of Gillard’s rise through Labor ranks which are not well known, such as the effects of her long term rivalry with Lindsay Tanner and Kim Carr.

In his defence, Naparstek points to a similar review by Michelle Grattan.

However, Michelle Grattan has not written a book which is in direct commercial competition with one she is reviewing.

Naparstek also claims Wallace is best qualified to review Kent’s book – by virtue of being the author of a rival biography of Gillard. Bizarre.

There’s a fair bit of obfuscation in Naparstek’s defence of his editorial decision. Continue reading ‘Ben Naparstek, The Monthly and the Julia Gillard “biography wars”’

Guy Rundle on parallel import restrictions for books

Published
by
Ben Eltham
6 months, 1 week ago
in Books, Writers & Writing and Economics
. 109 Comments

In Fairfax’s relaunched National Times, Guy Rundle has a perceptive but inconsistent piece on the unsustainability of parallel importation restrictions (often abbreviated to PIR) for Australian books:

Though the chief opponents of PIR have been the large book chains and their tame flacks, the main game in terms of radically cheapening and improving the flow of information and culture should be the abolition of territorial controls altogether.

History shows new and wider modes of circulating knowledge, debate and information are the means by which entrenched power and unquestioned authority is challenged. Just as the printing press destroyed the monasteries, and made possible the Reformation.

This seems genuinely liberatory, so why are so many of the cultural left against it?

Continue reading ‘Guy Rundle on parallel import restrictions for books’

Will anyone pay for online news?

Published
by
Mark
6 months, 2 weeks ago
in Books, Writers & Writing, Consumerism, Media, Politics and The Web
. 46 Comments

There’s an interesting take in Australian Policy Online from my QUT Creative Industries Faculty colleague, Terry Flew, on the whole question of business models for online news, which has had quite the airing of late. My own view is that the reports that competition regulators were concerned about Rupert Murdoch’s attempts to corral a number of American news corporations into an “alliance” might constitute a cartel are telling. It’s redolent of a certain mindset which goes far beyond the nuts and bolts considerations of revenues and costs.

Flew riffs off an argument made by Shaun Carney in The Age:

What Shaun Carney points to – as does Rupert Murdoch – is that the business of getting news is not free. As economist Tyler Cowen puts it, all of the major news providers have found that their revenues are falling below their average costs curves, and they are not prepared to make losses indefinitely. The problems are that no-one knows what the price should be, what is the best approach to charging (subscriptions, pay-per-view, freemiums, or what?), or whether enough consumers will pay to offset the losses arising from those who will inevitably opt out once some form of charging for news is introduced.

At this point, two further complications emerge. One is the possibility that new opportunities may emerge for commercially viable free news services that capture the convenience users who opt out of pay models. This may be a new provider who also captures the imaginations of those who are now vocally critical of what they term the “mainstream media”, and who access sites such as The Huffington Post in the U.S.

The second is that it is unlikely that the public service media providers – ABC, BBC, SBS, NPR etc. – will charge for news, as it is contrary to their Charter obligations of providing universal access. At any rate, I doubt that Shaun Carney is right that consumers will simply accept paying for what they are currently getting for free simply because they recognise the costs that exist for the established news providers.

It’s also worth considering the value readers receive from particular types of news. Rupert Murdoch, according to Wired UK, had his thinking shaped by the propensity of Wall Street Journal subscribers to pay a premium for online news. But there’s a fundamental category error here.

Continue reading ‘Will anyone pay for online news?’

Books in the digital age

Published
by
Mark
7 months, 3 weeks ago
in Books, Writers & Writing, Notices, Sociology and The Web
. 2 Comments

I’m speaking on the 11th of August at an event organised by the Queensland Writers Centre:

Books in the Digital Age:The Future of Writing

With the rapid changes in Australia’s writing and publishing industry, where will books fit in the digital future and how will this affect how we read and write?

As part of QWC’s Wordpool series of three lectures for 2009, we’re looking at the the future of… books, writing and journalism.

Digital publishing invites writers and readers to think differently about the dynamic relationship between content and the container in which it’s consumed and shared.

Join Mark Bahnisch in a discussion as to what this means for Australia writers and readers, as he attempts to answer… what is the future of writing?

When: Tuesday 11 August, 6:30pm

Where: Room KG-B-304, Queensland University of Technology,

Kelvin Grove Campus

Cost: Free for QUT students, or $15. Bookings required

Bookings: Phone QWC on 07 3839 1243, or via www.qwc.asn.au

Cross-posted at BrisCulture.

The Mad Monk

Published
by
Mark
7 months, 3 weeks ago
in Authoritarianism, Books, Writers & Writing and Politics
. 121 Comments

I’ve got a feeling that the mix of a seemingly random collection of crazy authoritarian policy ideas (covenant marriage, raising the pension age to 70, bringing back WorkChoices, the federal government taking over everything) and arrogant self-congratulation that appear to make up the content of Tony Abbott’s book based on the extracts that have appeared is not doing him or the Liberal Party any good.

And will anyone actually buy the thing?

Possibly the only winner in this publishing deal is Labor (and maybe News Limited…)

Elsewhere: Andrew Bartlett.

At the cutting edge of media experience

Published
by
Phil
8 months, 2 weeks ago
in Authoritarianism, Blogging, Economics, Markets, Media and The Web
. 52 Comments

Well, I think it’s safe to say that a full scale war has broken out between News Ltd and Australian independent media operators.

Posts today at Crikey, Larvatus Prodeo and The Oz’s Mark Day.

Day amused me with this in his piece.

More than anyone else, Hartigan is plugged into worldwide trends, information, research, experiments, technologies, think tanks and consultancies. As part of the global News Corporation (publisher of The Australian) he is at the cutting edge of the media experience.

This fact alone makes Hartigans earlier comments on media even more alarming. How can you have so many resources at hand and still not understand the changes that are occurring – not to mention insisting your old business model still has legs.

Continue reading ‘At the cutting edge of media experience’

The Author of A Blog v Times Newspapers Limited

Published
by
Mark
9 months ago
in Authoritarianism, Blogging, Books, Writers & Writing, Crime, Law, Media, Sociology and The Web
. 10 Comments

At Skepticlawyer, Legal Eagle has written a fascinating post on the bizarrely named case cited above, which was heard recently in the British High Court. As she writes:

“The Author of A Blog” cited as the claimant was the pseudonymous author of a blog known as “Night Jack”. He was a police officer whose blog provided an inside view of police procedure, the seamy side of life and the law. In April this year, the Night Jack blog received the Orwell Prize for political blogging. However, after this, Patrick Foster, a journalist from The Times, determined to work out the identity of the blogger using internet research. Foster has justified his actions on the basis that the Night Jack blogger “was…using the blog to disclose detailed information about cases he had investigated, which could be traced back to real-life prosecutions.”

The blogger sought an interim injunction to restrain Times Newspapers Ltd from publishing any information that would identify him. Although an injunction was granted up until the time of judgment, the High Court ultimately refused the claimant’s application. The officer has been revealed to be Richard Horton, a detective constable with Lancashire Constabulary.

Legal Eagle draws an interesting inference from all this about Foster’s motivations:

I can’t help finding the action of The Times rather petty and malicious. For some reason, some journalists seem to despise blogging and bloggers (eg, an article in The Australian the other day to which I can’t even be bothered linking). There’s a suspicion in my mind that this journalist thought to himself, Let’s bring down a blogger who is writing something that is interesting and exciting.

Punched out II

Published
by
Mark
9 months, 3 weeks ago
in Blogging, Books, Writers & Writing, Media and The Web
. 17 Comments

There’s been an excellent discussion on a previous thread here by Phil about News Limited’s new online venture The Punch.

To add to the reflections on that thread, it’s worth discussing what The Punch says about the future of big media and the business models that support major corporates. Brisbane journo and editor Jason Whittaker has written a nifty piece on The Punch in this context at Importance of ideas.

Whittaker’s conclusion:

News Limited is now betting the house on charging for online subscriptions to its mastheads, putting a price on the parochial, populist tabloid content it currently gives away for free. If The Punch is its only Plan B, god help us all.

The whole article is well worth reading. I’m in broad agreement with Whittaker that “incompetence, not [the] net, has killed media”.

I don’t necessarily agree that there isn’t a place for a site focused mainly on opinion online. Blogs aren’t the only comparator here. The success of On Line Opinion over quite a few years demonstrates that. But it is true to say that an opportunity to invest in the future of journalism has been missed by News.

Incidentally, as one might expect, I’m sure competition is uppermost in News’ mind. I think The Punch is probably meant to be a Crikey killer, particularly when one has a look at the redesign of the Crikey website to incorporate news aggregation and a wider variety of topics (and bloggers – most recently the welcome return Tim Dunlop on music). I doubt – if I’m right that that’s their ambition – it will put much of a dent in Crikey.

Elsewhere: Jacques Chester at Troppo.

Update: Lyn Calcutt at Public Opinion.

Update: Terry Flew.

The perils of celebrity: Julie Bishop, Peter Van Onselen, MUP and plagiarism

Published
by
Mark
1 year, 4 months ago
in Books, Writers & Writing, Ethics, Media and Politics
. 22 Comments

One of the minor notes of the political narrative last week was Julie Bishop’s half-hearted fessing up to publishing a book chapter containing numerous instances of plagiarism under her name, though (in a move quite reminiscent of the Howard government’s attitude towards ministerial accountability) she sought immediately to deflect responsibility onto the staffer who “dashed something together” for her in a spare moment, recycling and paraphrasing eight year old banal neo-liberal nostrums from the New Zealand Business Roundtable’s Roger Kerr. The news didn’t get any better as the week wore on for the editor of Liberals and Power: The Road Ahead, Peter Van Onselen, as it emerged that Brendan Nelson’s chapter had been ghosted by Tom Switzer, whose ruminations turned up in a column under his own name in The Spectator:

“It must have been subconscious … I have just regurgitated [what] was my line.”

Pushing a “line”, of course, comes naturally to the opinionistas of the punditariat/thinktank interface. The big surprise in all this, probably, is why an increasingly furious and perhaps naive Van Onselen ever thought that he could solicit contributions which actually represented the reflections of “some of the finest minds of liberal and conservative thought”. The notion, apparently shared by Van Onselen and Melbourne University Press Publisher Louise Adler, that Liberal politicians are in “a reflective period, a phase of rigorous self-criticism and reassessment” was always risible. All we’ve seen from the opposition since November 24 2007 are the fruits of a sense of frustrated entitlement, manifesting alternately in vicious infighting and empty and cynical populism.

Adler’s commentary on the book is yet another instance of blame shifting. Andrew Elder nails it:

If Adler was concerned about morality she’d pull the book and wear the financial consequences of doing so, to protect the intellectual integrity of MUP. Instead, the next Melbourne Uni student who gets busted lifting an essay straight off the internet should get Adler to brush away any nasty consequences (“so old hat!”).

Howard’s End: not E. M. Forster but Van Onselen and Senior

Published
by
Kim
1 year, 7 months ago
in Advertising, Blogging, Books, Writers & Writing, Federal Elections, Howardia and Media
. 27 Comments

Here’s another don’t waste your $34.95 book review, and for many of the same reasons as Mark identified as failures in an earlier 2007 federal election tome from Melbourne University Press – Christine Jackman’s Inside Kevin07.

If anything, Peter Van Onselen and Philip Senior’s Howard’s End: The Unravelling of a Government is an even more tedious read. That might have been evident from the fact that even the now obligatory astroturf “news” stories about the book couldn’t find too much in the way of “shock! horror!” type “revelations” to excerpt, as I observed at the time.

The blurb claims:

In the tradition of Pamela Williams’ The Victory, Howard’s End analyses and makes sense of the result and its far-reaching implications for the people of Australia.

Well, that might indeed be a worthy aim, but the problem is that the book doesn’t do much analysis, and very little sense-making and if there’s anything in it about the implications for the people of Australia as opposed to the future of the Liberal party (such insight filled gems as “rebuilding the Liberal Party after the 2007 federal election defeat was always going to be difficult…”) I’ve completely missed them.

If political journalism is supposed to be the first draft of history, this is apparently the first draft of the first draft. Through 192 pages, the book tediously recounts the events after Rudd’s ascension to the Labor leadership on an almost week by week basis. Mungo McCallum did much the same thing, but at least it was funny. If you’re looking for a reminder of the interminable “perpetual campaign”, then probably you’re pushing the tragic in political tragic a bit further than it normally should go, but you might do better to read Mungo, or indeed click on the archive of this blog. There’s only so much interest in reading exactly what John Howard announced about training policy on day whatever of the campaign, or what Rudd said in a press conference whenever in May. It reads as if someone’s sat down with a stack of newspapers and paraphrased the tedium of day to day political reporting.

But it gets worse. Continue reading ‘Howard’s End: not E. M. Forster but Van Onselen and Senior’