Battle of the Big Thinking part 2; Giving voice to bloggers; Trust and the human voice; Closing SBS to fund journalism
Yesterday saw the APG’s Battle of Big Thinking. The second session covered big storytelling ideas.
Speaker: Antony Loewenstein, Writer
Topic: Why the western press is failing to use alternative voices
Quote: “A lot of people in the corporate press are not so much afraid as unimaginative.”
Was thinking about Tim Noonan’s terrific ‘voice of business’ example afterwards, and what a dickhead I must sound like in every presentation I’ve ever done.
Thought you gave Tim Dick short shrift though, Tim. I reckon his main point was for public funding for local and investigative journos (outside the ABC). Axeing SBS wasn’t really the main point – it was just how he dramatized his argument.
Why outside of the ABC and SBS David? We have public funding of journalism within those organisations already.
How about we fine tune those operations and support them to do just that with the funding they already have.
Why support another layer when two massive infrastructures (free market and public) for journalism already exist?
The problem isn’t really the funding, it’s the doing and it’s a bit rich for Fairfax to suggest killing SBS (or the ABC if your name is Rupert) to support something they won’t really commit to.
Maybe if Fairfax and News laid off the Bingle and Ga Gaa stories and actually put their money where their mouths are…..
Tim Dick had one of the only true ‘Big Ideas’ of the day… Dick, or the guy from We Are Hunted should have won the day, in my book.
Curious that the guy who won the entire day made us all ‘feel’ something, but didn’t actually have a big, new idea at the core.
Not aware of much funding infrastructure available for local news at the suburban level, Phil.
Most independent local papers are getting snatched up by News Ltd divisions like the Cumberland group, aren’t they?
Local news bloggers are springing up, but again I’m not aware of any public system of support for them either. Would be happy to be wrong, though.
As for investigative journalism, any more support for it – be it through existing organisations or new programs – is surely to everyone’s benefit, and needs to be thrown higher up the agenda.
These was his main points, I thought – the axing of SBS was just a facetious way to make them. I don’t think commercial versus public news models really entered into it.