Digital naivety dooms the Finkelstein Inquiry
When I met Matthew Ricketson, he did not strike me as someone who was on top of the latest digital developments.
In March 2010 he moderated a PR Institute of Australia panel I was a speaker on. When we were introduced, it was clear he had never heard of Mumbrella. Which is fair enough, unless you’re a professor of journalism in which case there are few enough outlets that write about media that I’d argue you probably should know about them all.
So when Ricketson was named as the journalistic voice to sit alongside Ray Finkelstein on the Independent Media Inquiry, I was not massively optimistic that online media would be well understood. Having now read all 500 or so pages of the newly published inquiry report, I was right to be pessimistic.
First though, the positives.
So what about my .com blog hosted on servers in another country which mentions Australian politicians?
Will they block it?
Australia plummets in press freedom index – again!
https://mumbrella.com.au/australia-plummets-in-press-freedom-index-72393
Tim, I don’t see why small readerships should protect blogs from social norms. Our defamation laws apply where the audience is a single other person. What’s so special about blogs?
Also, bear in mind that posts on obscure blogs can be linked from high traffic sites, dramatically expanding the readership for a particular post.
Hi Tony,
I think you’re making my point for me. Of course they’re already covered by defamation laws.
But if they are going to be covered by a news regulator, then there needs to be a practical way of identifying those that come within that – both in definition and in audience size. The inquiry has failed to come up with a sensible means of doing so.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
This whole campaign is suss. A Government that doesn`t like criticism shouldn`t be ablke to launch a witch hunt like this. Just because the Green`s leader and our PM can`t handle something called ‘accountability’, we are to lose what so many people have fought so hard for.
When the Coalition was in power, the same papers/press ownership group that the ALP/Greens object to was in the habit of piling derision upon the Howard/Costello government. I mean, the Port action with Peter Reith at the helm was severely criticised,with The Oz breaking news of strike breaking teams receiving training o/s and deep probes into Patrick`s history and modus operandi.
And who could forget the Australian Wheat Board exclusive, a result of a long-running campaign by, guess who?, The Oz, once more. Then there was the coverage of the Tampa/Kids Overboard affairs, followed mercilessly by,oh,surely not?, the Murdoch press again!
These are just a few examples of extremely damaging newspaper criticism of the previous Federal Government at the hands of the ‘powers of evil’. Accusations of distorting the true progress of democracy were strangely absent when the ALP/Greens were in opposition……
Then as now, we need a free media, including all those mad/idealogically driven bloggers, to allow those in the voting population who are remotely interested in the goings-on of the political class a wide variety of views to discern what we may.Anything but the current level of freedom is verging on the fascist/communist absolutes that were buried in the `90s.
Well it’s not as though the solution ain’t just sitting there, quietly eating away at the foundations. Yep: it;s that dang age old problem: commerce. From where I’m sitting the ad revenue of newspapers looks to have fallen well beyond any recent forecasts and way worse than the recession would explain. Chase Carey won friends in the US when he slipped the vote catcher idea of cutting the print part of News adrift. (In the past he’d have been floating past Rupert’s Morning Glory by now, full of holes…). Over at Fairfax their December numbers seem to say that the big name titles are seriously under water and they curiously sucked the otherwise healthy business titles into that rotting cluster of hulks, leaving the little local prints as the only source of real print money (and of course these geniuses have also not only sold a chunk of TradeMe, but have bought an expensive bunch of suburban print titles!)
So there is no problem: the News and Fairfax titles are dying. (And may I say, can we push smh.com.au under just a little faster; it’s a shocker.)
This is pretty limp.\ If you look at it without tub-thumping polemic, Finkelstein has come up with a surprisingly plausible model.
Ok – you can pick some holes and point out some digital naivete. That might make you feel smart or smug, but it’s a fairly small win. The basic principle is that some sites should fall within those considered news media, and some don’t. He’s suggested a first draft idea about where to look for a threshold. The basic idea that part of the threshold test might be that only sites with a bigger audience would be considered news media seems plausible. Your contribution would be more interesting if you suggested ways that a person who isn’t naive might judge audience size.
The other commenters are examples of much of what’s wrong with Australian public debate.
– “Will they block it?”
-Fascist/communist absolutes?
Such obvious readiness to comment without bothering even to read let alone to consider soberly what’s been written is very sad.
In fact, Finkelstein’s recommendation would probably reduce the burden on broadcasters, and might well increase the standards of accuracy and fairness of news media without imposing any additional constraints on freedom of expression.
And the problem with that is…?
Nice pick-up on some of the points from my comment on your last article Tim.