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Opinion | Features
Whose views skew the news? Media chiefs ready to vote out Labor, while reporters lean left
Most journalists lean left-of-centre, says Folker Hanusch of the University of the Sunshine Coast, in a post first published on The Conversation.Most Australian journalists describe themselves as left-wing, yet amongst those who wield the real power in the country’s newsrooms, the Coalition holds a winning lead.
But while the media’s political leanings will no doubt be debated in the lead-up to September’s federal election, our study has also found other largely unscrutinised biases remain – particularly whose views disproportionately shape the news.
It's time for a new New Wave in the film world
Government funding bodies are lazy and decadent, says industry veteran Michael Thornhill but in a piece that first appeared in Encore, Ed Gibbs begs to differ.I vividly remember the time I first saw Animal Kingdom, David Michod’s breathtaking labour-of-love feature debut. The press screening was half empty, despite the film winning the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance just months earlier, in 2010. Yet its superb performances, stylistic flourishes and overall polish left me speechless. Could this really be a feature debut, an Australian one at that, I wondered, almost out loud? It seemed too good to be true.
Going cold turkey on an agency addiction
Life is sweet for freelance writer Max Kitchen, but in a feature that first appeared in Encore, he admits his struggle against returning to the agency fold.I’ve never taken heroin. But I suspect if I had, the temptation to try it again would not be too dissimilar to the lure of returning to agency life.
Can sport save Ten?
First there was the Grand Prix. Next came the reported $500m bid for cricket rights, then Ten secured the 2014 winter Olympics. So, can sport save the ailing network? In a feature that first appeared in Encore, Nic Christensen investigates.The television sports rights bidding process is a bit like a game of poker.
Check, fold or bet. Those were the options for the Ten Network last week when it had to finalise its bid for the cricket rights.
Andy Lark: good for the marketing of marketing
I can still remember the first story I wrote about Andy Lark, when it emerged that he was to be the new chief marketing officer of CommBank.
It was immediately clear that Australia was about to meet an interesting marketer, one who blogged and tweeted and thanks to his time at Dell in the US was digitally savvy. Even two years ago, that was a big deal. The fact that he also had a stint in public relations gave him an absolutely intriguing background before he even arrived.
Storming the media barricades - advice for young journalists
This week Mumbrella’s Nic Christensen, who began his career four years ago, gave the keynote address to would-be journalists at the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance’s Student Day. This is an edited version of his speech.Good afternoon, I can remember distinctly the last time I was in this room.
It was 2009 and I was sitting where you are. I’d come to this event, a friend and myself — from memory we sat up the back — and I can remember at the time wondering if I’d ever get a job as a journalist.
It was only four years ago and then as now getting a job was ultra competitive but I’m not sure there was quite as much media ‘doom and gloom’ as there is now…
Paywalls will help fund campaigning journalism
In this guest post, News Limited’s group editorial director Campbell Reid responds to the views of ninemsn’s Hal Crawford that the company’s push into metered paywalls is about data rather than dollars.Hal Crawford is both right and wrong in his article which argued that our digital subscription plans are all about the data.
Fake it 'til you make it... as a features editor
Cosmo’s Kate Leaver tells us how to bluff it in her job in a feature that first appeared in Encore.What do you do, as a features editor?
Really, play with words and ideas all day. At any one time, we’re working across three issues of the mag – getting one on its way to the printers, pooling all the words together for another, and planning the issue after that. It’s busy but it’s a pretty magnificent process.
Savage counsel - JFDI
Hi Chris,I run a medium-sized agency that is doing pretty well. As the leader, I am finding my workload just seems to go up and up. I am struggling to stay motivated and particularly to tackle the bigger and tougher challenges I have to face every day. How do I keep up the energy when there just seems so much to do? How do you do it?
Productive, successful executives are those able to consistently tackle difficult and big challenges. It’s a constant struggle for me so I know how you feel. How do the successful leaders do it?
Q&A with Brett Clegg
Brett Clegg, group director – business media, Fairfax Media, in a Q&A that first appeared in Encore, on the journo who refuses to work with him – his wife.Who is the most powerful person in Australian media and why?
Hard to go past Rupert Murdoch. He controls the single largest and most diverse portfolio and is intent on leveraging its scale (and, of course, influence). He’s an innovator and his will to win is obvious to all.
The experiential experience
Anyone can throw up a tent in a high-traffic area and harass the general public, but what does it take to pull off an effective experiential event? In a piece that first appeared in Encore, Matt Smith investigates.A television commercial can easily be muted and ignored, but try ignoring a purring, squirming cat in your arms. That was the experience awaiting passers by in Sydney’s Martin Place in October last year when Mars Petcare built Whiskas Kitten Palace.
The News Limited paywall isn't about revenue. It's about data
In this guest post, ninemsn’s editor in chief Hal Crawford argues Fairfax Media and News Limited’s new paywalls won’t draw much revenue, but will generate data. And they’re late to the data party.When I first learned that ninemsn’s major digital competitors Fairfax and News Ltd were going to introduce paywalls across their mainstream properties, I was excited.
Every obstacle thrown in the way of their audiences is an opportunity. People hate friction and anything that makes life difficult on a rival site is a chance to get them on yours.
Is this the worst time to be a journalist?
With scores of redundancies in 2012 and a mass exodus of experienced journos, is this the worst time to be a journalist? In a feature that first appeared in Encore, Nic Christensen asks the question.In June last year a tsunami of redundancies began to sweep across Australia’s media landscape. They came in a series of waves and in the 12 months that followed, an estimated 1,200 journalists departed the mainstream media.
Are you a conscious leader?
As the advertising and marketing industry struggles to address the issue of rocketing rates of staff churn in their businesses, Slingshot CEO Simon Rutherford argues that today’s ‘conscious leaders’ should be more focussed on creating ‘staff wellness’ in order to deliver high performing teams and healthy profits.
A conscious leader believes the business has a greater responsibility towards the community it operates in. To ensure sustainable long-term profits, people must come first. Awareness, trust, authenticity, transparency, 100% responsibility, connection, compassion, and love: these are the tools of the conscious leader.
Suits: less popular than pest controllers
Advertising suits have a thankless job that is currently being eroded by the changing industry says Naren Sanghrajka in a piece that first appeared in Encore.Not in my wildest, craziest nightmares would I ever have thought I’d say this. But I’m going to. Being a bean counter is far more appealing than starting as a suit in advertising. There it is. I said it. I actually said those words.
Yes, it’s incredibly depressing. But it’s true.
UM boycotts News Limited autoplay video
UM CEO Mat Baxter says the agency will boycott the purchase of preroll advertising on autoplay video on News Limited websites, after the publisher yesterday announced it would introduce autoplay videos from next week.
The decision, by one of Australia’s biggest media agencies, is in line with its existing policy of boycotting preroll on Fairfax websites because of a perceived negative impact on the consumer experience.
This morning Baxter told Mumbrella: “Our policy remains that we are not a big fan of it, and that is the position that we’ve got. We won’t be buying any videos that have autoplay on it.”
“That stance remains in place regardless of the News Limited decision,” said the media buyer who books advertising on behalf a number government agencies, along with brands such as ING Direct, Kmart and McDonald’s Queensland.
It emerged yesterday that News Limited will move to an autoplay function on all its videos, beginning January 29.
“The launch follows a successful trial on adelaidenow, consultation with our commercial partners who want more high value video inventory and feedback from our consumers, who love video content but want to have more control over it,” a News Limited claimed.
“Our auto-play implementation gives consumers that control – they can stop the video, it won’t play if less than 25% of the video player is in view and they can switch autoplay off altogether across our network.”
Baxter commended the company for providing a simpler option for opting out compared to Fairfax.
“At least with News’s roll out they’ve done the courtesy to the consumer of allowing them to turn it off without a password and a login,” said Baxter.
“From a consumer experience point of view it is a big benefit compared with the kind of forced way it has been done on the Fairfax sites but, that said, we still won’t be buying autoplay videos.”
Nic Christensen
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Comments
24 Jan 13
12:00 pm
I like the stance. When will they stop buying autoplay videos on TV?
24 Jan 13
12:12 pm
curious. An intermediary talking tough when it’s not even their money being spent.
since when does a media buyer adopt a position of not buying media inventory that an advertising client might want?
no matter what an individual buyer and an advertiser might themselves think about the media format, UM is going to sit over the top and dictate that they can’t buy News Ltd
is this just posturing and puffery? throwing around weight that you actually don’t have?
24 Jan 13
12:14 pm
I’ve had the absolute light daylights scared out of me with mysterious video auto plays going on somewhere on some browser window…..not to mention the kids waking up when their “old man” fails to find the mute button in time! User feedback….PIGS ARSE! UM, stand strong, at least someone’s got their finger on the pulse!
24 Jan 13
12:17 pm
I-Effing-HATE AUTOPLAY
actually I hate video ads in general. At least give us the option to skip it like on youtube!!!! forcing me to watch the same ad over and over again while surfing news sites is almost as annoying as pop-up windows/ads.
24 Jan 13
12:29 pm
If we get all the rest of their stuff for free, why can’t they set the terms (in their own space) as to what goes with that?! I find the advertising response to that really baffling. I think it should only be an issue for paid subscribers (and I am one, to both our major newspapers) who should be allowed to click out – hey why didn’t 7, 9 and 10 allow us to do that all these years!!
24 Jan 13
12:52 pm
issue isn;t clearly visible videos – but if News have another content piece half way down the page does this start playing automatically (including a paid for advertisement) that nobody can see????
grab for cash!
24 Jan 13
1:33 pm
Who the f%&k is UM and why should we care???
Be nice to have headlines without accronyms so we know who you are talking about
24 Jan 13
1:35 pm
This is a very public position to take when News are a newly acquired UM client.
24 Jan 13
1:48 pm
Hi Confused,
UM is the correct name of the agency once known as Universal McCann. But yes, you do have to go all the way to the second paragraph before you discover they are “one of Australia’s largest media agencies”.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
24 Jan 13
2:19 pm
awkward but wholeheartedly agree
24 Jan 13
3:01 pm
Isn’t The Australian website already autoplay on video pre-rolls, and has been for ages??
24 Jan 13
3:55 pm
Good on UM for taking a stand. Good principles still matter.
24 Jan 13
4:23 pm
I’m going to say by the fairly blunt comment by Confused that he’s a new listener and first time caller.
Also, is it “high value video inventory” if people switch off?
24 Jan 13
5:14 pm
Amazing stand for an agency. Great leadership.
24 Jan 13
5:29 pm
The right call….until Mr Williams taps him on the shoulder!
24 Jan 13
6:02 pm
Fairfax’s autoplay is very annoying. Matt Baxter has made a sensible business decision.
24 Jan 13
10:23 pm
This bloke is making the right call. The smh.com.au auto play drives me nuts, particularly if I’ve been listening to music earlier in the day and have forgotten to turn the speakers down. Scares the sh*t out of me. Plus, sometimes the screen is still refreshing and I can’t get to the STOP icon before it begins. F*ckers. Why wilfully create bad vibes among your users? Seriously, what kind of jargon-spouting digi-kid salami would do that? And for what? A few thousand extra hits that the advertisers KNOW aren’t genuine. Not only that, now your customers have got the sh*ts – this is the emotion they associate with your product. I click to READ the words. I don’t care if I have to look at ads. If I want to watch the freaking video I’LL press PLAY, not you. Dig?
24 Jan 13
10:58 pm
I know who UM are.
@Norelle. i do not pay for any newspaper subscriptions. When there is a video that I might want to watch (generally patched onto to a rehashed piece of PR), I simply go and watch it on YouTube.
I can’t wait for The Guardian to arrive. They will publish their content properly, with the users experience firmly in mind.
24 Jan 13
11:55 pm
@NS – you obviously dont know how media is bought in Australia. Media agencies (like it or not) do have considerable power and weight, weilding buying power aggregated from their clients money.
The odd client may overrule UM’ media plans, as you point out, but most clients leave the media implementation planning and buying to the media agency – that is after all what they are paid for.
25 Jan 13
3:55 am
norelle – comparing autoplay on a website to television is apples and oranges. You click on an article to read the article, not to be blared at with an obnoxious ad. You turn on the television, you know what you are going to get.
25 Jan 13
8:14 am
To Mr Confused……This is primarily an industry website and 99.9% of people who use this site will know exactly who UM are.
25 Jan 13
12:43 pm
to the other confused chap, I hope you subscribe to The Guardian then
25 Jan 13
1:17 pm
@Confused – autoroll suck, i hate the experience on SMH, but if you’re signed in you can turn autoroll OFF no? don’t the Guardian lose 50million quid a year? experience the goodness while it lasts.
1 Feb 13
12:17 pm
@ Norelle. I try to limit my subscriptions to a minimum. I enjoy navigating around the web, visiting sites as I see fit, rather than receiving a million and one emails, or feeds etc
I have a few apps on the phone, which are news related and who knows, if The Guardian begins restricting use of it’s stories on sites like Farfax’s, then I might subscribe to them, we shall see.
It will be interesting to see how The Guardian goes over the next 3 years in terms of revenues. Opening up that business to the world, could be an extremely lucrative strategy.