Report finds newspaper editors struggling with dwindling resources, quality of journalism in Australia deemed ‘average’ or ‘poor’
At one of the most turbulent times in the history of the newspaper industry, the Media Alliance has released a report that finds publishers struggling to maintain editorial quality as resources and staff dwindle.
Billed as the most detailed report of its kind ever carried out in Australia, the ‘Journalism at the Speed of Bytes’ is a survey of 100 editors, deputy editors and senior editorial staff from the major Australian metropolitan and national newspapers.
Sixty-two per cent of those asked said the most difficult challenge they face is coping with tighter resources, while 56% said it was proving difficult to keep staff motivated.
And this is impacting on the quality of journalism in Australia, the report found.
Case in point – can we see this typo:
Two-thirds of respondents described the quality of online journalism in Australia as “average” or “poor” while only 14% said it as “excellent”.
They mean, was excellent…
It is a shame. But so funny that they’re writing about bad journalism online and there’s a typo in their journalism online 🙂 I think whats happening is there arent the many many checks/proofs (or any) that you have with print because if you have to reprint, it costs, big time, but online, you take it off and put in a corrrection – so people get sloppy Writers also get excited getting their word out there super quickly, which leads to bloopers…
Pay peanuts and you get monkeys.
Way to invoke Muphry’s Law there, Nick.
They want more people. And they want more people with “digital” skills. Meanwhile, they ignore the plain fact (look at any data on readership and circulation) that people have been turning off for years.
As Clinton would say, it’s the quality, stupid.