Where did all of Australia’s technology journalists go? Hint: mostly into public relations
As some of the world's biggest tech stories break, Ben Grubb has a worrying feeling that there's no journalists left to cover them.
It’s often joked among the remaining technology journalists in Australia that the ratio of technology public relations (PR) professionals to journalists is wildly unbalanced, with PR professionals far outnumbering journalists.
“Public relations professionals?”, I hear some of you ask who aren’t in media circles. They’re the people who “spin” (they’d say “create”) stories about technology companies and “spam” (they’d say “pitch”) them to journalists (I’d know; I had a go at it). They’re paid to do this by those they represent.
Far from a joke though, it’s true that they do in fact outnumber reporters. The same can be said about the journalism sector more broadly versus PR.
And with journalism salaries not going far beyond $68,417 per year, a great number of specialist tech journalists have in recent times left the space for greener pastures, where they can in some cases earn six-figure salaries.
Many others are doing corporate writing or policy roles at various organisations, in tech or banking, or working at content writing production houses.
And, as some have pointed out to me on Twitter, their skills are being put to other uses as well, particularly in translating technical topics into something that internal staff can understand.
Furthermore, some have left for news sites run by companies that wouldn’t traditionally have been thought of as news publishers (think Telstra or the Australian Computer Society’s online “Information Age”, InnovationAus, backed by Espresso Communications’ Corrie McLeod, or comparison website Finder.com.au’s various sub-sites).
Journalists leaving for communications roles isn’t a unique or new thing. After rounds of redundancies began around 2010/11 in the Australian media landscape, hundreds, if not thousands, of generalist Aussie reporters have been going into communications-like roles too, either in government or the private sector.
I too left for these pastures for just over a year, only to return in September 2017. I originally left for more money, plain and simple.
One of today’s Pulitzer winners has already left the paper to run a brewery’s social media account. This is at least the 4th Pulitzer winner since 2015 who left for PR by the time they won. PR pays 2x more & has much more job security than journalismhttps://t.co/LUuEMQR6Et
— Mike Rosenberg (@ByRosenberg) 16 April 2018
Others leave because they have a family to support, or ambitions of owning a home, meaning a larger salary is required. Some just get bored of journalism or tired of “churning” articles, aka rewriting other peoples’ articles for clicks.
I returned to journalism for several reasons (I won’t bore you with them all). The main one being that I realised it was time to follow my passion again. And like an artist, unfortunately the passion doesn’t pay very well. Alas.
So as Australia’s national broadband network gets rolled out; Facebook suffers a privacy scandal; the federal government pushes forward with a plan to effectively unravel encryption; and various tech companies push crap up a hill at the Australian stock exchange, I thought it might be timely to take a look at who is left in the mainstream tech journalism space and who has recently left the space more broadly and why, in an effort to explain to those regularly asking me, ‘Where the hell have all the specialist tech reporters gone in Australia?’.
Keep in mind that when many people leave the mainstream mastheads they were previously at, they often don’t get replaced. At the smaller mastheads, they do, thankfully. But when a journalist does leave, they take with them years’ worth of Encyclopedic knowledge, thus meaning readers lose out.
They also lose out in another ways. As lawyer Leanne O’Donnell points out, there’s also been a decrease in journalists turning up to tech-related court cases.
I think court reporting is one of those areas (and not just in tech) that has far less coverage than 8 years ago. Unless celeb involved.
— Leanne O’Donnell (@MsLods) 18 April 2018
Another trend I am starting to notice is that tech is starting to become less specialised, with general reporters or those from other rounds starting to cover it more. This coincides with mainstream news sites either combining their tech sections with the rest of their site (the ABC), combining it with science and the environment (News.com.au), or removing it from a dedicated space on the homepage (SMH/The Age). Sometimes when generalist reporters tackle tech, errors and misunderstandings about technology can come about, which is not good for anyone. The same often occurs in science reporting.
If anything, it’s really the investigative capability of the mainstream technology press that has probably suffered the most. It’s very hard for a freelancer to spend months investigating something that might turn out to be nothing, as freelancer Anthony Caruana points out.
Agree. It’s basically impossible for a freelancer to spend months (or even days) on investigating something that might turn out to be nothing. Too few staffers, more money in PR.
— Anthony Caruana (@Anthony_Caruana) 18 April 2018
The list (which you can read in full here) is in no way comprehensive. It covers some of the tech journalists that have gone in and out of tech journalism since ~2010, not necessarily into “PR” roles. Some have gone on to do external or internal communications, or research-type roles. Others have had complete career changes.
Ben Grubb is a freelance technology writer. This post first appeared on his blog.
A big part of the problem as I have said before, is that independent tech magazines have been bled dry of revenue by PR. That is, PR is paid huge amounts of $ to push stories to us that we are expected to run for nothing.
What tickles me is that PR companies continue to deny this, but I am sure that the mountain of press releases I get are not done for a pittance or (gasp) for free.
So why don’t the vendors get wise to this, divert some of this revenue back to the publishers so journos CAN be paid to write proper stories about their products and services? Much better value for money.
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Do any Australian tech journos write sites like TechCrunch, Recode, The Information, CNET etc, and even sites that end up being tech focused like The Verge? Those sites have kind of replaced traditional news sites that cover tech…sort of.
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Because then who controls the narrative?
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It’s super simple. Tech companies need to support publishers and then us publishers can afford to pay more tech journalists. My sites WomenLoveTech.com and TheCarousel.com are small but they have a healthy following and we at least have a track record of paying for Aussie journalists. But we need more support as most publishers are bleeding. Plus we need more young Aussie journalists coming up through the system, not starting life writing press releases.
Spot on Robyn.
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Because readers have a low tolerance for sponsored content. There’s more choice online than ever before, resulting a decline in paid media and an incline in earned media avenues. It may not be fair, but that’s just how the system works! You shouldn’t be pinning the blame on the PRs – it’s the consumer creating this shift.
Journalists are finding good jobs in communications so I don’t really see what the point of contention is.
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Agree with both. Brands need to support the publications with ad spend so journos can survive to write their stories, but if a brand is paying for the coverage (as so many of these ‘native’ examples show), then they do indeed control the narrative. And it’s usually rubbish.
Ultimately, brands need to let go a little bit and trust the creators of an audience as to what makes *good* content. PR tends to understand this better than most parts of a brand’s marketing machine and are best place to take advantage, but only when they give up on the idea of ‘earned’ media (or at least evolve what that means).
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The point of contention is that we are expected to sort of “complete” the PR’s job by getting the info to the public. For nothing. If they get paid to get it to us, why cannot we also get paid to get it into the hands of where it is ultimately intended?
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Ben’s assertion that former scribes one can only do journalism or PR is how a child thinks. The list has no nuance and completely skips the idea that communication skills are transferrable outside of these very specific industries.
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I guess you could say that – but equally, PR’s are also making journalists jobs easier by sending them news they would otherwise have to proactively seek out. Journalists are under no obligation to cover a story pitched out by a PR – 9 out of 10 times they don’t. But somehow PR is still able to generate ROI for its clients. It may not be fair, but I think it’s better than the pay to play media landscape you’ve suggested.
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I don’t assert this.
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