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September 07, 2005

More on ownership

Columbia Journalism Review (http://www.cjr.org/) has a web page all about what the world's major media companies own at http://www.cjr.org/tools/owners/. This online guide to who owns what is regularly updated, and includes articles as well as factual information.
Posted by belinda at 11:57 AM | Comments (0)

Master the maze

If you are trying to make your way through the labyrinth of media ownership, try Ketupa (http://www.ketupa.net/). The site profiles major media groups in Australia, New Zealand, Asia, Europe and the Americas. You can find the history, a description of major holdings and a detailed chronology for around 320 media groups. There are also bibliographies to assist you with further research.

The groups profiled include broadcasters, newspaper and magazine publishers, recording companies, film/video producers and distributors, as well as academic/technical publishers. There are also profiles of the ten largest global advertising groups.

If you are interested, you can go directly to Australia's entry at http://www.ketupa.net/australia.htm. This page provides a map of the Australian media landscape, highlighting ownership, the regulatory regime, advocacy groups and major research bodies. You can also go directly to entries for media owners such as Rupert Murdoch.

Posted by belinda at 10:00 AM | Comments (0)

May 27, 2005

State of the News Media 2005

The Project for Excellence in Journalism (http://www.journalism.org/) issued their first State of the News Media report last year. Now the 2005 report is online. State of the News Media 2005 (http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2005/index.asp) has nine sections. The overview section will give you a quick summary of the findings. Two trends may be worth noting :

  • There are now several models of journalism, and the trajectory increasingly is toward those that are faster, looser, and cheaper. This is worrying since it claims the traditional journalistic verification of facts is giving way to "a new journalism of assertion, where information is offered with little time and little attempt to independently verify its veracity". Talk shows and cable TV have been the main drivers for this. Blogs also come in for a pasting in that they publish assertions and expect other bloggers to keep them honest by correcting any errors after the event.

  • To adapt, journalism may have to move in the direction of making its work more transparent and more expert, and of widening the scope of its searchlight. According to the report, news organisations "may have to document their reporting process more openly so that audiences can decide for themselves whether to trust it."
Posted by belinda at 03:44 PM | Comments (0)

October 22, 2004

Dismal anniversary

Twenty years ago, the term ‘spin doctor' made its public debut in the pages of the New York Times. Rodney Tiffen deplores the inexorable growth of spin doctoring in a piece on Australian Policy Online. (http://www.apo.org.au/webboard/results.chtml?filename_num=00920). He says while spin doctor is a term everybody uses, no one owns up to being one. Tiffen is also sceptical about the "howls of protests from journalists about the pernicious influence of spin doctors". If journalists did their job properly, he says, spin doctors would not be able to do theirs as well as they currently do.
Posted by belinda at 01:48 PM | Comments (0)

October 19, 2004

New view

They're much better served for alternative news voices in the US than we are in our tiny little country. With the launch of a new site, AltWeeklies, you can now find news and arts reporting from around 125 alternative newsweeklies in one spot. The site is at http://www.altweeklies.com/gyrobase/AltWeeklies/. From the site: 'Updated throughout the work week, AltWeeklies.com will help readers find the latest news about politics, crime, social issues, the environment, health, sex, food, film, music, art and books--all with a different perspective from what is generally found on wire-service and daily-newspaper Web sites.'
Posted by belinda at 02:51 PM | Comments (0)

October 07, 2004

Toeing the line

Peter Manning addressed the Brisbane Institute on 21 September on the topic Is Australia an intelligence and media colony? He asks: "Why is it that on several key issues, particularly since September 11, our Press appears to have given up the role of reporting fair down the middle, keeping a distance from Government spin and resisting with skepticism the overblown rhetoric of war? Is the Press afraid of being accused of being un-Australian, traitors, pinkos or extremists? I do not believe boatloads of asylum seekers threatened Australia, I do not believe the Palestinian narrative gets a fair go in our media and I did not believe we should have gone to war in Iraq. I am more concerned with a trend that seems to threaten our democracy. The trend towards a compliant Press." An edited version of his remarks can be found at http://www.brisinst.org.au/resources/manning_peter_media.html.
Posted by belinda at 11:59 AM | Comments (0)

September 10, 2004

Cultures of Journalism

Cultures of Journalism, a 13-part feature series, co-produced by Open Learning Australia and Griffith University in collaboration with the ABC, and broadcast on Radio National, runs from 28 August 2004 - 26 November 2004.

The series examines a number of questions:

  • How has journalism become a ubiquitous part of contemporary culture?
  • Is it still an important pillar of a functioning democracy?
  • Or is it coming to the end of its current phase, to be superseded by decentralised, digitally-driven, people-powered enterprises?

Find out how to tune in to future programs or read past transcripts at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/learning/lifelong/features/journalism/default.htm
Posted by belinda at 10:32 AM | Comments (0)

May 28, 2004

State of the News Media in the US, 2004

The inaugural State of the (US) News Media 2004 was released some months ago. Updates to the report now include survey results from working journalists. These help clarify the pressing issues facing the news media. Statistics gathered by the survey are in an interactive area where they can be customised by users into charts of their own choosing. In addition to the survey methodology, the new section offers Commentary on the Survey Findings By the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the view that the Press [is] Going Too Easy on Bush: Bottom-Line Pressures Now Hurting Coverage, Say Journalists By the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. All the detail is at www.stateofthenewsmedia.org/.
Posted by belinda at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)

March 26, 2004

Under the Mexican sun

Nice work if you can get it? Around 200 of Rupert Murdoch's senior staff, most from newspapers, have just finished up a five-day stint at the Ritz Carlton in Cancun, Mexico for a News Corporation get-together. Details of the week have been reported by the UK's Daily Telegraph at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2004%2F03%2F25%2Fnmed25.xml. Apparently the Aussies were responsible for the conference being "less abstemious" than previous ones - some stereotypes never die.
Posted by belinda at 03:20 PM | Comments (0)

March 16, 2004

State of the News

"Journalism is in the midst of an epochal transformation, as momentous probably as the invention of the telegraph or television", according to the recently released report, The State of the News Media 2004: An Annual Report on American Journalism. The report surveys newspapers, online news sites, network and cable TV, magazines, radio and the ethnic press in order to understand the changes. It identifies 8 major trends:
  • A growing number of news outlets are chasing relatively static or even shrinking audiences for news.
  • Much of the new investment in journalism today - much of the information revolution generally - is in disseminating the news, not in collecting it.
  • In many parts of the news media, we are increasingly getting the raw elements of news as the end product.
  • Journalistic standards now vary even inside a single news organization.
  • Without investing in building new audiences, the long-term outlook for many traditional news outlets seems problematic.
  • Convergence seems more inevitable and potentially less threatening to journalists than it may have seemed a few years ago.
  • The biggest question may not be technological but economic.
  • Those who would manipulate the press and public appear to be gaining leverage over the journalists who cover them.
Worrying stuff - see it all, including the methodology of the study at http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.org/index.asp, The Executive Summary is at http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.org/execsum.pdf.
Posted by belinda at 11:16 AM | Comments (0)

September 19, 2003

All join in

New Directions for News (http://www.ndn.org/) has just produced a new publication, based on research into "participatory journalism", which can cover everything from moblogging to Web page publishing to blogging. The report "We Media: How audiences are shaping the future of news and information" can be found, chapter by chapter in PDF at http://www.ndn.org/webdata/we_media/we_media.htm.
Posted by belinda at 12:54 PM | Comments (0)

September 01, 2003

Gizmo garb for journos?

Foreign correspondents and roving reporters may be keen to test drive the eVest, a jacket that can carry all the gear you need to stay in the electronic loop while on the job. The jacket functions as a 'Personal Area Network'. With up to 42 pockets, its 'channels' can connect mobile phones to Palm Pilots, digital cameras, or laptops and still leave plenty of space for your low tech keys and wallet. Have a look at the jacket - you can zip off the sleeves on hot days - at http://www.scottevest.com/v3_product_info/features.shtml.
Posted by belinda at 02:33 PM | Comments (0)

August 29, 2003

Murdoch in the witness box

The Atlantic has a long piece about Rupert Murdoch that starts with his appearance before a US Congressional inquiry into changes to the US broadcasting ownership laws but then moves on to examine his entire career in greater detail. The piece by James Fallows calls Murdoch a "globally recognized symbol of media power". The article (http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2003/09/fallows.htm) looks at Murdoch's career, at his long-lasting success in a business that has turfed out many other moguls and examines what his influence means for the media landscape as a whole. Fallows comments that Murdoch has a "long-standing determination not simply to broaden News Corp's portfolio—by diversifying, for instance, into new or unrelated businesses—but to extend his strategic control of the supply and distribution channels on which his existing businesses rely."
Posted by belinda at 03:28 PM | Comments (0)

August 27, 2003

Women in news

Newspapers need women in positions of power and influence if they are to reach out to women readers, according to the Women in Newspapers 2002 report from the US Media Management Center. The Center carries out research and education for media executives worldwide. The full text of the report is in PDF at http://www.mediamanagementcenter.org/center/web/publications/data/WIN2002.pdf.

However, according to the report, The Great Divide: Female Leadership In U.S. Newsrooms, not many women are making it up the ranks, for a range of reasons. See the full report, a joint study carried out by the American Press Institute and the Pew Center for Civic Journalism, at http://www.pewcenter.org/doingcj/research/r_apipewstudy.pdf.

Posted by belinda at 11:47 AM | Comments (0)

August 06, 2003

Long lost buddies

British journalists can now find former colleagues online, according to a story from PR Newswire http://www.prnewswire.com/ (registration required). The new site, MediaBuddies (http://www.mediabuddies.com/), is for journos to track down old colleagues to share war stories with. The site will officially launch in September but has already signed up 400+ members. You can search for people by industry, job function, and employer (past or present), and you can also specifiy full-time, part-time or freelance.
Posted by belinda at 03:56 PM | Comments (0)

June 25, 2003

Media diversity matters

Jock Given argues on Australian Policy Online that concentration of media ownership will damage diversity. He argues: "The domestic restrictions that are argued to have cramped the global ambitions of Australia’s restless mini-moguls don’t seem to have kept Rupert Murdoch at home, or Britain’s Daily Mail Group (which owns about a third of the country’s commercial radio stations) or Singapore's Singtel (which controls Optus) away." Read the full opinion piece at http://www.apo.org.au/webboard/items/00333.shtml
Posted by belinda at 02:26 PM | Comments (0)

April 04, 2003

Media on media

How is the media doing in reporting the Iraq war? Read the Media on Media blog at Online Journalism Review for some US media criticism and analysis. It's at http://www.ojr.org/ojr/media_on_media/blog.php. The controversy over Kevin Sites, the CNN cameraman who was instructed by his employers to stop writing his war blog, is also dealt with at OJR, at this URL http://www.ojr.org/ojr/workplace/1049381758.php. A good contribution to the question of whether blogging is journalism or not.
Posted by journoz at 11:47 AM | Comments (0)