Economic logic will protect Fairfax quality
When Fairfax Media announced the latest round of job cuts across its mastheads last week it was inevitable that howls of protest would go up about the threat to quality journalism in Australia.
Some of those making the most noise, of course, were Fairfax journalists. Last Thursday they voted to go on strike because, as Chris Warren from the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance — the journalists' union — explained, they felt that job cuts were a knee-jerk reaction by management to falling revenues.
But Warren added that Fairfax staff also felt a 'deep frustration at the failure of the company to clearly articulate the strategy it has to continue to produce quality newspapers, magazines and websites with significantly fewer staff'.
While journalists by and large do take their profession seriously — as they should — there is at least an element of self-interest in this. What better way to wrest concessions from your employer in redundancy negotiations than to cloak your case in public virtue?
And who better to define for the public where virtue lies than journalists?
Other alarms about the future of quality journalism have been expressed by readers of Fairfax publications. But these same people have been complaining about falling standards at newspapers such as The Sydney Morning Herald for at least as long as I can remember — and I started working there in 1983.
The cumulative effect of the drip, drip of Chinese water torture should not be taken for granted. But as someone who has accessed newspapers from around the world on a regular basis for years, I still regard our daily broadsheets as among the very best in terms of that old adage that a good metropolitan paper is a city talking to itself.
If our communal conversation has deteriorated over the years, why blame our newspapers?
None of that is to dismiss out of hand the concerns about this latest twist in Fairfax’s fortunes. But before we all get carried away by prophecies of doom and gloom a few realities should inform the discussion.
First, the days of individual proprietors with deep pockets funding newspapers as a hobby-horse are long gone. Aside from the ABC, all media organisations in Australia are commercial operations and that means they have to be able to survive commercially. Even Rupert Murdoch has to answer to his shareholders.
Second, and inexorably tied to the first, is the fact that newspaper circulation is falling and, more importantly, advertising revenue is in sharp decline as other, more effective, ways are being found to separate consumers from their money.
Third, technological advances have created new opportunities for economies of scale in newspaper production. Fairfax, for instance, has a swag of suburban newspapers each with its own individual subs desks: in an age when copy can be sent across town (or across the world) almost instantaneously, doesn't it make more sense to rationalise subbing and lay-out functions in a smaller, centralised and more work-intensive pool?
I believe that 'quality journalism' will still be a defining characteristic of Fairfax publications not only 12 months from now but 12 years — and several more redundancies — from now.
Why? Because the very same commercial imperatives that require periodic adjustments to market realities also demand that corporate managers do not trash the 'brand'. The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and the Financial Review are respected brands because they contain quality reporters and commentators. Get rid of them and you cut off your nose to spite your face. Or, in the vernacular of the trade, you lose your market edge.
But in the new commercial environment of free internet news, mobile phone downloads on demand, and 'interactive news' (or what is grandly called 'citizen journalism'), those of us who desire more quality coverage from learned and experienced journalists will have to get used to paying a realistic cover price for the production costs. (Suggest that to all those readers who complain about falling standards and you will learn what a howl of protest can truly mean!)
Part of this, and part of the harsh reality of the current commercial imperatives, means that there will be more scope for niche publications such as Eureka Street. Is that a bad thing?
But beyond this, Fairfax’s latest decision to cut jobs means that, more than ever, the standard in investigative and in-depth reporting — the test of the 'brand' — must be set by the one mass, non-commercial operator. This is the ABC.
And that, in turn, means that we as taxpayers must accept — indeed demand — adequate Federal funding for the ABC combined with guarantees of its editorial independence.
Chris McGillion is a former journalist, section editor and columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald. He now teaches journalism at Charles Sturt University, Bathurst.
Topic tags: Chris McGillion, Fairfax, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Financial Review, good journalism