WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.520 Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to this session, Digital Inc., The Future of Journalism. 2 00:00:08.260 --> 00:00:13.020 A little housekeeping, if you can make sure your mobile phones are off. 3 00:00:13.540 --> 00:00:17.940 My name is Sally Warhaft. I'm the editor of the monthly magazine. 4 00:00:18.040 --> 00:00:23.680 I'm a participating chair today, which means I might throw my two bobs worth in. 5 00:00:24.280 --> 00:00:28.300 And it's a great pleasure to be welcoming our guests. 6 00:00:28.300 --> 00:00:32.540 First, unfortunately, Chris Graham won't be joining us. 7 00:00:32.660 --> 00:00:42.340 He had a bit of an accident on the hockey field, so I'm replacing him in the participating role. 8 00:00:43.520 --> 00:00:52.460 But we do have three first-class participants to help us unravel some of the questions 9 00:00:52.460 --> 00:00:57.660 that are arising about the future of journalism here and overseas. 10 00:00:58.620 --> 00:01:03.880 Old dilemmas. Is journalism a public trust? Is it a business? 11 00:01:04.840 --> 00:01:11.960 New dilemmas. The internet. How we pay for journalism. How we protect quality journalism. 12 00:01:12.500 --> 00:01:23.780 Does the rise of the online world pose a terrible peril, or is it a great new thing? 13 00:01:24.540 --> 00:01:28.280 The format will be each of the speakers will talk for about a minute, 14 00:01:28.300 --> 00:01:36.360 about ten minutes. Then we'll have some discussion, and then I'll throw it open to you to ask some questions. 15 00:01:38.120 --> 00:01:41.700 Our first speaker will be Colleen Ryan. 16 00:01:42.660 --> 00:01:47.280 Colleen's a former Washington correspondent for the Australian Financial Review. 17 00:01:48.100 --> 00:01:52.000 She was the editor of the newspaper from 1998 to 2002. 18 00:01:53.500 --> 00:01:56.240 She's a Gold Walkley Award winner. 19 00:01:56.940 --> 00:01:58.280 And I'll be talking to her about the future of journalism. 20 00:01:58.300 --> 00:01:58.880 Colleen Ryan is the editor of the Australian Financial Review's other Walkleys, 21 00:01:59.700 --> 00:02:02.360 the assistant editor of Days magazine in London, 22 00:02:02.560 --> 00:02:06.000 the editor of the Australian Financial Review's Weekend Review, 23 00:02:06.320 --> 00:02:09.160 business editor of the National Times, 24 00:02:09.360 --> 00:02:12.040 and associate editor of the Sydney Morning Herald. 25 00:02:13.040 --> 00:02:18.580 She comes with great experience and an on-hand experience, an actual journalist. 26 00:02:19.540 --> 00:02:25.140 She's been the China correspondent for the Australian Financial Review since March 2004. 27 00:02:25.540 --> 00:02:27.960 And if you could welcome Colleen Ryan. 28 00:02:28.300 --> 00:02:28.760 Thank you. 29 00:02:33.280 --> 00:02:34.400 Thank you. 30 00:02:34.840 --> 00:02:35.900 Good afternoon. 31 00:02:36.480 --> 00:02:42.100 The three of us are going to take slightly different tacks on this question of the future of journalism. 32 00:02:42.520 --> 00:02:47.620 And I've decided to have a look at, being a financial journalist, the business model for the future. 33 00:02:48.620 --> 00:02:53.300 I think that any debate on the future of journalism could hardly find a better starting point 34 00:02:53.300 --> 00:02:56.880 than having a close look at what Rupert Murdoch's doing right now. 35 00:02:57.940 --> 00:03:03.940 Murdoch's strategy is close to my heart because an important part of his current plan involves the financial press, 36 00:03:04.160 --> 00:03:05.620 where I've spent most of my career. 37 00:03:06.360 --> 00:03:08.040 So what's Murdoch really doing? 38 00:03:08.240 --> 00:03:12.720 I think it can be summed up in three words, which is across all platforms. 39 00:03:14.020 --> 00:03:20.660 That seems to be the future for media barons, combined television, online, search engines, community sites. 40 00:03:22.120 --> 00:03:24.700 Just have a look at Murdoch's potential suite of assets. 41 00:03:24.960 --> 00:03:25.980 He's got Fox TV, 42 00:03:26.200 --> 00:03:26.860 he's got the New York Times, 43 00:03:26.880 --> 00:03:29.340 Dow Jones, a terrific newswire service, 44 00:03:30.120 --> 00:03:32.700 Factiva, one of the best online libraries there is. 45 00:03:33.800 --> 00:03:36.480 He's looking at Yahoo, he's got MySpace, 46 00:03:36.560 --> 00:03:40.860 and of course he's got the newspapers right across the spectrum from the Times, 47 00:03:41.740 --> 00:03:43.840 you'll soon have the Wall Street Journal I think, 48 00:03:44.100 --> 00:03:46.320 The Sun in London, the New York Post, 49 00:03:46.980 --> 00:03:50.220 The Australian, The Herald Sun and even the Adelaide Advertiser. 50 00:03:51.580 --> 00:03:55.380 So his ploy seems to be to cover all bases, 51 00:03:56.020 --> 00:03:57.280 spread his costs, 52 00:03:57.460 --> 00:04:01.640 and leverage off the journalistic assets and present them via a number of mediums. 53 00:04:02.460 --> 00:04:07.860 And I think he's looking at the concept that if your material is going to be cannibalised on the web, 54 00:04:07.980 --> 00:04:10.500 you may as well own the cannibalisers as well. 55 00:04:12.580 --> 00:04:16.000 And why is the Wall Street Journal so attractive to Murdoch right now? 56 00:04:16.720 --> 00:04:21.680 I think it's because it's managed to create a reasonably viable online subscription site, 57 00:04:21.840 --> 00:04:23.880 backed up by a top line news service, 58 00:04:23.880 --> 00:04:25.960 and one of the best online libraries. 59 00:04:26.660 --> 00:04:29.620 And then he'll bring to that mix all of News Corp's expertise 60 00:04:29.620 --> 00:04:33.680 to create a strong business television channel. 61 00:04:34.460 --> 00:04:38.340 But that's Murdoch, and he's a very unique proprietor. 62 00:04:38.460 --> 00:04:39.960 If he gets his mix right, 63 00:04:40.200 --> 00:04:44.740 News Corp I think will still be able to pay top salaries to attract good journalists. 64 00:04:45.660 --> 00:04:47.960 But then there's the rest of the journalistic world. 65 00:04:48.720 --> 00:04:53.340 And they have to look at what the new business model should be with online now, 66 00:04:53.340 --> 00:04:56.060 and the declining attractiveness of newspapers. 67 00:04:57.420 --> 00:05:00.740 The current web business model for most newspapers 68 00:05:00.740 --> 00:05:04.660 suggests that content is free, and that revenue is from advertisers. 69 00:05:05.480 --> 00:05:10.200 The content's considered free because it's largely on the print newspaper budget at the moment, 70 00:05:10.240 --> 00:05:13.940 but that won't last long as newspaper circulation continues to decline. 71 00:05:14.880 --> 00:05:18.620 And just look at the difference in advertising revenues at this point. 72 00:05:19.260 --> 00:05:21.220 In the US newspaper market, 73 00:05:21.220 --> 00:05:24.600 advertising averages $1,000 a subscriber, 74 00:05:25.500 --> 00:05:28.780 while the online equivalent averages $20 or less. 75 00:05:29.580 --> 00:05:31.480 And I know this is an old chestnut, 76 00:05:31.560 --> 00:05:36.520 but until someone really smart comes up with a way of bringing display advertising, 77 00:05:36.840 --> 00:05:38.920 which are your full page or quarter page ads, 78 00:05:39.120 --> 00:05:40.420 across to the web, 79 00:05:41.220 --> 00:05:44.320 the old business model for newspapers on the web just won't be viable. 80 00:05:45.580 --> 00:05:48.600 We have to face the fact that classifieds are almost gone. 81 00:05:49.260 --> 00:05:51.200 And that was the model of presenting a very, 82 00:05:51.220 --> 00:05:55.580 very attractive editorial product to lure readers in to look at the classified ads. 83 00:05:55.720 --> 00:05:56.700 And that's pretty much over. 84 00:05:57.380 --> 00:06:00.540 Domain.com and Seek.com 85 00:06:01.220 --> 00:06:04.100 are two good examples of how classified advertising clients 86 00:06:04.100 --> 00:06:08.280 can be gathered without providing any editorial content as a lure. 87 00:06:08.940 --> 00:06:12.180 So we can pretty much forget about classifieds as a revenue source 88 00:06:12.180 --> 00:06:15.220 under the traditional model to support strong independent journalism. 89 00:06:16.960 --> 00:06:21.060 It's now also clear that under the old business model for newspapers, 90 00:06:21.220 --> 00:06:25.500 classified ads made possible very large budgets in newsrooms 91 00:06:25.500 --> 00:06:28.400 without the discipline of a proper cover price. 92 00:06:28.680 --> 00:06:31.480 The cover price we pay today for newspapers 93 00:06:31.480 --> 00:06:33.680 barely covers the cost of the newsprint. 94 00:06:34.180 --> 00:06:36.860 We might have to see real cover prices, 95 00:06:36.980 --> 00:06:38.320 both in print and online. 96 00:06:38.620 --> 00:06:40.600 That'd mean more expensive newspapers 97 00:06:41.220 --> 00:06:42.980 and more expensive subscription sites. 98 00:06:43.920 --> 00:06:46.080 You may say this is all a bit too narrow. 99 00:06:46.220 --> 00:06:48.020 Why not get into the 21st century? 100 00:06:48.460 --> 00:06:50.580 Well, does the Google model work 101 00:06:50.580 --> 00:06:52.600 as a means of supporting quality journalism? 102 00:06:53.520 --> 00:06:55.180 Not at the moment, it doesn't. 103 00:06:55.700 --> 00:06:58.780 Google's long tail wraps up the traffic on the New York Times 104 00:06:58.780 --> 00:07:02.900 with that on blogs in Oklahoma at the same price per view. 105 00:07:03.240 --> 00:07:05.640 So that's no protection for quality journalism. 106 00:07:06.560 --> 00:07:09.000 So for business models, there seems to be two approaches. 107 00:07:09.440 --> 00:07:13.040 One is to rely on a variant of the old newspaper business model, 108 00:07:13.220 --> 00:07:16.780 go for circulation, now referred to as clicks or eyeballs, 109 00:07:17.160 --> 00:07:19.760 and use that circulation to attract advertising. 110 00:07:20.580 --> 00:07:23.380 The big hole in this model is that classified advertising 111 00:07:23.380 --> 00:07:25.140 has pretty much been lost, as we said, 112 00:07:25.280 --> 00:07:28.580 and display advertising is difficult to translate to the web. 113 00:07:28.880 --> 00:07:30.560 So what's the point of all those clicks 114 00:07:30.560 --> 00:07:32.440 if the advertising revenue is insufficient 115 00:07:32.440 --> 00:07:33.940 to pay for a quality product? 116 00:07:34.800 --> 00:07:38.320 For the moment, it seems that there's a build it and they will come approach, 117 00:07:38.620 --> 00:07:40.400 and I really hope that one works. 118 00:07:41.320 --> 00:07:44.920 The other approach is accept that the old business model is gone, 119 00:07:45.060 --> 00:07:48.460 a basically free quality product to lure advertisers 120 00:07:48.460 --> 00:07:49.820 that pay for the product, 121 00:07:49.820 --> 00:07:51.940 and provide a decent profit margin. 122 00:07:52.560 --> 00:07:54.140 So if that's gone, what do you do? 123 00:07:54.740 --> 00:07:57.260 Start charging a realistic price for the product. 124 00:07:58.060 --> 00:08:00.460 That also means that the product has to get better, 125 00:08:00.540 --> 00:08:02.160 which means better quality journalism. 126 00:08:03.100 --> 00:08:05.180 I think the web's shown up a lot of newspapers. 127 00:08:05.800 --> 00:08:08.740 Some publishers and editors who thought they had unique content 128 00:08:08.740 --> 00:08:09.880 have really been kidding themselves. 129 00:08:10.820 --> 00:08:14.300 The web's shown them up because if your newspaper is full of celebrity pics 130 00:08:14.300 --> 00:08:16.060 and public relations releases, 131 00:08:16.820 --> 00:08:19.120 it's hardly surprising that newspapers are dying. 132 00:08:19.820 --> 00:08:23.280 And the newspapers that try to mimic wire services like USA Today, 133 00:08:23.600 --> 00:08:25.020 they're equally out on a limb. 134 00:08:25.740 --> 00:08:27.300 It's too easy to get it elsewhere. 135 00:08:27.340 --> 00:08:30.500 Just call up the Drudge Report and dredge up Associated Press 136 00:08:30.500 --> 00:08:31.060 and you've got it. 137 00:08:31.960 --> 00:08:34.700 But on the other hand, I really don't think there's any evidence 138 00:08:34.700 --> 00:08:38.240 that people have lost the appetite for interesting information and opinion, 139 00:08:38.480 --> 00:08:40.380 and for relevant news reporting, 140 00:08:40.580 --> 00:08:43.660 and for insights of value and entertaining writing. 141 00:08:45.220 --> 00:08:48.520 I think that the digital world has actually expanded significantly 142 00:08:48.520 --> 00:08:50.180 the market for paid content. 143 00:08:50.300 --> 00:08:53.440 If you've got a truly excellent publication in Australia, 144 00:08:53.640 --> 00:08:56.000 it can now be instantly accessed around the globe. 145 00:08:56.600 --> 00:08:58.960 And we've seen this happening in the United Kingdom. 146 00:08:59.540 --> 00:09:03.040 The Times in London just a week or so ago published a story 147 00:09:03.040 --> 00:09:05.060 about the ex-girlfriends of Fred Thompson, 148 00:09:05.380 --> 00:09:08.760 the US Republican presidential hopeful. 149 00:09:09.860 --> 00:09:13.000 This one story generated 200,000 readers, 150 00:09:13.260 --> 00:09:15.660 and the vast majority of them were from the US. 151 00:09:16.400 --> 00:09:18.500 And The Guardian and The Independent 152 00:09:18.520 --> 00:09:21.020 websites have huge US readership. 153 00:09:21.020 --> 00:09:24.280 The Americans seem to be developing a taste for the Fleet Street product. 154 00:09:24.840 --> 00:09:27.480 And that should be great for attracting global advertising. 155 00:09:28.520 --> 00:09:31.200 But once again, there's the problem of presenting display advertising 156 00:09:31.200 --> 00:09:33.000 on the web better than it's done now. 157 00:09:33.560 --> 00:09:35.960 And for the moment, The Times and The Independent 158 00:09:35.960 --> 00:09:38.340 are giving away all that quality journalism for free. 159 00:09:39.740 --> 00:09:44.220 Some publishers, and the Financial Review is controversially amongst them, 160 00:09:44.380 --> 00:09:47.480 believe that subscription-based products are the way to go. 161 00:09:48.520 --> 00:09:50.460 You charge a realistic price for the product, 162 00:09:50.520 --> 00:09:51.860 which helps pay for the journalism, 163 00:09:52.400 --> 00:09:56.360 and you present advertisers with a really tightly targeted market 164 00:09:56.360 --> 00:09:57.520 of dedicated readers, 165 00:09:57.800 --> 00:09:59.920 people who are paying a lot for the product 166 00:10:00.520 --> 00:10:02.160 because they're going to spend the time reading it. 167 00:10:03.240 --> 00:10:06.640 I think there's plenty of room for good quality journalism fairly paid. 168 00:10:06.920 --> 00:10:10.540 And in fact, I think the web is making the quality issue more obvious. 169 00:10:11.360 --> 00:10:13.900 But once again, there's a screaming hole in this argument 170 00:10:13.900 --> 00:10:16.140 because how can you get readers to pay 171 00:10:16.140 --> 00:10:18.500 when they've experienced the web for free pretty much? 172 00:10:20.580 --> 00:10:23.400 It's possible, I think, that we will soon see 173 00:10:23.400 --> 00:10:25.500 some media companies taking this latter model. 174 00:10:25.880 --> 00:10:28.460 They'll abruptly switch to subscription models 175 00:10:28.460 --> 00:10:31.900 and renegotiate deals with aggregators like Factiva and Google. 176 00:10:32.480 --> 00:10:35.560 And that'll mean there'll be a fairly painful transition period. 177 00:10:35.940 --> 00:10:39.020 It'll be expensive for all media companies in terms of eyeballs. 178 00:10:39.440 --> 00:10:41.740 But if they don't do it, there won't be enough revenue 179 00:10:41.740 --> 00:10:43.600 to provide top-quality products. 180 00:10:44.200 --> 00:10:46.940 And all there'll be will be Murdoch, wire services, 181 00:10:47.100 --> 00:10:48.480 and blogs of varying quality. 182 00:10:48.500 --> 00:10:52.320 So to sum up, if quality journalism is to survive, 183 00:10:52.680 --> 00:10:56.100 it will only do so under a subscription-based business model 184 00:10:56.100 --> 00:10:58.520 unless, and this is a key caveat, 185 00:10:59.180 --> 00:11:02.480 a way is found to make display advertising work on the web. 186 00:11:02.920 --> 00:11:05.440 Or unless you're like Murdoch, 187 00:11:05.600 --> 00:11:08.880 a media company that can harness all revenue-earning media, 188 00:11:09.060 --> 00:11:11.180 TV, newspaper sites, wire services, 189 00:11:11.560 --> 00:11:13.520 online libraries and search engines, 190 00:11:13.740 --> 00:11:15.320 put it all under the one banner 191 00:11:15.320 --> 00:11:16.980 and leverage off high-quality content. 192 00:11:17.400 --> 00:11:18.380 Thanks very much. 193 00:11:20.080 --> 00:11:20.760 APPLAUSE 194 00:11:21.500 --> 00:11:24.820 Our next guest is Francis Ween. 195 00:11:25.440 --> 00:11:29.480 Francis is an English journalist, author and broadcaster. 196 00:11:29.640 --> 00:11:31.880 He was named columnist of the year 197 00:11:32.500 --> 00:11:34.840 at the What the Papers Say Awards 198 00:11:35.620 --> 00:11:38.480 for his Ween's World page in The Guardian. 199 00:11:39.600 --> 00:11:44.020 He has written a critically acclaimed biography of Karl Marx 200 00:11:45.120 --> 00:11:47.900 and I'm sure many of you here have read 201 00:11:47.900 --> 00:11:50.440 how Mumbo Jumbo conquered the world. 202 00:11:50.880 --> 00:11:55.740 He's also deputy editor of the British satirical magazine Private Eye 203 00:11:55.740 --> 00:12:01.000 and is a regular panellist on the BBC radio program The News Quiz. 204 00:12:01.420 --> 00:12:05.460 His TV drama about Harold Wilson's final government, 205 00:12:05.680 --> 00:12:06.460 The Lavender List, 206 00:12:06.720 --> 00:12:09.680 was broadcast by the BBC last year. 207 00:12:09.880 --> 00:12:13.280 So this is a man of many talents 208 00:12:13.280 --> 00:12:16.080 and it's a great pleasure to introduce Francis Ween. 209 00:12:18.180 --> 00:12:18.580 APPLAUSE 210 00:12:23.560 --> 00:12:25.560 Well, thank you very much for that. 211 00:12:27.300 --> 00:12:28.780 When Sally arrived just now, 212 00:12:28.820 --> 00:12:31.500 she gave me a copy of last month's issue of The Monthly. 213 00:12:31.500 --> 00:12:33.100 I haven't had a chance to read it properly yet, 214 00:12:33.240 --> 00:12:35.880 but I know of one piece in it 215 00:12:35.880 --> 00:12:38.620 because it's written by a mate of mine called Eric Beecher, 216 00:12:38.680 --> 00:12:39.980 whom some of you may have come across, 217 00:12:40.140 --> 00:12:41.740 former editor of the Sydney Morning Herald. 218 00:12:42.160 --> 00:12:43.440 And about three years ago, 219 00:12:43.520 --> 00:12:45.980 I was trying to set up a new national daily newspaper, 220 00:12:45.980 --> 00:12:46.700 in London, 221 00:12:47.180 --> 00:12:49.820 which was a fairly mad venture probably 222 00:12:49.820 --> 00:12:53.360 because I think Britain has more national papers 223 00:12:53.360 --> 00:12:55.780 per head of population than anywhere else on the planet. 224 00:12:56.400 --> 00:12:58.120 But I thought there was room for one more, 225 00:12:58.200 --> 00:12:59.580 a sort of upmarket daily, 226 00:12:59.720 --> 00:13:01.160 a bit like Le Monde in Paris. 227 00:13:01.500 --> 00:13:04.460 And Eric Beecher from Australia got very excited by this 228 00:13:04.460 --> 00:13:06.560 and came over, wanted to invest in it 229 00:13:06.560 --> 00:13:09.020 and in fact appointed himself publisher after a bit. 230 00:13:10.040 --> 00:13:11.560 But we didn't quite raise the money. 231 00:13:11.640 --> 00:13:13.260 I think we needed 18 million quid 232 00:13:13.260 --> 00:13:15.200 and we raised about 12 million pounds, 233 00:13:15.200 --> 00:13:16.580 but then came to a grinding halt. 234 00:13:16.760 --> 00:13:17.620 And I said to Eric, 235 00:13:17.760 --> 00:13:20.060 well, there we are, we'll have to abandon it. 236 00:13:20.140 --> 00:13:22.200 And he said, no, no, no, come to Australia. 237 00:13:22.360 --> 00:13:23.180 I'll show you how it's done. 238 00:13:23.280 --> 00:13:25.160 I run this thing called crikey.com 239 00:13:25.160 --> 00:13:26.680 and this is the way forward. 240 00:13:26.800 --> 00:13:27.480 Go online. 241 00:13:27.720 --> 00:13:30.240 Let's launch it as an online subscription daily newspaper. 242 00:13:30.960 --> 00:13:34.280 And I said I didn't really think British readers were ready for this, 243 00:13:34.440 --> 00:13:35.960 ready to actually pay good money 244 00:13:36.340 --> 00:13:38.840 for a newspaper delivered to their inboxes every day. 245 00:13:39.280 --> 00:13:40.600 And so the thing wilted. 246 00:13:40.640 --> 00:13:41.460 And to my astonishment, 247 00:13:41.560 --> 00:13:44.060 just before I arrived in Australia yesterday, 248 00:13:44.060 --> 00:13:47.000 I read online that Eric has written a piece in the monthly, 249 00:13:47.060 --> 00:13:48.400 which I've now got and shall read properly, 250 00:13:49.280 --> 00:13:50.960 arguing that the internet isn't, 251 00:13:50.960 --> 00:13:52.240 and in my view can't be, 252 00:13:52.320 --> 00:13:53.880 the saviour of quality journalism. 253 00:13:54.380 --> 00:13:57.220 So I don't know if he was scarred by this hideous experience with me 254 00:13:57.220 --> 00:13:58.440 and this is what's changed his mind, 255 00:13:58.560 --> 00:14:00.920 but he was certainly very enthusiastic 18 months ago. 256 00:14:02.140 --> 00:14:04.420 And the reason I saw this reference to Eric's piece 257 00:14:04.420 --> 00:14:06.900 was that the bloggers were all agitated about it. 258 00:14:06.960 --> 00:14:08.800 Australian bloggers seemed to be very cross about it. 259 00:14:08.840 --> 00:14:09.280 One of them wrote, 260 00:14:09.380 --> 00:14:12.420 on a broad scale, his message, Eric Beecher's message, 261 00:14:12.520 --> 00:14:14.040 seems to be that it's all too much 262 00:14:14.060 --> 00:14:14.820 and too hard to figure out, 263 00:14:14.840 --> 00:14:17.260 so we should just get misty about the good old days. 264 00:14:18.980 --> 00:14:21.380 Now, I'm very happy to get misty about the good old days, 265 00:14:21.480 --> 00:14:22.640 especially after a drink or two, 266 00:14:22.760 --> 00:14:25.080 but I think today we have to look forward 267 00:14:25.080 --> 00:14:26.160 because this session is called 268 00:14:26.160 --> 00:14:28.900 Digital Inc. The Future of Journalism. 269 00:14:29.280 --> 00:14:30.580 And I think there are two questions 270 00:14:30.580 --> 00:14:32.320 we need to disentangle from each other here. 271 00:14:33.900 --> 00:14:36.240 One is, do newspapers have a future? 272 00:14:36.440 --> 00:14:38.580 The other is, does journalism have a future? 273 00:14:39.180 --> 00:14:41.040 And I think people like Eric Beecher and me 274 00:14:41.040 --> 00:14:43.120 often elide these because we think 275 00:14:43.120 --> 00:14:45.020 that journalism is synonymous with newspapers, 276 00:14:45.760 --> 00:14:47.420 but that's just us showing our age. 277 00:14:47.540 --> 00:14:48.900 We can't imagine getting through a day 278 00:14:48.900 --> 00:14:50.740 without buying and reading loads of newspapers. 279 00:14:51.840 --> 00:14:54.840 But it's perfectly obvious that there's a generation of people now 280 00:14:54.840 --> 00:14:57.580 who find it quite possible to get through the day without that. 281 00:14:58.000 --> 00:15:00.860 I see it on, if I go to London from Essex, where I live, 282 00:15:00.880 --> 00:15:03.980 on the train, the people reading newspapers in my carriage 283 00:15:03.980 --> 00:15:05.840 are usually people of my sort of age. 284 00:15:06.020 --> 00:15:08.460 People in their 20s are all busy with their iPods, 285 00:15:08.460 --> 00:15:10.820 their laptops, their Blackberries, and all the rest of it. 286 00:15:11.060 --> 00:15:12.560 By and large, they're getting their news 287 00:15:13.120 --> 00:15:15.460 from satellite TV and above all from the internet. 288 00:15:16.080 --> 00:15:18.100 They've never acquired the newspaper habit, 289 00:15:18.240 --> 00:15:20.600 and it seems unlikely they're going to start acquiring it now 290 00:15:20.600 --> 00:15:21.600 or in the near future. 291 00:15:22.000 --> 00:15:24.700 So do newspapers have a long-term future? 292 00:15:24.860 --> 00:15:26.400 I suspect probably not. 293 00:15:27.340 --> 00:15:30.200 And like Eric, I probably get rather misty-eyed about this, 294 00:15:30.300 --> 00:15:33.060 but I always try not to be too sentimental 295 00:15:33.060 --> 00:15:35.440 because after all, it is just a delivery system, 296 00:15:35.540 --> 00:15:38.780 and what matters is not the medium so much as the message. 297 00:15:39.260 --> 00:15:41.420 So which brings us to the crucial question, 298 00:15:41.680 --> 00:15:43.060 does journalism have a future? 299 00:15:43.920 --> 00:15:46.080 And I think the important thing to point out is 300 00:15:46.080 --> 00:15:48.700 this is something that has been troubling some of us 301 00:15:48.700 --> 00:15:51.340 since well before we all went digital. 302 00:15:51.540 --> 00:15:53.920 It's not purely to do with the rise of the internet, 303 00:15:54.080 --> 00:15:57.820 though that may have intensified the question 304 00:15:57.820 --> 00:15:58.900 and some of the problems. 305 00:15:59.820 --> 00:16:02.040 The question of the decline of news gathering, 306 00:16:02.220 --> 00:16:03.340 I think, predates that. 307 00:16:04.280 --> 00:16:06.980 Occasionally I try and console myself by thinking that in Britain, 308 00:16:07.060 --> 00:16:10.460 for example, the most successful papers of the last 20 years, 309 00:16:10.540 --> 00:16:12.540 I should think, have probably been the Daily Mail, 310 00:16:12.540 --> 00:16:15.020 on the right, and The Guardian, on the liberal left, 311 00:16:15.180 --> 00:16:18.200 both of which, for all their wild political differences, 312 00:16:18.480 --> 00:16:21.780 have invested and committed themselves to reporting. 313 00:16:22.140 --> 00:16:24.660 They are properly staffed and they are properly willing 314 00:16:24.660 --> 00:16:25.720 to finance reporting. 315 00:16:26.500 --> 00:16:28.620 And they've both done extremely well. 316 00:16:28.760 --> 00:16:31.440 And even Private Eye, the magazine where I work, 317 00:16:31.540 --> 00:16:33.320 to blow its trumpet for a moment, 318 00:16:35.540 --> 00:16:38.420 we, part of the magazine is jokes and satire, 319 00:16:38.500 --> 00:16:40.780 most of the magazine is investigative reporting 320 00:16:40.780 --> 00:16:41.780 of one kind or another. 321 00:16:41.780 --> 00:16:44.300 And our circulation is as high as it's ever been. 322 00:16:44.360 --> 00:16:46.400 We sell 200,000 copies of every issue. 323 00:16:46.740 --> 00:16:50.660 And all our research suggests that although there are people 324 00:16:50.660 --> 00:16:52.800 who buy it just for the cartoons or the jokes, 325 00:16:52.940 --> 00:16:56.380 most people actually do buy it for the investigative journalism 326 00:16:56.380 --> 00:16:59.460 and to read stories that they won't read elsewhere, 327 00:17:01.820 --> 00:17:04.780 which is all very gratifying and makes me think that perhaps 328 00:17:05.380 --> 00:17:09.200 there is still, there are still people who want reporting. 329 00:17:09.580 --> 00:17:11.760 And as was suggested, I mean, things like The Guardian, 330 00:17:11.780 --> 00:17:14.460 The Guardian website in England have a vast number of readers 331 00:17:14.460 --> 00:17:16.140 from the United States particularly. 332 00:17:16.520 --> 00:17:19.420 So there clearly is an appetite among some people for this sort of thing. 333 00:17:19.920 --> 00:17:24.040 But even so, I do think The Guardian, The Mail and Private Eye 334 00:17:24.040 --> 00:17:25.960 are probably swimming against the tide, 335 00:17:26.080 --> 00:17:28.260 and not just because newsprint is doomed, 336 00:17:28.420 --> 00:17:32.280 but also because most media groups or many media groups 337 00:17:32.280 --> 00:17:36.700 over the last 20 years have realized that news gathering is expensive. 338 00:17:37.260 --> 00:17:40.860 And not just expensive, but it doesn't repay the investment. 339 00:17:40.860 --> 00:17:42.040 It's not cost effective. 340 00:17:43.120 --> 00:17:47.920 In the glory days of, for example, The Sunday Times in London in the 60s and 70s, 341 00:17:47.920 --> 00:17:51.440 it made its reputation with a thing called the Insight Team, 342 00:17:51.520 --> 00:17:55.460 a team of investigative reporters led by an Australian, Bruce Page, 343 00:17:55.640 --> 00:17:58.760 who came over, actually a posse of Australians came over to London 344 00:17:58.760 --> 00:18:00.320 and pretty well took over The Sunday Times 345 00:18:00.860 --> 00:18:06.000 and ran a series of wonderful exposés, which they committed years to. 346 00:18:06.140 --> 00:18:09.500 I mean, the Thalidomide investigation, they spent about 10 years, 347 00:18:09.540 --> 00:18:10.840 a team of reporters, just waiting. 348 00:18:10.860 --> 00:18:11.600 And they're working on this story. 349 00:18:11.780 --> 00:18:14.320 The scale of the investment in that is mind-boggling 350 00:18:14.320 --> 00:18:16.620 and, I'm sorry to say, unimaginable today. 351 00:18:16.860 --> 00:18:20.140 I mean, I think almost the last gasp of that sort of journalism at The Sunday Times 352 00:18:20.140 --> 00:18:23.760 was about 25 years ago when yet another Australian, Philip Knightley, 353 00:18:24.720 --> 00:18:28.420 did a story about how one of the richest people in Britain, Lord Vestey, 354 00:18:28.520 --> 00:18:31.660 hadn't paid any tax, and indeed his family hadn't been paying any tax 355 00:18:31.660 --> 00:18:35.240 for millions of years, even though they're very rich meatpackers 356 00:18:35.240 --> 00:18:36.760 and owners of chains of butcher shops. 357 00:18:37.280 --> 00:18:40.440 Phil Knightley spent six months working just on this story. 358 00:18:40.860 --> 00:18:43.880 And it was on the front page, questions were asked in Parliament, 359 00:18:44.040 --> 00:18:47.920 it won awards, in all those senses it was a very successful piece of journalism, 360 00:18:48.120 --> 00:18:51.220 except, of course, it didn't sell a single extra copy of the paper. 361 00:18:51.900 --> 00:18:55.640 Whereas shortly afterwards, The Sunday Times put on loads of copies one Sunday 362 00:18:55.640 --> 00:18:57.560 when it splashed on the Hitler diaries, 363 00:18:58.120 --> 00:19:01.520 without bothering to ascertain whether they were genuine or not before it went into print. 364 00:19:01.720 --> 00:19:05.460 And, of course, they were immediately exposed as a fake, a rather crude fake at that. 365 00:19:05.700 --> 00:19:09.220 But the striking thing about it, as I think is now quite well known, 366 00:19:09.300 --> 00:19:10.500 was the reaction of the owner. 367 00:19:10.860 --> 00:19:16.480 Someone called Rupert Murdoch, who was not at all embarrassed or downcast 368 00:19:16.480 --> 00:19:19.300 by this astonishing dereliction of journalistic duty, 369 00:19:19.840 --> 00:19:22.780 because the paper had put on copies and made money out of it. 370 00:19:22.860 --> 00:19:26.600 And, as he famously said, after all, we are in the entertainment business. 371 00:19:27.660 --> 00:19:30.780 And the horrible thing is that I think he may be right, 372 00:19:31.660 --> 00:19:35.280 not least because of his own efforts, actually, over the years. 373 00:19:36.100 --> 00:19:39.580 News gathering, or rather journalism, I think probably is increasingly part 374 00:19:39.580 --> 00:19:40.700 of the entertainment business. 375 00:19:40.700 --> 00:19:45.640 And the getting and giving of information, of a more traditional sort of reporting, 376 00:19:45.880 --> 00:19:49.080 now seems to be a fairly minor function of some newspapers, 377 00:19:49.300 --> 00:19:51.560 as they become lifestyle packages, 378 00:19:51.720 --> 00:19:54.340 which is what's happened with Mr. Murdoch's Sunday Times in London. 379 00:19:54.560 --> 00:19:58.940 Just section after section of showbiz, PR puffs, 380 00:19:58.940 --> 00:20:02.340 columnists who witter on about their love lives or their shopping habits, 381 00:20:02.600 --> 00:20:04.560 all fine and dandy, if you like, that sort of thing, 382 00:20:04.660 --> 00:20:08.520 but not the be-all and end-all of journalism, 383 00:20:08.740 --> 00:20:10.680 as I like to call it. 384 00:20:10.700 --> 00:20:15.160 And there's long been an argument in Fleet Street pubs, 385 00:20:15.160 --> 00:20:16.860 a rather pointless and inconclusive one, 386 00:20:16.900 --> 00:20:19.920 about whether journalism is a profession or a trade. 387 00:20:20.780 --> 00:20:24.700 But actually, in normal speech, the opposite of professional isn't tradesperson, 388 00:20:24.840 --> 00:20:25.520 it's amateur. 389 00:20:26.040 --> 00:20:28.320 And I think this is more in line with what's happening today, 390 00:20:28.600 --> 00:20:31.420 in a sense, the idea that anyone can do journalism. 391 00:20:31.620 --> 00:20:33.920 A friend of mine about 20 years ago wrote a piece 392 00:20:35.060 --> 00:20:38.160 noticing the proliferation of columns in the British press, 393 00:20:38.320 --> 00:20:40.540 how every week there are a dozen new columnists starting, 394 00:20:40.540 --> 00:20:44.020 and said, in due course, everyone in the country will have their own column. 395 00:20:44.340 --> 00:20:46.360 And it's come to pass. It's called the blogosphere. 396 00:20:47.020 --> 00:20:50.200 So it has indeed happened, and it's not just with comment, 397 00:20:50.280 --> 00:20:51.920 although there is acres of comment on the internet, 398 00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:54.140 some of it good, some of it rather negligible. 399 00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:56.840 It's also, supposedly, information. 400 00:20:57.660 --> 00:21:00.900 The current owner of the Daily Express newspaper in London, 401 00:21:01.020 --> 00:21:04.080