Revolting Rhyme of Reason

“Quality journalism is when I tell you the truth as I believe it to be. Non-quality journalism is when I tell you what I think you want to hear.”- Martin Flanagan

We tend to use the term “Quality Journalism” in this subject quite a great deal. But what is it? Martin Flanagan wrote an excellent blog in the Age last month analysing this term.

I want to build on what Flanagan writes about when he speaks of framing articles based on a set of experiences, or claiming an authority whilst remaining the faceless voice. Where is the journalist in the story? It is often when we see the reporter in and amoung the story itself that we are brought face to face with some of the most profound journalism that there is.

So it isn’t about writing style, or graphics (as hilariously referenced by Charlie Brooker in the below post) but more about capturing the truth in a story, and conveying this truth in a way that can be understood by the masses: The people who were not there and are relying on one simple voice to let them know what happened.

We can now find that some of Flanagan’s points relate to this subject, as it is not the methodoligy of the of journalist (Flanagan writes that “Journalism is not a science”) but more the affect it has on the reader.

Are we framing what we write by what we think our audience will want to hear or are we telling it as it is? I think in the online world, as there is no mass audience to please or advertising agenda to push, we are more likely to tell the story as it is – without the bells and whistles and accurate spelling.

What are you thoughts? Please feel free to leave comments below for discussion.

I found this piece by Guardian columnist Charlie Brooker on “scrolling news.” In this clip he focuses in particular on the case of Madeline McCann and the extent to which the media bludgeoned it to death and over reported it to within an inch of it’s life. It’s quite a funny, dry look at the notion of “looking at stuff” rather than “reporting stuff” and I thought it should be shared with my fellow classmates.

Having worked for two non-newspaper affiliated online recruitment companies in my time, I know that these companies have absolutely no concern for the impact that their growth may be having on the ability of newspapers to output quality journalism. I’m not sure that it’s bad ethics; I just think the people running these companies don’t realise.

We also see these companies continue to grow and dominate the recruitment market. This is currently leaving newspapers with not much to generate the revenue needed to fund investigations for important stories such as the Melbourne gangland wars and could also leave them to resort to tabloid stories to sell papers.

I don’t have a problem working for these companies because I think they provide a service to people, however, I used to constantly feel like screaming whenever the CEO of a large European online recruitment company would speak about how good it will be to bury the London Times – is he really thinking about the consequences of drowning such an important media outlet and leaving Londoners with papers like The Sun to get their political information from, let alone social commentary? I highly doubt it. Recruitment companies are interested in the bottom line: Making money.

So, what would be a solution to this problem? With the funding for newspapers such as The Age draining away (with the recent sacking of 550 employees exemplifying this) and going into companies such as the one I work for, the only solution I can see is trying to make money from journalism. Difficult, I know. Even I’m partial to a bit of Britney news sometimes (and my partial I mean desperate for). A quick, but by no means thoroughly thought out (yet) idea that I thought of on my way to work this morning was trying to get these companies to invest in and/or create their own online only news sources.

There could be articles especially written for jobseekers on education and the current recruitment market. Universities could benefit from linking their current available roles to the bottom of relevant articles, as could Government.

Online blogs and discussion could be geared towards searching for jobs, types of jobs and again link to the appropriate ads.

The extra revenue generated from these organizations could be pinpointed towards creating quality online journalism.

So, dear readers, what are your thoughts?

A brief introduction to me (Sarah Adams):

I’m 25 years old and did my undergraduate degree at RMIT in Media Studies. After that my main desire was to travel, which I did for two years, and I’m now back in Melbourne to try and pursue something resembling a career.

The title of this blog is from back in March and I guess I’m trying to allude to the somewhat harsh reality of trying to be sensible, which I find rather difficult, and use alliteration at the same time (always makes for a catchier heading).

I’m doing my Master of Arts at Swinburne and majoring in Online Journalism.

My strengths are (hopefully) writing and radio. I have experience in video production and would like to work on that, but my main focus is really to hone my writing skills. I am also beginning to dabble in photography but we’ll see how I go with that. I did have a blog for quite some time but that became defunct when I went overseas (possibly because the most interesting things were happening then so I did not get around to actually writing about them).

What I really want to get out of this course is learn how to network within the industry, build up a portfolio of my own work and really just become generally more motivated which has been my main struggle so far. I also like the idea of becoming proficient in a variety of different mediums.

Very much looking to using my practical skills, along with others in this class, to create interesting and innovative work. Perhaps even something insightful as well.