The death of newspapers? 3

In Australia, we hear a lot about a crisis in journalism, caused by newspapers’ decline.

But perhaps thats because we get much of our international news from the United States where there appear to be genuine problems with the big newspaper groups whose revenue underpinned much of its quality news. These rather gloomy stories are spread by mainstream news  distribution systems which still inform many globalised discussions.

Reports of the death of Australian newspapers were premature, according to The Newspaper Works. The State of Australian Newspapers 2011, published by Newspaper Works, claimed that Australian newspaper revenue had bounced back by 6% in 2010 after a big decline caused by the Global Financial Crisis.

Them and us? Cool cultural studies and sweaty journalism! Reply

Journalists tell stories it for a living and are supposed to seek the truth. Cultural studies academics often see this as a sham and journalists’ pretentsions to professionalism, a joke. Baffled journalists say some cultural studies academics are just embroidering their own prejudices. More…

Journalism’s futures 1

A streetside newsagency in Beijing.

If there is a crisis in journalism, its centred in American newspaper groups whose economic models have been undermined by the net.

We know that most Americans are too ideologically blinkered to even consider taxpayer supported alternatives like the BBC or the ABC. If anyone doesn’t consider obvious answers for the future, it would seem to be some of our American colleagues.

We should learn from American media. But the action is increasingly elsewhere, as information and cultural dominance begins to shift from the US towards the new economic superpowers. While we should be concerned about journalists’ jobs in older media empires, this is the future we need to address.

I reckon we should be looking to Asia, where journalism is booming.
Sure some Americans have been doing interesting things on the net. But there are now more than 300 million Chinese net users, plugged into a vibrant blogosphere which often critiques and interacts with government policies.

In Australia, we see the ABC’s News 24 as an important initiative, and considered locally, it is. But when I was in Beijing last year, I took my student interns to the CCTV master control, which was simultaneously broadcasting 40 high definition channels. China has just launched a new, global English-language television channel,operated by the Xinhua News Network. To quote my old pal, Hong Kong University Professor, Ying Chan:

“At a time when western media is retreating … China could be flooding the world with its perspective, giving the country a boost of soft power” said Chan. “With a lot of funding and improvements in its reporting, this new expansion should not be written off.”

The Australian Centre for Independent Journalism did a study this year on the explosion of international television news services. When it comes to such news, most people in the west think of CNN,or perhaps the BBC or al Jazeera. We identified more than fifteen major services, including innovative new news channels from France, Russia and even Iran. We found more than fifty minor services operating in the Indian sub-continent alone.

Perhaps our focus on American concerns about journalism may be another post colonial hangover, reflecting the ways we still get our news and agendas from the traditional sources, which privilege American newspapers justifiably worried about their futures.

So why are Australians holding a national conference about the future of journalism which takes the lead from American experts?

The Walkley Media Conference: “What’s the story? Powerful narrative and other tales from the future”, runs from August 9-12 in Sydney.

Related Articles

• China launches global 24-hour English TV news (sfgate.com)
• Is China’s Xinhua the Future of Journalism? (newsweek.com:80)
• China funds English TV news channel CNC World in push for soft power (guardian.co.uk)

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Asia online Reply

Master control at CCTV in Beijing.

Global media is at a tipping point. The western news establishment is reeling as profits collapse and revenue moves to the internet. Only today, Canwest, Canada’s largest newspaper publisher, with twelve daily newspapers, sought bankruptcy protection for its entire newspaper division. Canwest is not the first big newspaper chain to go bust. It won’t be the last. The old international news order, which has been dominated by the west since the invention of the telegraph, is undergoing radical and widespread change, driven by the internet.
But what many people maybe don’t realise is that while there’s a crisis in the west, its boom time in Asian media.
Already, there may be almost three times as many internet users in Asia as in north America. As literacy grows and fast broadband spreads to even the most remote communities, the gap will grow even wider. Cheap new technology will mean that this new majority will not only be media consumers but also be increasingly sophisticated producers.
Which is why I’ve spent the last few days in Singapore.
I’ve been attending the Board meeting of AMIC, the Asian centred media research group, which has been investigating and charting these changes. Based in Singapore, AMIC is a truly international organisation with Board members from Malaysia, India, Japan, the Philippines and yours truly from Australia.
It was set up with German assistance more than thirty years ago to promote and educate socially responsible media in the interests of development and democracy. Today it runs websites, published scholarly books, organises training workshops and holds an annual conference which bring together academics, practitioners and activists from all over the Asia Pacific. This year, they will be discussing the new wave sweeping through “Technology and Culture: Communication Connectors and Dividers”.
AMIC might not have all the answers to what’s going on. But Asia is where the real questions will be asked.

Learning journalism in China Reply

Journalism educators need to think beyond the classroom to serve students facing internet driven cultural change. The first wave of change, online interactivity, is already breaking on once dominant newspaper groups. The second wave, Asia centred communications, has begun to challenge western dominance of international news and culture.

This year I took a group of QUT journalism students to China for a month, to work on its English language newspapers and publish online. Their project, which included research, internships, publication and reflection, aimed to create deeper and more nuanced learning than might be possible in conventional class groups.

You can access the report on this project by going to http://http://www.ejournalist.com.au/ejournalist_chinatrip.php. It includes examples of student work, photographs, opinions, links to published items and the Facebook page which held it all together.

Upfront and close with Chinese journalism Reply

Learning at Australian universities can be pretty boring. Most of the extra curricular activities I enjoyed have been shorn away as contemporary students struggle to make a living and pay their way. “Full Time” students now complain about going to lectures which can conflict with their jobs.

When I was a visiting Professor at Hong Kong University, they reckoned that only about a third of what students learned at university came from classes. Hong Kong University, unlike its Australian competitors, has a student social life enriched by active clubs and colleges. That’s how HKU students learn about team work, democracy, running budgets and social responsibility.

How can we make the learning experience not only more authentic, but more fun?

We can create special projects.

Six QUT journalism students (five pictured) are about to go to China for a month to explore Chinese journalism practices. They will be meeting Australian foreign correspondents, visiting China Daily, Global Times and CCTV. They will give seminars at Chinese Communications University.
The trip is being heavily subsidised by QUT as an Outward Mobility grant aimed at getting students to Asia.

The visit has been structured as part of their studies and will include research, work experience and reflective learning.

Combat vests and macho men (and women) Reply

Writing about foreign correspondents has got me into a fair bit of trouble at times. A couple of years ago, I was foolish enough to suggest that in the age of the internet, many of them were just blow ins, decked out in safari suits, delivering rehashed locals’ stories, as they were videoed in front of exotic locations.
Obviously, I was wrong.
Safari suits are rarely worn these days.
In fact the favoured attire more recently, was the combat photographer’s vest, which had lots of little pockets where one could stash passports, hangover cures, condoms and other paraphernalia required to explore the Orient.
I saw a lot of such gear when Hong Kong went back to China in 1997. I was there to write a book, Reporting Hong Kong, which considered how the foreign press covered the handover. I spent a fair amount of time, as you would, in the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents Club (FCC), where combat jacket attired visitors could be seen recording breathless voice to camera pieces in the main bar.

One bleary Sunday morning, I went in to the club for breakfast to find it filled with correspondents who were younger, better dressed and a good deal better looking than the regulars. A film crew was working under lights in a corner. Things seemed normal but somewhere, some how reality had slipped a cog. I felt I had entered a slightly altered but recognisable universe. In fact, the people at my table were actors, playing correspondents, making a movie about correspondents reporting on correspondents. It was called the Chinese Box; a reference to realities hidden within realities.

I had done field work myself at the club some years before, recording interviews with resident correspondents and writing much of my PhD thesis in the downstairs bar. I learned that hardly any of the regulars wore combat vests.
Except Hugh van Es.
He was entitled to.
You could impress your friends from Australia by bringing them into the Club. “Do you remember the photo of people being evacuated from a roof at the fall of Saigon in 1975?” If they were old or historically literate enough, they would remember this, one of the iconic images of the Vietnam war.
Then with a flourish, I could say,” See that bloke in the vest at the bar? That’s Hugh van Es. He took the photograph!”
I heard that Hugh van Es died this year at the age of 67. His wake was held at the FCC last week.
In a media world of made up macho men, van Es was the real thing.
Wherever he may be now, I hope he gets to share a beer with departed friends and colleagues whose photos and portraits grace the walls of the FCC.
Good bye Hugh.
Keep your camera with you.

Hong Kong stinks 3

“What’s wrong with the sky?” the child of one of my Hong Kong friends asked on a recent visit to the US. She replied that outside China, the sky is usually blue.
Hong Kong on a good day is still beautiful.
But most days here are not good days any more.
Ok I admit it, Hong Kong pollution has beaten me. As much as I love the place, I can’t ignore the toxic smog. Today is white grey, with the Kowloon mountains and most of the harbour hidden by fumes.
I shudder and reach for my inhaler.
I have spent more than two weeks in the last two months in a ward in a private hospital, hooked up to a slow drip. I came back from Malaysia with lungs darkened by the smoke from the forest fires across the straits in Indonesia, where criminal magnates are clearing land.
But Hong Kong’s lethal mix of power station stench, motor fumes and factory stink almost finished me off. A crisp youngish pulmonary specialist, gave me the once over with a stethoscope, and packed me off to hospital for a crash course in intravenous antibiotics. At first it wasn’t too bad. I was really there so they could monitor the drug impacts.
People fed me and washed my clothes. They let me out in the afternoon and evenings to walk around the Peak . In between, I could lounge in my own room watching CNN or using broadband. I asked one of the nurses whether this was what being married was like.
She said not.
After a week, even the novelty of having Nuns pray for me started to wear off.
They let me out for indifferent behaviour. But within a week the condition returned and I was re-admitted. This time it was not so much fun. The drug doses were increased, building up to a twelve hour infusion. My veins started to resist and began to swell and hurt. When I was on the point of passing out from drug overload, the doctor called off the infusions.
It took me about a week to get over from the second hospital term. I am not sure whether my long suffering travel insurance company will ever recover. The good Christian hospital where I lodged, wanted cash in advance and lots of it.
I won’t be back for a while. I’ve been offered good jobs here, some of which I have hankered after for a decade. But I won’t be taking them.
A Hong Kong think tank reported recently that if the Hong Kong government acted now, air pollution would improve by 2010. It’s not soon enough for me.
Next week, I leave for Australia, where the minds may be smaller, but at least the air is clean.

Pets 2

Monty Python once boasted of a “Happy Holiday Home for Pets Pie Company”.
Hong Kong had a “Don’t Forget Pets Crematorium Centre”. Or it did until this week, when it was closed after repeated complaints from angry residents who claimed it belched foul smelling smoke into their flats. According to the South China Morning Post, six government departments had tried, and previously failed to close the centre. Apparently the Environmental Office merely suggested the company install a better filter and a longer flue. This didn’t impress one local who said she didn’t like the idea of inhaling “bits of dogs and cats”. A letter writer to the paper subsequently claimed the crematorium owner had been “hounded” by such residents who shouldn’t have been in the building anyway.
It was also reported that Hong Kong’s only government run pet cremation centre ceased operations in 1999, after the building in which it was unfortunately located, the Kennedy Town Abattoir, closed.
Many Australians of course believe the stereotype, that Hong Kong people like to eat small furry animals, particularly dogs. Indeed, the then Australian Foreign Minister, Gareth Evans once caused a scandal here when he joked that one of Governor Patten’s dogs, which had gone missing, may have been lunched upon by the locals. This was regarded as poor taste. The dog, called Whiskey or Soda, I can’t remember which, turned up unscathed and died some years later of old age, in England.
It seems that contrary to western suspicions, many Hong Kong people dote on their furry friends. Up on the Peak, where the really rich folks live, it’s often the custom to have one’s Husky (yes Husky) take the Filipino maid for a walk at least once a day. Down at the mid levels, where the Hong Kong lawyers and small time merchant bankers congregate, there has been a proliferation of pet grooming centres, where one’s Pekinese can be shampooed, primped and primed, JonBenet Ramsay style.
It’s certainly true that in the working class areas, such as the aforementioned Kennedy Town, there aren’t too many doggies to be seen on the streets. But this doesn’t mean they have end up in one of the many fine nearby barbecue restuarants. It may simply reflect that low income earners just don’t have the money or more importantly, the room to have a four legged lodger.

Getting rat faced in Cambodia Reply

I confess that over the years I have got drunk in some strange and somewhat seedy places. When I was in Cambodia, journos like myself used to hang out at the Gecko bar in USSR Boulevard. It was easy enough to find, if only because of the two metre tall concrete Gecko standing outside the bar. It had red unblinking eyes, which were not unlike my own, after a serious session there. In those days, we used to get around town on cyclos; three wheeled pushbikes with a cane armchair attached to the front, so that the passenger could travel in comfort.
The Gecko was set up on the footpath, so the cyclos could push right up to the tables. You could sit in your cyclo armchairs; drink steadily in the steaming heat, until enough was too much. You could then give the driver US$1 and be cycled seamlessly and safely home.
Or mostly safely. I remember an incident one night when we were heading back to the Cathay, a local one star much favoured by Australian freelancers, SAS hit men and the occasional drug merchant. (Intrepid Japanese and American journalists stayed at the Cambodiana, Phnom Penh’s only five star which not only had a swimming pool but which also sold bacteria free bottled water!)
We were with the other cyclists streaming down the main street, passing our bottle of Quantro from cyclo to cyclo, and savouring the scent of the Frangipanis, when a fellow got popped in the street in front of us. He was lying with his shattered head in a spreading pool of blood with his nemesis standing over him, AK 47 in hand. A Japanese TV crew emerged from a restaurant, camera running, lights flicked on. Our pal with the AK 47 just turned his head towards them. They got the message. They genuflected and retreated back to their sumptuous dinner.
Our drivers wheeled about the blood pool and pedaled us home. The incident definitely took the gloss off the evening. Back home at the Cathay Hotel, I asked the night manager, “What does the Cathay do about security?” He was a young man who appeared to have been much scarred by shrapnel at an even more tender age. He was wearing shorts and watching American wrestling on satellite TV.
“Security?” the night manager said as he pulled a cut down AK from under his desk. On the screen a wrestler with golden curls howled as a fat man in a mask pretended to jump on his stomach. I thought of the Cambodian war veterans who would gently tap their stumps on the restaurant windows, as they held out their palms

I must not have looked reassured. The night manager reached down again and produced a rocket grenade. I thought about what a weapon like that would do in the confined space of the Cathay foyer.
It didn’t bear thinking about. Sometimes its better to stay drunk.