This week there’s been even more than the usual sparrow-chirp of baseline chatter about the future of print media in Australia – and for good reasons.
On the North Coast of NSW two daily mastheads, The Tweed Daily News and The Coffs Coast Advocate, had their print-runs pulled by their owner, APNARM, until recently my employer.
While country papers are paid scant attention by our big-city cousins, except in the case of tragedy, even the big boys noticed. A glimpse of the future in the city?
Maybe.
The News and the Advocate won’t be the last regional newspapers to fold.
They both suffered from not changing while new competitors better understood the new readership and advertiser-market.
But the same charge can be levelled at just about every daily newspaper in Australia.
They haven’t changed; or the haven’t changed enough with the times – the times they are achanging, even if the Times has not, although the London paper has changed from broadsheet to tabloid and the Crimes is reportedly considering the same move so perhaps that isn’t a very good joke.
The Tweed Echo and the Byron Echo, all independent weeklies written by locals about locals for locals, made a huge dent into The News’ readership and advertising clients.
The Gold Coast Bully has been pushing further south at the same time, with a bigger circulation and marketing budget backed by News Ltd.
Follow that by strong, new local online publications and the country newspaper environment of monopoly that was the norm throughout the 20th century is not so much dead as fossilised – but the attitude of newspaper-owners, managers and many editors has not really changed.
In regional papers car accidents still go on the front page as a matter of course, relegating news about actual events, despite there being very little to evidence that it actually helps casual sales.
Stories are still manufactured to suit a point of view, rather letting the subject unfold as it naturally might, for a perceived readership that is no longer there.
Campaign journalism is still trumpeted as if people are lining up to be told what to think by their daily newspaper.
And yet while the readers have spoken with their $1.50 and stopped buying their daily rag in droves, still antiquated attitudes to publishing news remain.
Cheaper, simpler, dumber is better. If it can’t be said in 200 words it shouldn’t be said at all.
The Tweed Echo is edited by a friend of mine, Luis Feliu, who was the senior reporter for the first year of my editorship at The Northern Rivers Echo, in the final days of its (I’m finally getting used to not saying ‘our’) independence. His gracious analysis of The News’ folding is here: http://www.tweedecho.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3119&Itemid=543
He treats his readers with intelligence. He gives them the facts and lets them decide. He writes detailed, intelligent editorials and has a team of excellent reporters and a strong, experienced independent publisher.
They don’t dumb things down. They go to local events. They know their readership.
I’m not as familiar with the situation in Coffs but I do know a little about their online publication, Coffs Outlook, http://coffsoutlook.com/?page_id=2 as I spoke with its founder, disgruntled journalist Hugh Saddleton. Hugh began the website because, as he puts it:
“It is quite clear that there is a dearth of investigative reporting. Many things are left unsaid for fear of losing the advertising dollar, resulting in a gently sanitised series of publications.”
He thought there might be some equally local-knowledge thirsty locals and he was right.
The Byron Echo recently launched a new daily website and it looks like one of the best news websites around.
Modern, diverse and topical, it’s managed to hang on to the Byron Echo ethos and feel while adding video grabs from locals and reporters on everything from politics to humour to the surf. And, from a taste of their recent copy, it’s expanding.
When the Byron and Northern Rivers Echoes were truly sister papers, with two separate but independent owners’ groups, we had a gentle-person’s agreement about territory. We didn’t fuck with theirs and they didn’t give a fuck about ours. In case that was ever in doubt there were loose boundaries based on council borders, us Lismore and Richmond Valley, them Byron and Ballina a kind of grey area. They always wanted Rosebank but were nice enough to not intrude.
Now, it’s a different Frisbee game entirely.
Experienced reporter Chris Dobney, Echonet Daily’s editor, has a wider remit and has filed pieces on Lismore events and went to Lismore City Council’s November meeting. Definitely a former no-go zone but absolutely within the new publication’s right and a smart move. Seems like they have a smart strategy of toe by toe to expand their footprint – and that’s what a good innovative publisher does. Gets more readers by using their judgement about what people want to read.
Echonet Daily is well-placed to fill some of the gap that will be left by The Tweed Daily News for those who don’t want their information delivered by the Murdoch stable.
It’s the journalists for both The News and The Advocate for whom I feel an immense amount of sympathy.
Making a living as a journalist in the country isn’t an easy gig but it’s one that many of us love dearly – and it just got a hell of a lot harder for the 36 journos who no longer have a masthead.
They did the hard slog: the car-accidents, the tragic deaths, the long meetings at Council, the interminable awards nights that stretched on longer than a Kubrick movie and were even more painful and boring; and they also did the fun stuff: the young people enthusiastically spruiking their environmental initiative; the chats with favourite musos who were doing one side gig on their way to somewhere bigger; the interviews with pollies who actually said something because they thought country journos were too dumb to understand; the community events where people pull together and the better side of human nature is revealed… and all sorts of weird and wonderful tales in between and they wrote about it all so people – some, at least - would read the stories of the area.
That’s the nature of writing news in the country: it runs a much broader canvas than that of our smug big-city cousins who would sneer at us for covering chook shows, without understanding that, if it mattered to one person then, if you’re a decent journo, you can write a good story about it.
I am sad to see two mastheads no longer printing. The region will be poorer for it.
Your piece makes me wonder how our local Armidale pay and free newspapers are really travelling. And those around us, such as in Glen Innes and Tamworth. Some of these papers are 150 years or so old. Even with changes of ownership and syndication etc., it would be sad to lose them.
ReplyDeleteI'm unfamiliar with the New England media landscape and how it's travelling, Denis - but a good indication is to look at the published circulation. What's been happening in the Northern Rivers is a slow but steady decline in circulation for all dailies, plus by an increase in readership for free weeklies. It is sad when a newspaper goes, a little bit of history goes too. - Rudi
ReplyDeleteLoved the stretched out longer than a Kubrick movie bit. Life as we know it however is not over - in fact - I feel it's just about to start - just needs the Kubrick touch.
ReplyDeleteSubmission regarding CHCC’s public exhibition of the LEP covering Hearn’s Lake.
ReplyDeleteIt is inappropriate to rely on the Sainty Report for rezoning of the Hearns Lake site for the following reasons.
The Report was prepared when Sainty was employed as an Independent Consultant to assess the Application for development then lodged with the DoP. Heather Wharton, under instructions from Chris Wilson, Leader of the Special Projects Assessment Team,
• was aware Sainty was already contracted to CHCC
• was aware Sainty was not a Coastal Soils expert but was a wetlands expert
• that none of the proposed development site was classified as wetlands
• Wharton misinformed Sainty the zoning on the site related back to the 1980’s.
• Wharton directed Sainty to ignore the two years of on-site environmental monitoring , trapping, hydrological studies by a recognised coastal soils expert and the extensive study by CHCC for the LEP 2000
• Wharton directed Sainty to rely on the new CHCC DCP Vegetation Map that claimed 90% of the site was suddenly highly environmentally sensitive land
• Wharton was informed the DCP map had been hastily prepared by CHCC without any formal scientific study being performed
• Wharton was aware CHCC Officers Mark Graham and Tony Blue , in a formal meeting in front of witnesses, had demanded the then owners give CHCC 90% of their land without compensation or CHCC would holdup the application till they got what they wanted.
• Wharton was aware that studies prepared in 2006 by both DoP and CHCC had recommended the site as high priority Urban Growth Corridor with minimal environmental restriction.
• Wharton specifically directed Sainty to also identify suitable buffer zones around the 90% of the site that was to be dedicated to Council.
So Wharton appointed a consultant knowing he was not skilled for the job, had a conflict of pecuniary interest, and directed him to rely on a vegetation map she knew had no scientific validity. Her appointment letter clearly intends Council to get the 90% of the site it demanded and that the remaining 10% of the site taken up with environmental buffers. 100% of a 130 acre site zoned for residential development and purchased on that LEP 2000 zoning suddenly totally unusable.
Immediately following the previous landowners refusal to donate 90% of their land to CHCC under threat of financial ruin Mark Graham prepared a new vegetation map using his own variables , to this day undisclosed variables with no supporting criteria, to prepare the new DCP Vegetation Map. The DCP was passed by Council against the recommendation of the DoP.
Sainty prepared his Report after visiting the site for 45minutes. He walked up part of one side of the site then walked off the site.
Sainty states he is not a soils expert but that the Eastern Section of the site could potentially be SSEEC. Yet there are a range of other species that preclude it being designated as an EEC, the soil testing showed the site is Oceanic Sand Plain. Both the presence of other tree species and the soil composition precluded it being an EEC. Sainty demonstrated a lack of even basic understanding of what criteria must be satisfied to proscribe an EEC.
By way of the background leading up to the Appointment of Sainty it is important to know the following as it impacts on the ethical and legal validity of the Sainty Report.
• Following the landowners refusal to capitulate to Council demands for 90% of the site, Mayor Rhodes personally visited Frank Sartor, then Minister for the Environment.
• Then Rhoades and Sartor met with Sam Haddad, Director General of DoP and with Chris Wilson, Head of the Team assessing the Application
• Chris Wilson then directed Heather Wharton to Appoint Sainty and direct him to perform his assessment as set out above.
• Council then wrote formally to Sartor’s Department offering them the 90% of the site, even though it didn’t own the land
The allegations of Council Malfeasance , fraud by individual Councillors and Council employees, fraud by specific DoP employees and elected politicians are yet to be taken before the Courts but they will be, with extensive documentation supporting each allegation.
ReplyDeleteHowever, going back to the original environmental issue highlights that Council’s reckless actions to procure this site for an environmental Park are mistaken from an environmental standpoint for these following reasons.
• This is one of the most intensively assessed sites on the Eastern Seaboard yet all formal scientific studies, even those by Council, have found the site has no endangered floral or fauna
• The site is Oceanic Sand Plain to the east and oceanic sand plain with a mix of windblown sediments to the west. This means the site will be nutrient poor for some hundreds of thousands of years. Unless it is overlain with rich estaurine sediments, which this site hasn’t experienced in five thousands of years according to the soil testing.
• Council’s 2003 report states no endangered species on the site
• Aboriginal middens while common and sizable on the fertile North bank, there are only two small ones on the Southern side, as there has been little food on the Southern bank for many thousands of years
• The population of birds species in populated coastal areas is usually 400% greater than in non-populated areas
So all previous scientific environmental site assessments and historical archeological data affirm this site has not in the past some thousands of years, nor currently, has any significant density of natural wildlife and certainly has no endangered flora or fauna.
The allegations of Council Malfeasance , fraud by individual Councillors and Council employees,
ReplyDeletefraud by specific DoP employees and elected politicians are yet to be taken before the Courts but they will be, with extensive documentation supporting each allegation.
However, going back to the original environmental issue highlights that Council’s reckless actions to procure this site for an environmental Park are mistaken from an environmental standpoint for these following reasons.
• This is one of the most intensively assessed sites on the Eastern Seaboard yet all formal scientific studies, even those by Council, have found the site has no endangered floral or fauna
• The site is Oceanic Sand Plain to the east and oceanic sand plain with a mix of windblown sediments to the west. This means the site will be nutrient poor for some hundreds of thousands of years. Unless it is overlain with rich estaurine sediments, which this site hasn’t experienced in five thousands of years according to the soil testing.
• Council’s 2003 report states no endangered species on the site
• Aboriginal middens while common and sizable on the fertile North bank, there are only two small ones on the Southern side, as there has been little food on the Southern bank for many thousands of years
• The population of birds species in populated coastal areas is usually 400% greater than in non-populated areas
So all previous scientific environmental site assessments and historical archeological data affirm this site has not in the past some thousands of years, nor currently, has any significant density of natural wildlife and certainly has no endangered flora or fauna.
The Sainty Report upon which CHCC seeks to rely is documented as being tainted by corruption of political influence, is incompetent in its content. Sainty states he is not an expert in this type of site. His opinions are contested by some seven previous and concurrent serious extensive environmental reports performed by previous CHCC staff, by the DoP, by reputable contracted environmental scientists, by the RTA, to name a few. The DCP Vegetation Map Sainty was directed to use by Heather Wharton is fanciful and very obviously does not reflect the actual vegetation on the site. We all know the underhand deceitful intent surrounding its composition.
Council has wasted over a million dollars and lost millions of dollars in revenue seeking to control an environmentally nondescript piece of land.
Council frustrated the development of our MGO facility to supply construction on the site which would have created employment and reduced the need for large amounts of native forestry timbers being cut for the building industry in general. MGO uses green waste to make a building material that is water proof, earthquake proof, sound proof, fire proof and termite proof with extremely low energy inputs and is totally inactive with the environment.
I recommend Council revert to the scientifically supported and environmentally sustainable LEP 2000 mapping. Protecting the environmentally more valuable land to the South and West of Coff’s Harbour is a more important priority.
Best regards,
Stephen Hosking