Big Thoughts, Little Impact

For the last decade and a bit, print media has been fighting a losing battle with its arch-nemesis, the big bad internet. But last year it seemed as if their prayers had been answered! A saviour was born, come to revive their dying industry. The iPad was going to revolutionise print media, and whats better, consumers were going to pay for things again!

A year later, and it doesn’t really look like thats happened. There’s been a few attempts, like Rupert Murdoch’s The Daily, which, while having some really good content is hindered by a crappy experience, abundant with bugs and crashes. I’ve tried quite a few digital magazines and newspapers, from The New York Times to Wired Magazine to my previous favourite, Flipboard, which did a fantastic job of curating content from all over the place. But none of these apps/magazines/newspapers solved the big problem. Until now.

Fairfax Media, who owns Australian newspapers The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, just released new apps for both papers, and they are seriously good. I’ve only had the chance to try the SMH app, being a sydneysider myself, but I’ll work off the assumption they run on the same engine.

The app is smooth and well thought out, easily one of the slickest iPad apps I’ve ever tried. It gives you pretty much complete access to the daily paper, with live headlines updating in real-time, as well as weather and sudoku. You also get access to all of the included magazines, like Spectrum, Money and Good Weekend. Photo galleries and video are also implemented superbly, providing quite literally a seamless experience.

“How much does it cost?” I hear you ask. At the moment, nothing. The app is completely free until December, thanks to Telstra, who are kindly sponsoring the app until then. After December, the app will cost $8.99 AUD a month, with a discount for print subscribers. I personally think that this is the best feature of the whole thing. The price. It is incredibly reasonable and reflects the fact that pushing digital content is cheaper than printing physical copies. 

My one major gripe is that the ads aren’t as smooth as the rest of the experience. I don’t mind seeing ads, especially if it means free (or cheap) content, but don’t let them detract from the experience.

Basically, the new SMH for iPad app is so good, it makes me excited to read the news everyday, and I know that come December, I will happily pay for a subscription.

I’ve always found it difficult to describe this blog.

Now I don’t. My friend Liam (A Lions Share) coined the perfect word.

Technopolitical.

Thats what this is, a technopolitical commentary. That is all.

(Source: alionsshare)

I’m not a monarchist, in the slightest. I don’t believe that any amount or form of sovereign power should be heriditary. That just goes against almost every democratic ideal. However, does the republic debate really matter?

Constitutionally, we don’t actually have a Head of State (the term doesn’t exist within Australian law), and there is some debate as to who exactly fits the role best. Is it the reigning monarch? Or is it the current Governor-General? In practice, the role is almost completely fulfilled by the Governor-General, the monarchy of Australia exists almost completely symbolically.

Scholars, lawyers, historians and much smarter people than I have been debating this issue for decades, and it is a debate that seems to crop up whenever the Republic debate crops up. And it does seem that the debate is cropping up, thanks in part to the current Royal Wedding hoohah.

A recent Newspoll opinion poll reports that only 41% of Australians are in favour of Australia becoming a Republic. This number is historically very low, lower than it has been in the last 17 years, including the 1999 Referrendum. Julia Gillard, over in London, said of the figures:

[They] may well be reflecting that people have engaged with this love story and this exciting event.

Ms Gillard is a staunch republican herself, although she admitted to being excited about the “very special wedding.”

But does it matter? Australia already has an Australian carrying out the role of Head of State. Again, I’m not a monarchist, I would much prefer to break our ties with the archaic system that is the British Royalty, but I find it hard to get passionate about. It is, in all fairness, a non-issue. It’s inevitable that it will eventually happen, it’s just a matter of when. I think I’m just going to sit back and watch.

Travers, over at Travers in his Time writes about Australia becoming a republic. I enjoyed his post, it had some very insightful comments, however I have a few problems with his basic premise. He says (quite rightly) that:

Australia is a proud nation with over a century of nationhood under it’s belt. Over those hundred years we have established our own culture, our own traditions and our own national identity.

I could not agree more, but I could with his closing statement:

A republic is Australia’s opportunity to affirm our independence and nationhood and that Australia should proudly on its own command respect on the global stage [sic].

Australia is an independent state already, with or without a symbolic monarch head of state. I really don’t think that anyone anywhere else in the world (except maybe Canada, who are in a similar situation, and all of the nations who would now stand a chance in the Commonwealth Games) would care that much when we inevitably dispose of the Monarchy of Australia.

So, Australia, it’s not really time to decide whether or not to be a republic, but when it is, it’ll happen.

Dear Australian Head of State,

We would like to place ourselves at your mercy and request a stay of execution for our television program, The Chaser’s Royal Wedding Commentary.

We, like Kate, are commoners, and were looking forward to celebrating her wedding to your exalted grandson with a few affectionate observations.

To ensure that our coverage was respectful, we were only planning to use jokes that Prince Phillip has previously made in public, or at least the ones that don’t violate racial vilification laws. We’ve also filmed a joke about hunting grouse which we think you might enjoy.

We Australians are a simple people who don’t often get to watch that kind of pomp. The last big wedding we had here was Scott and Charlene on Neighbours. We’ve asked around, and there are at least six people in this outpost of your empire who would quite like to watch our commentary.

Please consider our plea.

We have the honour to be, Madam, Your Majesty’s humble and obedient servants,

Cheers,

The Chaser

Long title, I know. I do want to make it clear that I am not a journalist. I just enjoy reading and writing about news. With that in mind, I do think it important to look into the state of Australian media.

One of my favourite journalists, ABC Online’s chief political writer Annabel Crabb recently wrote an article about the state of long-form journalism. 

Poor old long-form journalism. Has it really come to this? Run out of town by Facebook and YouTube and kitten pix on the Huffington Post and the ravages of 24/7 news churn?

She then goes on to list three examples of how long-form journalism is staying relevant in a digital age. All three services (The Daily, Instapaper* and longform.org) are services I use regularly, and so should you.

So long-form journalism isn’t dead, or is it?

I was having a discussion the other day with a friend of mine, who was complaining about the distinct difference in quality between print media and internet media. His major gripe was that internet journalism was too short, it reported the bare facts, with almost no background, unlike what you would expect from a well-written newspaper article. 

Once again we return to the state of long-form journalism. 

My view, and this is what I told my friend, is that long-form journalism has its place alongside the shorter, more internet-savvy kind that you commonly see. The problem is that journalists have a number of trade-offs to make. Detail is sacrificed for speed, as the writers assume that a) the reader wants the news as it happens and b) they are able to look up any necessary detail that is left out.

Another problem is the significant difference in quality between large publishers (Fairfax, News Corp) and independent sources. As you can probably tell by my past posts, one of my favourite sources of news is the ABC Online News site, which comes with the following disclaimer as well as having its own investigative unit:

This service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, AAP, CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced.

Other great independent sources of Australian news I use are Crikey, Delimiter and Reportage (Great list from Reddit here).

Kevin, in the comments to my recent post about Apple’s Location issue, asked me:

What’s your thoughts on the fall of SMH and the narrow ownership of media in Australia?

My thoughts are that yes, the Sydney Morning Herald (and Fairfax in general) has fallen fairly far. Their content is still better than News Corp’s, but only slightly, the gap has been significantly shortened. 

And yes, I think the fact that almost every major newspaper in Australia is owned by one of two companies can not be good for Australians. There has been significant bias creeping into these companies over the last decade or two, and most Australians don’t understand that there exists great alternatives.

Because ultimately, there does exist great alternatives. They aren’t perfect, but the greatest thing about the internet is that it means that if something isn’t good, something better will be built. The internet is still young, and countries like Australia are still yet to fully embrace it.

*On the subject of Instapaper, the developer of the software, Marco Arment, writes a fantastic blog and hosts a fantastic podcast. I recommend you take the time to see what he has to say, he is a very intelligent guy.

The media loves a juicy controversy. The media especially loves a juicy controversy involving Consumer Tech giant Apple. Today, one such controversy has dwarfed Apple’s amazing quarterly results, also announced today.

Charles Arthur from the Sydney Morning Herald writes:

Security researchers have discovered that Apple’s iPhone keeps track of where you go - and saves every detail to a secret file on the device which is copied to the owner’s computer when synchronised.

Basically what has happened, as well as I can understand it, is that Apple keeps a file with all of your location data over the last year (or whenever you updated to iOS 4.0). It is important to note that this is not GPS data, it is data collected from carrier’s cell towers.

Pete Warden and Alisdair Allen, the duo who discovered the security flaw, write in their FAQ:

As far as we can tell, the location is determined by triangulating against the nearest cell-phone towers. This isn’t as accurate as GPS, but presumably takes less power.

Fortunately, there is a (very easy) way to prevent this data from being accessible, and it is something you should already be doing. This problem exists only for unencrypted backups, so you should definitely go to iTunes and check the box for “Encrypt Device Backups”. This will mean that no one can get this information without access to your phone.

It is important to note, however, that this location cache file is unencrypted on your iDevice, so if a hacker had physical access and sophisticated tools, they could still access the file.

Security expert Charlie Miller, talking to Ars Technica:

This file is only readable by root. That means that a rogue App Store app won’t be able to read it. Even a bad guy who hacks into your browser won’t be able to read it.

Moral of the story? Don’t worry too much if you encrypt your iDevice backups. Also, Apple has historically been fairly quick to deal with such publicised exploits, so keep your device updated regularly. The exploit affects iPhones and 3G iPads.

Sad news today. Long running Doctor Who companion Elisabeth Sladen, who played the character Sarah Jane Smith in both the classic run and the current modern run, as well as starring in her own spin-off, has died today at age 63.

Never meet your heroes’, wise people say. They weren’t thinking of Lis Sladen. - Stephen Moffat

I will always remember Lis Sladen from the Season 2 episode ‘School Reunion’, in which she reunites with the Doctor after a very long absence. Being my first introduction to the character of Sarah Jane, I loved the interplay between her and Tenth Doctor David Tennant.

A few years ago I bought a box of Lindt chocolate for my then-girlfriend. She refused the gift, because it wasn’t Fairtrade certified. I felt hurt.

Now I feel hurt that there isn’t more fairtrade chocolate. ABC news had a report on the amount of Fairtrade Easter chocolate available.

Attitudes in the industry are changing slowly and this year confectionary giant Cadbury will sell a fair trade-certified Easter egg.

Just the one? Fairtrade chocolate isn’t that much more expensive to buy or make.

It’s simply fixed by as much as two cents extra on a $10 chocolate bar.

Australian consumers and retailers need to step up and demand Fairtrade products.