Big Thoughts, Little Impact

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.