It’s fair to say I and the rest of the Crikey editorial crew were surprised to wake up this morning and find our fearless leader, publisher Eric Beecher, all over the cover of The Australian’s media section — not an organ normally friendly to us, or him.
Beecher was quoted as attacking the ABC , and in particular its website The Drum, which is run by former Crikey editor Jonathan Green. The Drum, Beecher said, should not be competing with independent media — to whit, Crikey.
So Beecher joins a line of ABC critics who have protested at taxpayer dollars being used to compete with their commercial operations. The line-up includes Fairfax CEO Brian McCarthy, who objected to the ABC Open project because it would compete with Fairfax Media’s rural newspapers, and pay television’s Sky News which has suggested the ABC should not spend taxpayer’s money on ABC News 24, because a commercial 24-hour news service already exists.
I can only imagine that McCarthy, at least, would be somewhat gobsmacked this morning to find himself apparently on the same side as Beecher. McCarthy can’t stand the man, and his confidants have often heard him pay out on Beecher’s character and antecedents.
This is a long-running set of arguments. I have been writing for more than two years now that one of the key battles in this decade will be the one between public broadcasters and all those who want to persuade us to pay for content, which includes Crikey, Foxtel and News Limited. (How strange to be bracketing those names together.)
The Australian and News Limited have skin in this game. Murdoch has interests in Sky News which will expand if he succeeds in taking over its British parent, BSkyB. No coincidence, I am sure, that The Australian has served as a platform for many an attack on the ABC.
So was Beecher being used in the News Limited campaign? Undoubtedly there is an element of this; Beecher told me this morning he had been accurately quoted, although: “I was a bit surprised by the treatment.”
When I put to him that he was arguing the same line as McCarthy and Sky News, he disagreed. He was talking only about The Drum, he said. Sky News had to be paid for, and ABC News 24 was free. That alone was sufficient justification for taxpayer dollars being spent on 24 hour news. Journalism was a “key ingredient” of what the ABC should be doing.
As for ABC Open: “I don’t pretend to be an expert on that, but I would have thought that Fairfax Media are not doing regional Australia to the same extent and quality as the ABC.”
But The Drum is different, he said. It was operating in exactly the same field as Crikey, and so was a direct challenge to one of the nation’s few independent media outlets. Why should taxpayer dollars be used to do that?
But wouldn’t the pay/free comparison also be relevant here, just as much as for Sky News and Aunty? After all, Crikey’s best content is available only to subscribers; The Drum is free to all. Beecher responded: “That might be an argument if other media weren’t providing the same kind of content for free. But The Punch is there, there are blogs, it is all over the place.”
I have to say I disagree with the boss on this occasion, at least in part. I can’t really see the difference between his argument and those of Sky News and Fairfax.
And while the role of a public broadcaster in the new media world is certainly up for discussion and redefinition, I have never been convinced by the notion that the ABC should abandon a platform or a form of media content merely because others are already there. If that idea had been adhered to, the ABC would never have been created in the first place.
I have written on this matter before, but to my mind the most eloquent defence of the role of public broadcasters was in this speech by the BBC Director General, Mark Thompson. Thompson said that in the United Kingdom and comparable societies there have always been two models for delivering media and culture: the untrammelled market, and public space. He drew the comparison with universities, museums and galleries, orchestras and theatres and the education and health systems. He said:
“So much of our collective cultural and social life exists not in James’s [Murdoch’s] bi-polar universe of market and state, but in a third space. Public space. Public space is not-for-profit space, not by accident but by design. It exists not to make money but to serve the public and it is accountable to them, not just as customers in James Murdoch’s formulation, but as citizens. Wherever it can be — and certainly in the case of the BBC — public space is free at the point of use. And the more people who use it the better.”
Running this line may well be against my own self interest. Not that I have anything to fear from Beecher, who has always made it clear I am free to write as I see fit, including when it concerns Crikey or his other businesses. But there is no doubt that The Drum does make life harder in the Crikey bunker. This is not so much because of competition for readers, as for writers.
So far as audiences are concerned, there has been no discernable impact from The Drum. Crikey’s subscriptions and website traffic have continued to increase. But what has caused gnashing of teeth in the Crikey bunker is the poaching of writers. Since Green switched camps, he has aggressively recruited writers who previously filed for Crikey.
He is able to do so partly because he is popular, but mostly because The Drum pays contributors a taxpayer-funded $200 a piece. Crikey pays its modest crew of staff journalists industry-standard rates, and people like me get modest retainers, but casual contributors are lucky to get $100 a piece.
On the other hand, sites like News Limited’s The Punch and Fairfax’s National Times pay nothing at all. That’s right. Zilch. It’s shameful.
Elsewhere in The Australian today, Mark Day suggests Crikey might be worth as much as $10 million. I have no idea whether or not that is correct, and Beecher declined to comment, but I do know that Crikey turned a small profit last financial year after years when all proceeds have been ploughed back into the business. But it did so while paying low contributor rates.
Why, asks Beecher, would the public broadcaster make an opinion site like The Drum a priority, paying more for writers than independent media can do, when the ABC is spread so thin and already so vulnerable to attack? Why push the line, by coming up with semantic distinctions between opinion and analysis, so that its journalists can file for The Drum?
Beecher and I agree on most things to do with the ABC. We both think the ABC, in particular as a source of journalism, has never been more important. But for my liking, there is not enough difference between what he is arguing concerning The Drum and Crikey, and the arguments of Sky News, Fairfax and News Limited.
Of course a public broadcaster makes life harder for commercial outlets. That on its own is not sufficient argument for it to exit any particular field. And if The Drum creates a modest upward pressure on freelance rates, making it harder for Fairfax and News Limited to get away with the scandalous business of paying nothing, that in itself might be a worthwhile contribution.
There, there. I don’t think The Drum is in competition with Crikey. They talk about sport too much.
‘all those who want to persuade us to pay for content, which includes Crikey, Foxtel and News Limited. (How strange to be bracketing those names together.)’….what’s strange is that you don’t think that we’re paying for the content on the ABC…aren’t we paying via our taxes…because if we aren’t I’d love to know who is paying.
The problem with the Drum is not that it is biased or controversial, it’s just weak and wet. Who wants to read articles written by journalists employed by the ABC? Why don’t they stick to their day jobs? I don;t suppose they get paid extra for their Drumster material and do it for a) the love of it. b) self-promotion. I hear that the ABC pays non-ABC contributors slightly better than Crikey , which also expects writers to do it for love (or for exposure which is why quite a few academics appear here – it counts as ‘publishing’).
I am extemely disappointed to hear Beecher’s criticisms. Surely the more avenues available for opinion the better! It’s not as if Crikey never has enough good writers and opinions to fill its pages.
As someone who struggled to earn anything much as a freelance writer/commentator (who is now working for a mainstream media organisation) I think it’s disgraceful that Crikey pays so little for contributions and then whines when the ABC pays more! If The Drum closed tomorrow I’m sure Crikey would still be running roughly the same pieces, and paying the same (or even less, potentially, if there was less competition).
The import of Eric Beecher’s comments is probably being missed.
The harsh reality is that, although we love it, Crikey is not a commercially successful media operation. It is not the shining example of “new media” achievement that some claim it to be.
If a business, any business, cannot survive without paying below market prices for its inputs, it is, by definition, not economically viable.
In principle, Crikey’s attitude to its contributors is no different to that of major international clothing brands employing sweatshop workers in developing countries.
In the early days, contributors were happy to provide content to Stephen Mayne because Crikey was an interesting and innovative challenge to the mainstream media. It was a bit of fun. We wanted to see if it could be made to work. It even helped a few of us – myself included – to branch off into media careers elsewhere.
However, if online media is a viable economic proposition, the sale to Beecher should have represented the maturing of Crikey’s business model and a move into profitability.
Eric Beecher is an experienced media professional. The fact that he has not been able to get Crikey viable, together with the low/zero payment of contributors to The National Times and The Punch, means there is still a real question mark over the economic viability of online news and commentary.
Beecher’s claim of unfair competition from The Drum is hollow in the extreme. The Drum is not competing in a market that is being serviced by the private sector, because the private sector cannot make that sector pay. If you take Beecher’s argument to its conclusion, he must be saying that if The Drum ceased publication, Crikey would pay market rates to all its contributors and deliver a sustainable, market-based return on investment to its shareholders. I think we can guess what the probability of that is.
As for Mark Day’s estimated $10 million valuation on Crikey, this is nothing more than tech bubble stuff. Crikey’s major asset, which may be worth millions to advertisers, is it’s highly influential reader/customer base. Actually delivering news and commentary to those readers is a clearly an unsustainable proposition.
Part of the ABC’s charter is to provide services that are not provided by the private sector media.
On the evidence provided by Crikey, National Times and The Punch, the private sector cannot deliver online news and commentary viably and sustainably.
Until the “old” or “new” private sector media players have worked this one out, stepping into the gap is quite within the ABC’s charter.