There’s been a lot of soul searching over the past three weeks in the wake of the News of the World phone hacking scandal within journalism’s ranks. After all, this is an industry that’s very good at talking about itself. Has the scandal tarnished (further) the reputation of journalists? Where is the (increasingly blurry) line when it comes to landing a scoop? What do events in the UK have to do with us? How do we hold our own industry to account?
It’s old news to say that great, fearless, time consuming, thankless investigative journalism is up against it. We’ve established how difficult it is for thoughtful journalists to operate in an environment of shrinking deadlines, cost cutting, rapidly mutating technology and changing media consumer habits. But that’s not to say there aren’t plenty of examples out there of journalism that truly shines. After all, if The Guardian hadn’t kept at it, we wouldn’t be witnessing the NOtW fallout today. While Big Media grapples with the right path forward on the ever shifting media map, in many ways these are exciting times for innovative, creative, completely new ways of presenting stories.
In that spirit, today we’re launching Crikey’s quality journalism project. Each week the project will pick the brains of some of Australia’s most respected journalists, editors and producers to find out what great journalism means to them and where they go to get it. We’ll also be asking readers to divulge their daily media diet and the sources that inspire them.
Today we talk with Tingle. Laura Tingle that is, the ever popular political editor at The Australian Financial Review. So how does Tingle think readers measure quality journalists?
“Hell, they might not even like you. But they will think you will tell them something they don’t know, and that you think they need to know, not because you are manufacturing a controversy on behalf of your publisher, or because you want to be a player in the game, or to play ‘look at moi’ but because it is your job.”
Nice to know that for some journos, it’s not all about the byline.
I agree there is some great journalism out there but when one of the largest monopoly owned newspaper distributed in Australia says Opinion is Journalism and most journalist at some point rely on this monopoly for work the taint on all journalist is regretable and understandable. In the last 10 years the journalist reputation has internally been smeared and tarnished so it is very hard to trust any journalist.
One of the sadder aspects of the whole hacking story is that it can’t even be attributed to the pursuit of “quality journalism”. As near as I can tell, it was predominantly done to feed the celebrity drivel that is the stock in trade of most of our media.
Laura Tingle is one of the best journalists currently writing – not just literate and enjoyable prose but numerate, as befits the AFR.
Her bi-weekly analysis on LNL (Philip Adams’ oasis of enlightenment on ABC Radio National) is a beacon in the fog of obfuscation, tendentious mendacity and outright bias, well exemplified by C. Cur, once of this parish but, having kissed the Sun King’s ring, just another hack.
“The quality journalism project”.
Terrific idea!
Is it a partial cure for the “verbal diarrhoea disease”?
The incubation period for this illness varies wildly and is spread mainly, but not only, by some sections of the media. It has taken hold in the broader population as evidenced by some posts on Crikey, proving that even Crikey is not immune. Obvious examples of carriers can be found in Canberra.
Looking forward to the project.