Some time ago, a Crikey correspondent made an observation along the lines that the problem with the Australian media is that there is not enough real news in this country.
I laughed when I first read this, hearing a ring of truth. So much of the news that dominates the headlines will ultimately be judged to have been of little real importance.
But the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve come to disagree with that witty one-liner.
It all depends how you define “real news”. If wars, conflicts and other disasters are the only news that really counts, then who can argue? Australia is relatively blessed on these fronts.
But it’s a terribly narrow definition of what matters. And I’m not sure that even the broader definitions of news, employed by mainstream editors, are reflective of what matters to those in the “real world” – ie those outside the often inward-looking universe of the mainstream media.
Perhaps my views are jaundiced by a stint at the Sydney Morning Herald when it was run by an editor who relegated anywhere west of the CBD to the bottom of his news list. His constituency were the well heeled; issues affecting the urban sprawl, the poor, the bush or other places that weren’t located in the eastern or northern suburbs just didn’t rate.
As a result, so many interesting, important and illuminating stories were not told - and governments remained focused on the needs of the relatively well off, and were not often held to account for their failure to address the needs of those in greatest need.
The problem is not so much that Australia lacks “real news” but that many important areas are woefully under-reported while others – whether the latest empty political rhetoric or the shocking state of celebrity toenails etc – are over-exposed.
In my own area of health reporting, for example, much media coverage is driven by concern about hospitals, surgery waiting lists and the concerns of powerful stakeholders, such as professional groups and private interests.
We hear far less about many of the arguably more important issues, such as the inequity of a system that provides better access and quality of care to the better off, the lack of basic community-based services especially in areas of high need, the ongoing development of new suburbs that promote poor health, or about the needs of specific groups and communities without the resources to engage the attention of mainstream news editors.
All of this is a long way of leading to where I’m trying to head – over the last 18 months or so, I’ve been working with a small group of journalists, academics and publishers on establishing the Foundation for Public Interest Journalism. Based at the Institute for Social Research at Swinburne University, it aims to develop new models for funding and supporting journalism.
I’m particularly excited about the intention to proactively engage the community, including by asking them to pitch story ideas and to help fund the stories that matter to them.
The inaugural board members
have just been announced. We meet for the first time next month, so it’s premature to speculate on exactly how the project might unfold, but one option will be to adapt the Spot Us experiment from the US (
www.spot.us)
It will be interesting to see if a community-funded model of journalism results in different stories being covered, or in different approaches to coverage of mainstream stories.
Oscar Wilde once quipped that: ”The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything. Except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesman-like habits, supplies their demands.”
Hopefully, we can prove him wrong, and show that the community do care about and will support journalism that matters.
Melissa Sweet is Adjunct Senior Lecturer of the School of Public Health at the University of Sydney. She is also a freelance health journalist and a moderator of Crikey’s health blog, Croakey. More details are at www.sweetcommunication.com.au.
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Comments
what a refreshing proposition
Hello Melissa,
I really enjoyed your blog.
A former Journalism student myself, I identified with a lot of things you said, particularly the "what is news" concept.
This came up many times throughout my three years studying journalism and related disciplines, and was most often met with a "public's right to know" reasoning.
To many, this somehow automatically translated into what is "real news" - if the public demands it, it must be newsworthy. You have clearly made the point, though, that this is a loose concept. What is considered "real news" and gains coverage is dependent on many other, sometimes less important (and unreasonable) factors.
I hope you succeed in showing the public that a lot of important news remains uncovered and that there are true professionals dedicated to reporting and giving it the attention it deserves.