My thrifty grandma would be shocked at such bad value.

My JOUR1111 lecture this week was of great value. Great news values, that is!

News values are the degree of prominence given to a story and the resulting attention given by the audience, and are often dictated and elected by media organisations. You don't really think sports and celebrities are interesting! It's all brainwashing! Unless that's what they want us to think....

Anyway, there are more news values and ways of organising them than you can poke an aerial at. Everything comes down to newsworthiness.

These values are even different across different services, countries and cultures. While the phrase, "if it bleeds, it leads" is true for some media outlets, with lead stories tending to be tragedies, TV channels like Ten and 9 take on the "if it's local, it leads" approach.

Harold Evans, editor of the Sunday Times from 1967 to 1981, stated in 2000 that editors are the 'human sieves' of torrent news. They ultimately determine the news values and what is newsworthy.

Drama, visual attractiveness, entertainment, brevity and other values are examples of such factors valued by different media. In 1996, Masterson came up with his own little dandy list:

1. Significance

2. Proximity

3. Conflict

4. Human interest

5. Novelty

6. Prominence

Seems fair enough? Duh-duh. In 2002 Macgregor reckoned he could top that and concocted another:

1. Visualness

2. Conflict

3. Emotion

4. Celebrification of the journalist

So which is right? THERE IS NO RIGHT ANSWER. How unfair is that? It's really got me worried for the Journalism Quiz.

And yet with all these values in place, newsworthiness is under threat more than ever. Journalism and the commercialization of media and social life, journalism and PR and the difference between ideals and reality of news reporting all jeopardise quality journalism. PR influence causes tabloidisation and lazy incompetent journalism. Then as the media apocalypse reaches its worst, hyper-commercialization sets in and as I've previously prophesised, we all get crap news.

So what actually drives the decisions made in media organisations about what is newsworthy? The audience is not just the audience any more. We're the distributors too and there's a new balance of power.

So let us join hands the cease this decline of journalism! If people from all over the world stand on a giant globe, join hands and sing, maybe things will miraculously get better. That's what we've been told before so it must be true and important.

Bad news, everyone!

This week my JOUR1111 lecture covered the Australian media landscape, a terrain taken over by a few big names and operated however they like. It sounds pretty much like the physical Australian landscape too.

9, 7, Ten, GO and Gem are all part of the commercial team that’s bombarding our ears and eyeballs, and they themselves act as the ears and eyeballs for the advertisers. Public media comprises the ABC and SBS, which I like to refer to as the Mum and Dad channels. My mum watches Grand Designs on ABC 90% of her waking hours, and my Dad watches whatever strange programming he can find on SBS.

 I was slightly discomforted to find out that I’m not the customer; I’m just a tool to lure in the advertisers. I’ve been used this whole time, just a piece in their little game… but I’ll let the media head honchos off just this once because they’re doing well in running Simpsons repeats.

The major players utilizing you and me are:

• News Ltd,
• Fairfax,
• APN and
• Nine Entertainment Co.

 And to a lesser extent:

• WIN,
• Southern Cross,
• 7 West,
• Ten,
• Telstra,
• Optus,
• Austar and
• Macquarie.

Pretty much everything we look at, listen to, read and just generally use is owned by one of these companies. These days even your breakfast is probably brought to you by Telstra.

Luckily there are a few controls so that the form of commercial media doesn’t go haywire. Formal state requirements, legal prescription, state oversight and statutory and voluntary measures are taken, and to guarantee the functions of media, an ‘ethical wall’ exists. This public sphere is an area free for comment, debate and public opinion although overall, facts are sacred, as noted by C.P Scott, editor/owner of the Guardian.

* SHOCK HORROR!! *

“Commercial media is corrupt, lacks quality and profit over-rides social responsibility.”

Thank god John McManus, author of Market Driven Journalism (1994) is here to alert us to such an incredibly surprising fact.

The sad truth is that tabloidisation is abundant and it’s hunting down clicks from you. You’ll be dumbed down so you’re easy to please, while you’re receiving less original content. As advertising revenue for broadcast media continues to slide, the quality of the product will also decline.

It seems ironic that although more people nowadays are receiving a better education than a few decades ago (my grandma was subject of juicy gossip amongst her friends for going to university), the media we’re being fed is drivel.

Professor Farnsworth hit the nail on the head when he said he didn’t want to live on this planet anymore.

Shitty coffee, shitty metaphor.

Week 2 – a second dose of UQ, a second attempt at making awkward conversation with strangers, a second chance to mock people buying half-strength skinny cappuccinos (it’s freaking warm skim milk).

In my JOUR1111 lecture this week, we got stuck into web iterations and the effect and challenges of online progression on the news. Mass communication or “old media”, like newspapers, radio and TV, was no match for the bodacious “brochure-ware” of the advertising friendly, company-focused Web 1.0. The Information Web won that round, but when we moved on to the New Media of Web 2.0, my boxing metaphor only continued. Known as the “social web”, platforms like Facebook, Skype and Twitter allow the focus to be shifted to social groups. “Prod-users”, a term coined in 2005 by QUT’s Alex Bruns, were the new content-creaters and reigning champions.

Just when we all thought it couldn’t get any more brutal or complex, out came the notion of Web 3.0 – the “semantic web”. Meta tagging and geotagging packed a punch, resulting in a severe case of hyperlocalisation and specific content delivery for the modern web user.

(Hint: meta tags work heaps  better when zoomed in on at a slight tilt.)

Observing journalists were now concerned about the death of journalism itself, as people felt entitled to news. My lecturer made the call that paywalls are hitting the newspapers, much to the reluctance of new consumers.

I left that lecture feeling a bit battered myself, wondering if there was any point continuing to study a dying trade, and wondering why I can’t just write a normal recount like everyone else.


In my quest for further investigation into paywalls, I found an article by Russell Adams of The Wall Street Journal highlighting the struggle. See 'Newspapers Put Faith in Paywalls' for more.