Lyn,
lots of changes afoot I see. Good to see. Crikey is becoming a cluster of blogs. That gives Crikey a solid internet presence.

Lyn,
The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age published some criticism of their own newspapers by Michael Gawenda one of their former editors. He says that the “slash and burn” approach to management won’t work in piloting a newspaper company through the internet. He adds:

The editors of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald have no control over their papers' websites. All the talk of newsroom integration is rendered meaningless as a result. Already the online newspaper sites of the main Fairfax metropolitan mastheads are at odds with what those mastheads long stood for. They are much more popular, much more celebrity and entertainment focused. This is a recipe for disaster. The mastheads are being trashed.

That extract is from Gawenda's A.N. Smith Lecture in Journalism to be delivered tonight at Melbourne University and can only be found in The Australian.

His solution is one where:

Newspapers need to build on their strengths: Forget big headlines and huge and often meaningless graphics. Instead, arresting photography, great illustrations and wonderful editorial cartoons. And stories, well-written and compelling stories, well-edited and with smart and entertaining headlines, if possible, without lousy puns.

The failure has been to produce newspapers in the internet age that attract the sort of fierce and lifelong loyalty they once attracted.

Is this the future:

Crikey (the new) grows as an internet site whilst newspaper companies (the old) confront a historic decline in circulation and the unravelling of the traditional business model for journalism in the form of classified advertising going online. The slash and burn response by the old will hasten their end, looks to be what Michael Gawenda is saying.

Is there a diversity of media companies forming?

The internet is only one of the nails in the coffin of serious news and current affairs reporting.

The rise of infotainment started before the net. The rise of the commentariat and opinion as news. The complicity of journalists. The inclusion of critical literacy in education. Information overload for consumers. Various technologies which undermine the old fashioned news habit. FOI restrictions. Failure to protect whistle blowers. Failure to mentor new cadets properly.

Blaming the internet is like blaming home computer use for global warming.

Lyn,

Thanks for the kind words. And yeah, reb and I are trying to keep the blogocrats together. It is only when you run a blog like this that you realise how much effort goes into posting multiple posts every day.

We do hope that we can get more contributors over time, and that we can even have some opposing opinions.

Thanks again!