The Australian 19/10/09
The future of journalism is a bit like climate change. Nobody’s quite sure exactly what’s going to happen, or when, but it’s probably not going to be good. We all know things have to change but we also know that nobody’s really going to do anything until they really really have to, which will in all likelihood be either too late or a lot more unpleasant than it really needed to be. Bugger.
Well, I do hope the wishful thinkers are right and everything’s going to be just ticketyboo, because after finally managing to get one of the relatively comfy chairs on the big stinky diesel-powered mainstream media bus, the engine’s started making funny noises and everyone’s muttering about buying a Prius. Bugger.
I went to the MEAA’s Future Of Journalism conference last week where my suspicion that Nobody Knows Anything was reconfirmed. Bugger.
On the bright side, Mark Scott from the ABC reckons he’s cracked the code for making a quid on the interwebs, which is to make everything free and get the ATO to sort it out. Well he would say that, wouldn’t he? Bugger.
While I totally agree that the news should be free, I feel the same way about mortgages, food and electricity, but I don’t think the banks, supermarkets or power company agree (bugger bugger bugger) and unless there’s a bit of quality control, the future of journalism is going to be a lot of people swearing at each other for nix, totally stuffing the market for cartoonists, who get paid to be rude. Bugger
The secret is in Conroy’s Great Firewall. The New Inventors won’t sell well on DVD as they don’t have gags about dying kids. So the secret will be in selling more Chaser DVDs and making sure no one pirates them.