Who will survive Australia’s ‘ute gate’?

He who keeps standing in the back of the ute no matter how rough the ride gets.
Who will ever get to the truth of such a thing? The truth is where we find it. The truth we choose. We have only that when we can’t reach the facts.

Would You Kick Someone Who Is Down?

An email popped into my basket today from a contact. I read the exchange of conversation and realised it was not intended for my eyes. Well I wondered for a minute. After all, things are often leaked accidentally on purpose. But I guessed this one was not. It was CCed to all participants in the email exchange between the director of a group and one of their clients that is a public figure. It’s ………………..
I could say here. I could tip off the business media. I could tip off the tabloid media. They’d probably make something of it.
One thing was for certain from the emails, and that was the sheer pain and torment of someone desperately trying to make a business work. They listed all the negotiations that had taken place but ultimately failed to deliver a result. The other party spoke of the impact on their business of non-payment of the account. Everywhere through the exchange was the pain of keeping something going. There had been frantic discussions with potential new backers, and then old clients who had pulled out when it was not clear if the money was there . Most of all was the deep pain of being on the brink of admitting that the business could not be saved in its current form, and of realising that years of blood sweat and tears may come to nothing. Trouble is that it’s like that at the moment.

Give me another week, came the plea in the email. In another week or two people will know. Maybe there will be a miracle in that week to prevent its collapse. We often never know when we smile at the client how hard they are paddling underneath the smooth surface. They never know it about us. Sometimes we skate perilously close to the edge and don’t go over. Of course there may be investors in this company who don’t know how close the company is to failure. As investors it is the kind of thing they should be finding out long before reading about it in the media.

There must be thousands of companies in the same boat. Can they all be news? I guess the thing that interests me is what the owner of this business does next. And a little bit later I’d been interested on hearing their reflections on what they did. They won’t see it now because the pain is too great and the battle of survival is still on.
Maybe they should have seen it coming. Maybe they could never have seen it coming. Maybe they deserve a kicking. Or maybe it’s just what was always going to happen.

Heart Best Defence Against Recession Fear

It’s getting ugly out there. People are becoming more cut throat than ever kicking colleagues back down the ladder, telling fibs about the arrival times of payment, delivering less than what was commissioned, and just being downright tetchy. These kinds of attitudes and actions can rob you of your energy.

My recession policy is to stick with people who are friendly, altruistic and creative in their approach to business. I think at times like this people who lock themselves away and are not prepared to share ideas (not every idea) will reap what they sow. People who interact and give of themselves will receive. It’s that simple. People with heart are our best hope. And even if the money is slow to come in, those people are still the best and warmest company when it’s cold out.

There’s a fine line between trust and theft

I taught a class this past semester, feature writing. It was great to see all the ideas that students came up with and watch them learn as they grappled with them. One student had an idea that I really liked. I told her that if I was less ethical I’d steal her idea but I would never do this. But some weeks later  I sat at my desk one morning and poured out a very personal story relating to the same topic. The student inspired me. But I felt guilty, and worried the student might feel I had stolen their idea.

I’ve have seen my work be plagiarised and it’s not nice.It’s theft.  I also have a friend who was working on a novel and sharing her work at a writing class. The story was inspired by a unique set of circumstances from her childhood. Not so long after the teacher entered a competition and won with a story about a similar situation. The teacher confessed at one point a vague inspiration from the student’s story. But the classroom should offer a place of trust.

What to do about my student? Before I sent the story to the editor I had in mind I wrote to my student attaching a copy of my story, and asked her to honestly tell me if it she thought it violated the trust between a teacher and student. She responded that she was thrilled about it, that it was different to anything she would ever have done. I still believe that her story, with a few modifications, would make a feature that many people would be fascinated to read.  I will not be writing that story but the one I shared with her has been accepted by a magazine and will run next year.

Another student wrote a good feature containing many facets, each of which could be developed into a feature on their own. I asked her if she would mind me editing a version of her story, and then I would share with her a publication where she could pitch it. I did this shortening the story, and then sent it to the same magazine introducing my student. With a little liaison and work carried out between the editor and my student, her story is also awaiting publication. I am truly thrilled about this, about helping someone see the possibilities.

How to survive a downturn

This week a new client called to say that they were dropping plans to publish news and features online because they are cutting their marketing budget. I had signed a contract, a fair rate had been agreed, but I’d not yet been commissioned.  Now perhaps I am naive but the early stages of a downturn seem to be the worst time for a business not to be providing information to their clients. And last time I looked advertising bargains were …  well I haven’t spotted them yet.

Cutting back on information and news is a saving that could cost dear later. Perhaps there is concern about alarming clients. After all, it’s messy and ugly out there now, and no one knows how many twists and dark tunnels the train must get through before we chug along easily again. Maybe some are worried that they don’t have all the answers. Well who does? We can only make decisions based on the best available information, and that feeling in our guts.

In 2001, I took a break from my job at the FT and was operating successfully as a freelance writer covering the global travel & tourism sectors.   By the end of that year I was fully engaged in writing articles about travel security, and how the industry was streamlining operations to function in the post-911 landscape. The hunger for this information was immense. I recall an  editor/writer that  I used to file for back then named Jerry Chandler, who is a recognised aviation writer and commentator in the US.  I was probably the only person ever to suggest a feature about how British Airways managed customer relationships for Concorde and Jerry ran this. Anyway, he said something that has stuck with me. It was that no matter the topic the one constant is that “people want good information, so give ‘em good information”.

People always want this. Always will. And at the start of a downturn, they want it even more. My prediction is that the providers of good information (and products and services) will survive the downturn, and go on to grow when things inevitably and eventually pick up.  I stick with people who give me good information. Don’t you?

Bunker mentality or alternative realities

An eclectic collection of people attended the Future of Journalism session in Brisbane on Saturday, September 13. Speakers who work in, or manage msm outlets defended the future and function of their products, even if they can’t see the long-term destination.  And of those who’ve fled msm bunkers, or been pushed out, or were never in them, several said that the msm is ‘over’ and journalists had better get used to finding their own way.
Journalists should prepare themselves for a diverse career and portfolios of projects or jobs that may, or may not, include msm. Cameron O’Reilly of the podcasting network, talked about the changing economics of media. Curiously, he said on his post that his views were unpopular, and nobody listened. Fellow panelist Mark Bahnisch noted among much else of interest here that he didn’t get that sense from the audience. Nor me. Perhaps too much store was put by the twitters. Just because they’re short and quick err…doesn’t mean, they speak for all. (I fancy twitter but am wary of more time fritters in my life). And naturally people who run big online sections for msm outlets will disagree. Several people talked about the changing of business models and the economy and how these have impacted on media. But many believe that this has not diminished the appetite or need for journalism.

There’s an excellent set of posts about the day on Derek Barry’s blog.

I read an unattributed comment that the usual journo vs blogger argument ensued at FOJ Brisbane. But on the blogging panel I didn’t get that impression, nor did I pick it up strongly from the audience. In our panel, moderated by Cristen Tilley of the ABC, and others that I listened to my sense was that most people are someplace in the middle, like points on a scatter graph, and only wanting to know what directions they might move towards.

I missed Margaret Simon’s keynote discussion but heard her speak on this topic not so long ago, and I took part in an useful workshop she gave a few months back. She spoke of how many journalists are running themselves as businesses, and in a conversation at the casual lunch break we talked of the gigs we do for money, love, and those that oil the wheels for later.

It was interesting, and perhaps a little surprising to me, to hear that students are still very much focussed on working for msm outlets. Tell me if I’m wrong. It’s not a criticism, well not a harsh one. And don’t most journalists start out wanting that? At the best of times, near deadline when a major story breaks, there is little that comes near it for excitement, skill and comradeship, or have I left the rose coloured glasses on too long? And it’s not a student’s fault for wanting it. But it would be folly if they define their future according only to msm media affiliations.

Start early on to regard your name as a brand and figure out your business model/s. Besides isn’t it more fun, to know you can make some kind of living under your own steam without always being dependent on an employer? This comes in handy most at a time when msm outlets are shrinking their workforces, and in some cases not even training young people. By preparing yourself for a diverse career, that doesn’t mean the old fashioned skills of news gathering and writing a 400 word news story or a feature are redundant. They are marketable skills. Learn all you can, say I.
Not all needs are being met, not all potential markets are provided for. Phil McDonald, managing director of George Patterson Y & R Queensland said that increasingly his clients are seeking high quality news, and that there are real opportunities for journalists to provide content highly tuned to particular groups. My other fellow panellist Axel Bruns had interesting things to say about how journalists and bloggers can and should find out what people want and deliver it to them.

I worked for regional dailies in Australia, then the South China Morning Post when it was owned by Rupert Murdoch, before working for (inter)national broadsheets in the UK, and international niche publications on the side. Perhaps, if there had been the range of possibilities there are now in this digital age, I’d have not felt the need to go overseas, or stay away so long.

One track views of journalism and blogging

Wonder if you spotted Mark Day’s column on blogging where he can see one model of delivering valuable journalism. And there seems
a tendency to judge the quality of the blogosphere, whatever that may be, by the quality of commenters on the The Australian’s various blogs and comment boards.

I think it’s like that when you are in bunker. I used to be in one for years. Now I venture into bunkers occasionally, filing copy for the AFR, FT, The Australian and others. And while I have done some formal, but as yet incomplete, study into the scholarship of teaching journalism, my perspective is very much more alligned with that of the many individuals
that like me are flying solo.

Part of me remains attached to the older model of high quality journalism. But I saw this at work at the Financial Times where there was a bigger network of focors and specialists than almost anywhere. But few places have that any more, if they ever did.
Journalists must now be very diverse in order to survive, and increasingly they will work for one or more niche outlets. Already they outnumber msm journalists, a fact that is often overlooked. This post by John Cokley on Crikey speaks to this here.

Many see blogging and their communities as integral to their journalism. There is a new site I write for that is made up of an editorial site and a social networking site, where the blogs are regarded as highly as the editorial and some of the most popular stories they run.
The site takes copy from freelancers and pays a couple of journalists to post comments and contribute to discussions. More on that in a later post.

I would say that I am representative of many mid-err-(let’s not say senior yet) career journalists,  who learned under the old model, but see the way it’s going, and are out there on their own trying to figure out ways of surviving and getting in on this. I also tutor and can’t help looking at the old school stuff in the units, and  feeling that it is preparing people for careers already redundant. People tell me they want to write, and so I tell them to write, and that they can start a blog today.
This can lead to professional opportunities with media outlets or of their own making. ( I am currently mentoring a UQ student who in turn is teaching me stuff, and we are creating some niche blogs. This a unit of study for her – more in a later post). Anyway blogs give a space to hone writing craft and get used to the online medium. I did this with a personal blog where I  experimented both with my writing style and in how to pull in an audience.
The difficulty for me was in getting used to the freedom and finding my voice and in not easily letting go of the old school journalism rules of interviewing people and checking stuff.  Yes, there is a lot of poor quality stuff out there on blogs which people tell themselves is equal to good journalism. But I have found that quality can be found in many places and I have also found that many people will believe anything.
For me the attraction of blogs has always been in reading about people, seeing issues and stories through their stories. A post on that later too.

I am looking forward to the panel with Cristen Tilley, Mark Bahnisch and Axel Bruns. I like the way that both Mark and Axel frame the bigger arguments and discourse. Sometimes it is
difficult to focus on these issues outside of the normal requirement to survive.
For me, I see many opportunities and the debate fascinates me, but I get waylaid by the next assignment, which I must do, unfortunately not to save our democracy, but to pay the bills…

Journalism of the future: Brisbane

This is a new blog, created after accepting an invitation to appear on a panel at the Future of Journalism event in Brisbane, a joint initiative of the MEAA and the Walkley Foundation, on September 13, 2008. The invitation followed a debate that was drawn in part from the blog I wrote on a voluntary basis for the  Byron Bay Writers Festival in July . The discussion on the Larvatus Prodeo blog that followed was all good fun, if diverting from my work. The question I posed in the festival blog was, “are the blogs the antithesis of thought?” Clearly, I don’t think so. It was good to see George Megalogenis of The Australian and Francis Wheen the British author and journalist enter the fray on a blog. Other journalists might not.

I’ve worked as a journalist for years but the festival was my first go at live event blogging. I confess to being somewhat distracted because one day of the festival was washed out and I was also there to pitch my novel to a leading publisher, something of a big deal to me.

When I was invited onto the Future of Journalism panel, after recovering from the initial shock of no fee, even for impoverished freelancers, I had to clear up a couple of misconceptions. One was that I still worked for the Financial Times. I did for many years but I’m now a freelancer. The other was that I am anti-blogging. I have blogged on and off (off lately)  since 2003. Unlike most journalists I started blogging separately to my work. It was anonymous, and consequently, you will find no link. Anywhere. And when I put in the hours it was very popular and even earned a little money. Mostly I used it as a back room, a venue to vent, a testing ground with an audience, or a place to park thoughts too thin, or that I had no time, outlet, or wish to develop into journalism.

I am over the professional journalist v amateur blogger debates having wrestled in that mud field some years ago. Much more interesting to me is how bloggers, (and when I say bloggers I think the definition is widening all the time) can fulfill some of the important functions of journalism, and how journalists can bring blogging into their practice, indeed how they must. More on that later too. My perspective is from that of a long-time journalist and part-time tutor.   At the risk of being too much like the old fashioned broadsheet kind of journalist that in part I will always be, I’ll stop now and say more in a later post.

Oh, and more about the title of this blog later.