W12 Lecture: Investigative Journalism

Most good journalism is investigative, or Shoe Leather Journalism. Investigation in journalism is about discovering truths and deviations from the truth. It should be intelligent (know your purpose and be prepare yourself to encounter troubles), informed (if you are not informed about the basic aspects and facts, you can miss the true story), intuitive (explore your hunches), inside (try to get exclusive information-to do this, the interviewee must be able to trust you), involved (invest your time and effort to be thorough) and interactive (interview, observe, research, watch for leaks, briefings and documents).

Good investigative journalism should be the critical and thorough. Wherever possible, it should provide civic voice to the voiceless, therein becoming the "custodians of conscience" and enablers of social justice-exposing society to itself . By doing this, investigative journalism may hold those with power to account as "the Fourth Estate". This Fourth Estate allows freedom of information so that democracy functions properly. It keeps 'the man'-the government, legislation, the judges/ judiciary and the police etc. on their toes, so they don't get away with injustices against the people by abusing their power.

Bruce gave some famous examples of when investigative journalism and the media have exposed the powerful to bring about justice, including "the Moonlight State", Wikileaks, the Watergate Scandal (the investigations prior to the Frost and Nixon interviews) and the Fitzgerald Enquiry. *There have really been many more instances of this, I think. I mean, any time there is ever a scandal in Parliament, it is always the media who have uncovered it, or at least helped in making it known the the public. As you could expect, the powers being exposed for wrong doing generally try to weasel their way out of the blame *cough cough* Craig Thomson acting as if his Union credit card paid for those prostitutes itself: yeah right! Because of the nature of Australia's governmental and judicial systems, thankfully Thomson is probably not going to get away with his offences. This is not the case in other countries though, where the level of corruption is so high and freedom of speech and press is so severely suppressed that the powerful offenders do get away with their crimes. Not only that, but if the journalists actually manage to expose the things the powerful don't want in the public sphere, the 'messengers' may be literally shot, or worse. It all depends on how corrupt the government and the military etc. are, and how much control they have.

Triangulation of whether what you have been told, what you have seen and what was recorded match up can be a rule for checking the validity of your story. Investigative journalists should take a sceptical-not cynical-approach to the information they discover. A current goal for them should be to improve the quality of their stories, and not follow the trend of churnalism, by being thorough and reliable, checking their sources and doing vast amounts of research. Some advice to keep in mind when compiling an investigative story: check your facts, assume nothing, expect whistle blowers to go and BE crazy. *Investigative journalism can change society and the world...Or maybe that's just because a couple of superheros work for the media?

Some good investigative journalism programs are Australian Story, the 7:30 Report, Four Corners and Hungry Beast. *Hungry Beast was a really accessible, intelligent, interesting and entertaining program, advertised as "Youth Orientated Investigative Journalism", but it's a bit unconventional and offensive at times. Here's a link to a review on it and my encourage it to watch it, it's a great show.
http://www.bhatt.id.au/blog/hungry-beast-youth-oriented-investigative-journalism-abc-tv-review/

 -Bon

W6 Lecture: Commercial Media

"Commercial media sells eyeballs and ears to advertisers."

Commercial media  encompasses:

   -Freeview: channels 9, 7, 10 and their digital counterparts GO!, 7mate, Extra etc.

   -Pay TV: Foxtel, Austar.

   -The news companies: News Limited, Fairfax.

Public media in Australia includes ABC 1,2,3 & 24 and SBS etc.

For commercial media, the viewing, reading, and listening audience aren't really the customers, despite what the commercial companies may want you to think. Commercial media is not funded by the government, making it business dependent, therefore; commercial media is profit and share-holder driven. The three forms of funding it uses are sponsorship (normal Freeview commercial stations 7, 9, 10 etc.), subscription (pay TV-Foxtel etc.), and subsidised (partly government funded). It has three essential focuses: commercial (making a profit), social (informing and entertaining the public), and propaganda (influencing the consumer). *On the topic of propaganda, I was amazed to learn that Fox News is considered the most trusted news in America. o_O

*The topic of trust is actually rather interesting, as the commercial side of things facilitates the social side, but if there is too much slant on the news, the viewers will not trust that station or news. Just think of Nine News' "You can trust us..."-and that just sounded so creepy out of context.

The media has a social responsibility in democracy as a:

1. truthful, intelligent, and comprehensive account of the day's events

2. forum for the exchange of comments and opinions

3. representation of societal groups

4. presentation of the goals and values of society

"The first duty [of the media] is to shun the temptations of monopoly. It's primary office is the gathering of news. At the peril of it's soul it must see that the supply is not tainted. Neither in what it gives, nor in what it does not give, nor in the mode of presentation must the unclouded face of truth suffer wrong. Comment is free, but facts are sacred." -C.P. Scott (Editor/Owner of The Guardian)

To make sure that everyone is behaving themselves, the ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority) and the Australian Press Council enforce broadcasting guidelines. The 'ethical wall' ensures commercial-social functions are upheld, a separation of Church and State, if you will (Simons). The ethical walls should balance the pressures of profits and public interests (social responsibility). However, over-regulation is also detrimental to reliability in the media, as seen with Steven Conroy's bid to sensor the internet. This is fraught, as the regulations are dependent on someone's opinions, and thus, is subjective.
 

Do the pressures on commercial media make it favour profit over quality and social responsibility? Are these pressures to blame for the atrocities of tabloidisation: A Current Affair and Today Tonight?

*If it isn't already obvious, I prefer to watch non-commercial TV-ABC- which is due in a big way to over-dramatised and conspiracy hype programs like ACA and TT. Tabloidisation also means that commercial media is somewhat 'dumbed down'.

A challenge facing commercial media (Oh, you poor babies) is competition. The high level of competitiveness results from that fragmentation of the media and internet popularity. An additional challenge is advertisement controls as it reduces revenue. From all of these challenges, the stations lose revenue, resulting in more 'bad quality' programs, predominantly in the form of bought-in programs (mainly American sit-coms) that are then endlessly rerun.*I think you can only watch reruns of Seinfeld, I dream of Jeannie, and Charmed so many times before you you convert to non-commercial media.

So how does commercial media continue from here?

"The only way to sell something here [programs in Australian TV] is by being able to sell it overseas."-DR BR

*I, would watch commercial stations if they had better quality programming. I would like to add that if the advertising was were more targeted, I would not be put off quite so much. Being bombarded with life or funeral insurance plans while eating lunch in front of the TV isn't anyone's ideal chilled-out lunch. Oh, not to mention being visually assaulted by the ridiculously dark tan "ahhhhhmazing Zumba-ahhhhhhbs" a particular advertisement features.

With that, I leave you to chew over the content of week 6 lecture; and don't worry, this deal will not require 3 instalments of $39.95.

-Bon