Qed

The other contest

On Tuesday when the Libs kick out the petulant Malcolm Turnbull for his blatant disregard of Nick Minchin’s point of view there will ensue a small tussle between the hard right of the Liberal Party represented by the mad monk, Tony Abbott or possibly, all-time funny man Kevin Andrews and the “popular front bencher” and family man Joe Hockey who apparently received the anointment of the great John Howard on the weekend.

But another tussle is unfolding. Last week following their rather lame coverage of the original fracas, the ABC announced special programming for Tuesday morning, starting 9am to cover this highly entertaining political soap opera. I mean you just know something is important when the ABC cancels its regular TV to give you the wit and insight of Barry Cassidy and company. But not to be outdone, John Bergin on Sky has just announced via twitter (since twitter is apparently the way we do things now) that he has

Just finished a long teleconference organising tomorrow’s coverage of the leadership #spill. We’ll have rolling coverage from 8am AEDT.

Wow! What a circus. How come both of these networks can throw these sort of resources at what is really a storm in the teacup of domestic politics and completely ignore the huge number of other issues that really matter?

A casualty of the Liberal implosion?

It seems that the government’s plan to achieve structural separation of Telstra are not going to make it through the Senate this year. Hours of debate over the CPRS (Continue Polluting Regardless Scheme) has meant the bills will now sit in the todo list until next year.

Of course the bills were part bluff to start with. Conroy was using two devices to get Telstra to talk, one was the threat of legislation, the other was in the form of government approval of RF spectrum sales. Between these two measures Telstra has very little option but to accede to the governments wishes. However as the CCC notes in their press release almost a month ago, the proposed bill includes scrutiny of any deal done between the government and Telstra by the ACCC. A deal done under existing laws is effectively outside of this provision.

So what? Well as the CCC puts it rather bluntly, there is a lot of potential here for a handshake deal done in secret while the bills languish over the summer recess. Telstra is no fan of the ACCC and would no doubt prefer a deal with the government that avoided the scrutiny of the ACCC. It also means that public benefits from competition might be traded away in such negotiations leaving Telstra in a stronger market position than it might otherwise have been.

Still with all the media attention on the Liberal party and the CPRS, it’s easy to see how this little matter might have escaped their otherwise eagle eyed vigilance of government business.

The revolution might be twittered, but don’t count on it.

While Julie Posetti wants us to believe in the power of the twitterverse to achieve significance in the way news is reported, I think her comments overlook some aspects of how news is made and she asserts a significance for twitter which seems to gloss over some of the “noisy” aspects of that particular internet space. Although a claim that Twitter was the centre of the media universe during a week of political/media hyperbole seems extravagant it certainly is another avenue for media dissemination.

Mark Bahnisch at LP seems more circumspect in his comments. He describes the read/reflect approach to reporting news as

a normative pronouncement

compared to twitter,

a description of social reality

without advocating one as better than the other while still acknowledging the relative strengths of each. What Mark seems to be saying is that the social aspect of the new media landscape, its degree of interactivity that is perhaps illustrated by Twitter and blogs, represents another equally valid form of news reporting. Julie’s and Mark’s comments both reflect a shift in the reporting of some news but while tweets have become another instant message that can alert us to something and social interactivity can drive to a certain extent a political agenda, I think both points of view ignore the role of the professional gatekeepers and PR bots.

In a comparison between old media or MSM and the new media world, the role of the gatekeepers and key players play in disseminating news does not appear to be significantly different. Our sources of news are still filtered by privileged media professionals and media savvy players who can manipulate their particular media strength to reflect a particular agenda. The tools might have changed but so far there seems little evidence that the changed tools have actually produced a more participatory democratic system. Not that a rumoured 100,000 emails from the Bolta camp in support of Tony Abbott isn’t significant, but just how many emails and messages flow from the public on this issue is really hearsay and therefore cannot be confidently articulated.

The popular adoption of twitter as a conversational tool amongst media makers does seem to allow the public to see a broader picture of the news, one which seems to overlap generally with other internet media, if they so choose. The new media makers who engage with the web as their primary tool also tend to overlap in various new media platforms even if they are also active in traditional non-internet msm. For the new media makers, tools like twitter, blogs, websites, fb and so on differentiate the message and audiences to a certain extent, but that’s just the push-model side. The speed of adaption and change is much faster in the online space which is why I think some traditional msm media makers are perhaps not as keyed into things like twitter. Their interests are ultimately not particularly well served if they break their news on that medium since it has a very limited reach and if they do break news on twitter it is almost always as a pointer to a more significant source.

The news coming out of Parliament house is a strange beast in one way. Elsewhere, if something newsworthy happens in the public domain then members of the public have pretty much the same level of access as a professional media maker to the basics of the event, the when, where and who, for example a large public demonstration. On the other hand, Parliament House and the associated private media spaces that are the sources of this political story, and others like it, are largely off limits to the public. Sure the public can attend the chambers of parliament, but the business side of Parliament House is restricted. The Press Gallery occupy a privileged position courtesy of the political system and they are not likely to sabotage that.

Why is this relevant? Well it seems to me that the much vaunted democratisation of the news media via things like twitter fails to acknowledge that in some areas, the public is utterly dependent on professional media makers to tell them what’s going on. Sure we can tweet and blog about what we see or hear or read in the msm but that information is already filtered. I suspect the discretionary tweets from a few journalists out of Parliament House is more about building audiences (followers) than it is about dissemination of information to the wider public even if that is a by-product. Things like the Liberal Party leadership woes are significant stories only because the media says so, and we must rely on the media to provide almost all of our primary information. Social commentary while important is still dependent of the gatekeepers to break the news. If David Spears had not read out a sms live on air half the tweets on #spill would never have been written but if he did so and twitter didn’t exist then we can only speculate about how his peers in the rest of the MSM would have responded. In this scenario (a parallel universe where twitter doesn’t exist) it seems far-fetched to assume that other news sites who are most likely also watching Sky would not have reacted in a similar fashion to the newsworthiness of David’s impromptu news break.

Whether or not any of this new media or old media coverage of the subtleties and nuances of a political party’s internal machinations makes any real difference to what the public ends up thinking in a week’s time when the dust settles is doubtful. The headline news come monday or tuesday on the leadership is probably the only thing of real interest to anyone outside of the small coterie of political junkies that comment on blogs or tweet their hourly thoughts and especially when the story in question has little bearing on anything affecting the public’s daily reality. What the last week has demonstrated to this writer is that PR and media professionals are quickly adopting and adapting to the new forms of media without a substantial change in the fundamental relationship between politicians, the media and the public. The political bunfight is still an event publicised and produced by media professionals (would be or actual) for the distraction of the public. Compared with real issues such as climate change and keeping body and soul together, who said what to who and why during a week of political cloak and daggery in Canberra and Sydney is, a relatively small matter.

Political coverage on TV

Over 18 months ago the fearless poetry spouting leader of the ABC, Mark Scott made quite a splash about another jewel in the Ultimo crown, a so-called continuous news centre. This worthy initiative was mean to herald a 24hr news service to all Australians, not just those who are prepared to pay for Sky News. According to Scott –

A digital age service, the CNC will ultimately deliver news 24 hours a day to every outlet of the ABC

Unfortunately for the Australian public as viewers, the CNC hasn’t really delivered. Sky News has basically murdered the ABC for speed of getting news to air as tonight’s little fracas with the Liberal Party demonstrates.

In the space of an hour and a half from 7pm, the start of the National ABC bulletin, Sky were all over the story with a complete coverage of the Turnbull presser, as well a series of relevant face to face interviews with senior liberal party politicians. The ABC with a Parliamentary news bureau that dwarfs the resources of Sky could barely manage to get a stream of the Turnbull presser out. As for web content, the problem is that while the ABC journalists were busy generating text and feeding the archaic ABC web platform, Sky is going live on the bigpond site around the country.

The other problem is that the public through their taxes pay for the ABC. The Mark Scott CNC sounds fantastic but as Sky has demonstrated via Bigpond, putting a studio output on the web isn’t rocket science. Instead of grandstanding Mark Scott should do the right thing by the journalists and production staff of the ABC and give the ABC news a chance of being seen to be as good as Sky, otherwise what are we paying for?

Yes Sky are playing the continuous news cycle vs the ABC’s carefully considered and measured reporting but when news breaks, continuous coverage wins in terms of relevance. If you win an audience with breaking news, they are more likely to turn back to you the next time. Of course a complete cynic might observe that Mark Scott really isn’t interested in actually promoting journalism and news coverage at the ABC, he just wants to play tootsies with Planet Janet and her boss (who happens to own a third of Sky.)

The evidence…

Dodge this…

Turnbull’s Wikipedia hack

Around 12.48pm Oz eastern time someone really thought Malcolm’s days as opposition leader were over. SBSnews tweeted the joy around that time but soon after Malcolm narrowly defeated the shadows in his own party his Wikipedia page reverted to its former glory. A contrite and conciliatory Mr Turnbull will now have the clearly divided support of his partyroom hacks who will be busy making plans while all parroting their support for the leader. Best soap opera in town…

In other news the authors of the Copenhagen Diagnosis 2009 today released a report that predicts

global mean warming could reach as high as 7 degrees Celsius by 2100.

and

global sea-level rise may exceed 1 meter by 2100, with a rise of up to 2 meters considered an upper limit by this time.

Fiddling while Rome burns….

Mick Jagger – A Life photo

For all the hype about how creative musicians are, has the pop/rock-n-roll culture moved on from 60s and 70s? Parties, drugs, showtime…

eBook story | Fast Company

Something about this story bugs me. Maybe its the bare facts, $46 Mil vs $1260 Mil which is about 3% of the total market volume putting eBooks around nuisance value. If you look at the $46M it also includes $22M for one title alone, the ubiquitous Dan Brown so the claim

that eBooks have sold like hotcakes without a marketing or sales strategy

seems a little overblown. Another way of looking at the result is to say that Random House are doing the world’s trees a favour by selling that many versions of The Lost Symbol as eBooks. It also means they are less likely to be cluttering up the second hand market after December.

But given the financial success of TLS and this line about how

eBooks are more profitable than print because there is no physical inventory, and in many cases the publisher has negotiated lower royalty payments

you might be inclined to think this is just another face of innovation driven by corporate greed.

I think when the eBook reader comes out that is 100% recyclable and does not hook the reader into a interconnected corporate web with ongoing consumption and as an added bonus allows for spontaneous media sharing then you might have something that comes close to a good book. It seems like 98.5% of the market agrees…the 1.5% who buy Dan Brown obviously don’t count.

If eBooks Are the Future, Do Publishers Have a Plan? | All Up in Your Business | Fast Company.

Internet Vices – Patrick Moberg

Internet Vices – Patrick Moberg.

FT.com / Media – Microsoft and News Corp eye web pact

Not long ago I linked to Jason Clacanis’s video where he talked about the potential for News Corp to play off Bing against Google and today the Financial Times has another more concrete looking story which suggests that the Microsoft News marriage is all but done and dusted. News brings a fat dowry of rich media and Microsoft brings Bing and a huge desire to rule the known universe. Should be a beautiful marriage which is sure to beget some truly bastardised progeny.

Normally on the occasion of the happy nuptials one is supposed to wish the newlyweds all sorts of good tidings so in the spirit of the occasion I guess I can say that if ever a couple were made for each other, it is News.corpse and the Borg. I’m guess we will just have to wait for the Windows only version of the newspaper we have to have.

This could become a very interesting little threesome if Google decides to start stitching up some content but unfortunately I think it does herald the beginning of the end of the “free” net. Sure plenty of free stuff will remain but the market for so-called “rich media content” on the internet has just got serious.

UPDATE!
Just for good measure I have decided to disallow the Bing bot from my site until Microsoft decides to offer me money, it seems only fair and reasonable. I mean if the stuff on Murdoch’s sites is worth money…

FT.com / Media – Microsoft and News Corp eye web pact.