Wallace Chapman
It was a pleasure to be invited to be a moderator at the keynote panel at the Pacific Media Centre's conference on investigative journalism at AUT University on December 4/5. It was a pleasure because of the calibre of those involved in the panel.
All multi-award winners, Australian professor Wendy Bacon, editor of the Nepali Times Kunda Dixit, senior lecturer and Knight fellow of Stanford University Bill Birnbaur as well as New Zealand independent journalist Jon Stephenson, brought various opinions to the table about the present state of current affairs and journalism, and its technological seismic shifts.
I was particularly interested in the relationship youth have with journalism today. I started off with a quote from the British Journalism Review suggesting that young people in particular seem to be less interested in "traditional news consumption". Professor Bacon was very hopeful. She maintained that new technologies were the ray of hope and that dissemination of stories that mightn't have made their way to the press now have a chance for airing, which has to be good for transparency.
Bacon said that the appetite for investigative journalism in Australia among the youth is strong: "We have more students wanting to enrol in investigative journalism than anything else. There is a huge capacity to exaggerate, and every generation looks at young people, and says the problem is with young people, but I actually think the problem lies with our generation giving up."
Jon Stephenson was hopeful but offered warnings. He suggested that some young people had a superficial sense of what it was to be a journalist, and that young people were particularly susceptible to the "theatre of journalism". He's certainly not the first person that has suggested this.
"When I talk to young journalists wanting to be war correspondents, I generally find their interest in it is very superficial. It's often seen as a way of advancing their career, to get a bit of Iraq on their CV."
Jon's main point was not that youth were incapable or innately disinterested in current affairs or journalism. Rather, given the almost unbelievable pressure brought to bear on youth by a society almost completely saturated in consumerism, how can it be otherwise? Stephenson likened it to a family eating at McDonalds every day for tea. If that's what you're going to be fed and brought up on, what are the actual chances of recognising quality? A salient point.
One journalism student in the audience commented on the attention span of young people changing with people wanting updates faster then ever, and technologies like twitter indicating a preference for short bytes of information.
"I think the issue is that there is so much information available. We do spend less time at each place we visit online, but the reason is that we can browse much more efficiently for what we are interested in and when we find a story of interest, we click on it and go more in-depth."
The issue of immediacy was seen as both a positive and a hindrance. Stephenson quoted someone who joked that in their newsroom it was seen as more important being first than being accurate. Except that it wasn't a joke.
Social issues journalist Simon Collins from The New Zealand Herald was in the audience. He is one who has succeeded in putting in-depth feature stories into the paper that will span several days. He was fairly guarded when asked how he pitches his ideas and whether he gets support for his ongoing features, but the point is that he is doing it.
It was a great event and well worth doing again. Congratulations to the Pacific Media Centre for putting it on.
Oh, and speaking of youth, what a great night at Back Benches last Wednesday. Our youth wing special, I thought, showed that our political future is in capable hands. It also showed me that as far as what I see at Back Benches, there are a good number of young people very interested in the issues facing society today. There is hope!
And remember, we have two end of year shows. Our Christmas show is on Wednesday December 15, and we have an extra show on Thursday December 16 at The Backbencher. You're most welcome to come! It will be our last Wellington shows for 2010. - Backbenches
Pacific Media Centre
