C. Gardiner Baby Boomer, Hobart
NEWSPAPERS across the country, and around the world, are facing a crisis in the electronic age, and they could have done without the spreading impact of the Global Financial Crisis. The combination of both is building the likes of a perfect storm, and the effects can be seen in Tasmania. The two northern papers, the Advocate and the Examiner, are now in the Fairfax stable, and the job-shedding and cutbacks in this company at a national level have been breathtaking. The Mercury in Hobart is part of the News Limited empire of Australian-born and now US-based citizen Rupert Murdoch, and his interests have been taking a battering across the planet.

News Ltd, the world’s largest and most diverse media empire, has certainly been feeling pain, and critics have emphasized the exposure this business has due to its huge investment in newspapers. The fact that Rupert Murdoch’s roots are in the print media have led commentators to suggest that he has demonstrated undue faith in that area, which perhaps explains why he has until quite recently continued to pay large sums of money for yet more newspaper assets. Alarming falls in circulation and revenues from advertising are causing media and business analysts to ask whether this is the dying gasps of a media dinosaur passing into extinction. While many of us would find it hard to imagine newspapers disappearing altogether, it is interesting to look at the local symptoms in a far-flung outpost of this global empire, the Hobart Mercury. Well, the following is my view of it, anyway.

I have been curious to figure out why the Mercury has taken the stance that it has on covering the protests in the Upper Florentine, and whether there are any deeper explanations. At first, I thought it was just because there is a younger, wet-behind-the-ears bunch of journalists who feel they have more in common with the protesters than with government, or industry, or the ‘establishment’, that this issue has been covered with more sympathy than you would expect. But then I started to realize that modern tabloid journalism thrives on conflict and controversy, and the more the better. “It sells papers, stupid!” would be the explanation. Maybe I’m getting cynical. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized there may be another explanation, which is that newspapers need to attract a following among younger readers to ensure their very survival. Maybe they realize there are so many other communication opportunities that are attractive to them that they need to make a special effort to capture them. In doing so they are probably gambling on the belief that they are not going to lose their older readership. At least, they would be hoping that such would be the case! I wouldn’t be so confident. Nor would I be confident that they could hold a younger readership, even if they had convinced themselves that they had captured them in the first place.

Young people are by nature capricious, and attracted to anything else that is new and different, and the phenomena of facebook, and myspace, and many other things make traditional newspapers look very passe. Gadgets like the Blackberry, and the opportunities presented by the likes of Digg and Twitter must be making them feel utterly scared. (I heard where images of the unfolding Hudson River jet emergency were circulating on Twitter while the plane was still in the air! How can silly old newspapers compete with that?)
The attempts so far by newspapers to run online pages have been pretty feeble. They have been under-resourced, and run in an awkward, heavy-handed fashion that reflects newspapers’ obsession with litigation that follows the printed word, which is hardly the recipe to ignite the passions of a younger readership.

And really, I don’t see much evidence of a younger readership becoming settled, buying daily, or subscribing to home delivery of the local newspaper. I also don’t see them looking to classified advertisements as was traditionally the case. Buying their first car, or selling a car, the first thing they do is go online. A young friend of mine recently decided to sell a car, and newspaper advertising did not even enter his head. In fact, I can’t think of a single instance of him actually buying a newspaper, ever! He was fielding calls on his mobile half an hour after posting his car on the net, and he sold it on the same day. I was amazed.

Conversely, I am becoming aware of more of the older, traditional newspaper buyers becoming frustrated, and discontinuing buying them. In Hobart I am amazed at the number of people in quite senior positions in the public service and the commercial sector who admit they actively avoid the local paper. Another friend who is an engineer in a private consultancy used to write the occasional letter to the editor, but recently told me he no longer even bothers to read the letters or the editorials. This can’t be a good sign.

A number of organizations connected to the forest industry have recruited journalists to their staff to address the activities of the anti-forestry groups, most of which display a fair degree of competence in managing their media presence. The forestry organisations have frequently criticised newspapers, and other sections of the media, for becoming too close, or too influenced, and even partisan in their coverage of forestry issues. Some individuals were sufficiently moved to discuss ways of exerting influence to encourage a boycott of important revenue streams for newspapers, and the advertising of real estate, new and used vehicles, and job vacancies were specified. No action was taken, and anyway it sounded to me like it was tempting fate with the Trade Practices Act!

I am also aware from a friend in the Labor party that during the last year of the Lennon premiership some branch members were discussing proposing to the state government that public notices and state service job vacancies be moved to a website, or to a trader publication that has a statewide circulation. The discussion was around whether it would have any impact on the nature of reportage, and what impact it would have on circulation, turnover and viability. Another suggestion was that all state advertising be put out to tender for a single provider to deliver a statewide service. Nothing would have stopped the successful bidder from on-selling to others who were not successful in the bidding process, but it would have certainly fuelled the race between the print media empires to secure statewide dominance!

For my own part, I can say that my household regularly discusses the value, or lack of it, of the local paper, and whether we should discontinue home delivery. I must admit, it is opened each morning with an interest to see what the bastards are on about this time, and as a focus for something to swear at, rather than being likely to contain anything new, useful, or uplifting. The daily ritual begins with trying to find where the plastic wrap starts, and efforts to flatten the thing out. A friend suggested putting it in the microwave for twenty seconds, and this really works! It doesn’t improve the content, though.

In conclusion, it is my observation that newspapers everywhere are in trouble, and here it is not being helped by the fact that the standard of print journalism and the general appearance of newspapers in Tasmania has shrunk to a sorry state, that the attempts to capture and keep a younger readership are half-hearted, cheap, and pathetic, and are unlikely to work anyway, and are only succeeding in alienating an established readership that are also not as loyal either. It also seems there are many that, through their disinterest, and their alienation, are helping to drive nails into the coffin. The show may not be over just yet, but the fat lady is waiting in the wings, and she is clearing her throat…