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In defense of journalism, with Anthony De Ceglie
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Australiana is now Fire at Will - your safe space for dangerous conversations.
It’s easy to forget that journalists were once invested with immense trust by citizens. This is no longer the case. Journalists are amongst the least trusted members of society, and it has been largely self-inflicted.
The rise of activist journalism over objective journalism, the rush for online clicks, and the narcissistic desire of too many to transition from being journalists to media personalities has blighted the profession. The question is, is journalism beyond saving?
Anthony De Ceglie is well placed to answer the question. Anthony was the Deputy Editor at the Daily Telegraph, and is now Editor in Chief of West Australian newspapers, including The West Australian, and the editor in chief of Seven West Media’s new evening digital newspaper, The Nightly.
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Transcript
Trust in Professions: Nurses vs. Journalists
00:00:14
Speaker
G'day and welcome to Australiana from The Spectator Australia. I'm Will Kingston. Every so often, a poll comes out looking at the most and least trusted professions. Nurses always win, of course, and rightly so, with vets not far behind. Politicians always lose, again, of course, but if you were to look at the biggest mover in these polls over the last 50 years, I have absolutely no doubt it would be journalists.
00:00:44
Speaker
It's easy to forget that journalists were once invested with immense trust by citizens. American newsmen like Walter Cronkite and David Brinkley were considered to have unimpeachable integrity. Closer to home, whenever Brian Henderson would sign off the news with, that's the way it is, viewers were instilled with comfort. This is no longer the case. Journalists are amongst the least trusted members of society, and it has been largely self-inflicted.
00:01:13
Speaker
The rise of activist journalism over objective journalism, the rush for online clicks, and the narcissistic desire of too many to transition from being journalists to media personalities has blighted the profession.
00:01:26
Speaker
Question is, is journalism beyond saving? I imagine my guest today will have firm views on the question.
Challenges of Modern Journalism
00:01:33
Speaker
Anthony De Seglie was the deputy editor at The Daily Telegraph and is now editor-in-chief of West Australian newspapers, including The West Australian and the editor-in-chief of 7 West Media's new evening digital newspaper, The Nightly. Anthony, welcome to Australiana. Thanks for having me. A real pleasure to be here. A tough intro though, mate. I'll see how I go.
00:01:56
Speaker
Well, let's start there. I will ask you if journalism is beyond saving, but there's probably a presumption that sits behind that question. And that is, does journalism need saving? How would you assess the state of Western journalism today? Look, it's a good question. I don't think anyone can sort of talk, you know, for an entire profession. I mean, what I would say is that
00:02:25
Speaker
In many ways, journalism has never been stronger because you think about now there's so many different platforms, so many different ways to communicate. You know, there was once upon a time where, you know, only a certain specific professional could do radio or do TV or do print. Nowadays, journals do it all. You know, you might get leaked a document in the past. You might be able to use a few excerpts of that document, whereas now you can put the entire document online.
Audience Accountability and Media Practices
00:02:51
Speaker
What I think has happened over time, though, is that the audience has also become a lot smarter and the audience has a lot more channels and the audience has a lot more subjectivity about what they want to hear and when they want to hear it. And I think that's become a very interesting phenomenon and that's had an impact on media. I like it because it means that the audience can hold us to account, right?
00:03:15
Speaker
So it means that you can't roll your arm over. It means when you're doing a story, you have to think about all these different things and you have to imagine that the audience has so much more information at their fingertips that they can call you out on it. I like a smart audience, right? But has it held others to account and probably, you know, punctured some holes in the community? You know, I'm sure it has.
00:03:38
Speaker
Let's look at the rise of independent journalists and smaller, more niche media platforms. They've certainly diversified the media landscape. Something like The Daily Wire in the US is the paradigmatic example there. Do you see these players as being complementary to legacy media institutions, or do you see them as an existential threat?
00:04:03
Speaker
I definitely don't think it's an existential threat. I think what is fascinating is as these other players have come along and you look at, I mean, I'm sure we'll talk about the nightly in depth during the conversation, but you look at what media channels have done themselves, traditional media channels is what we've done is open up more outlets because what we have found is that people want to read more than just one
The Rise of Alternative Media
00:04:25
Speaker
channel.
00:04:25
Speaker
And so there is a political scandal. They might want to read that political scandal through five or six different voices. And so, you know, they might get a smaller voice, an alternative voice, two traditional voices. You know, my gut feeling is, is that people have never consumed more than they ever have. That's a good thing. You know, they've never had more information at their fingertips and knowing how to use it. That can only be a good thing.
00:04:53
Speaker
Well, one reason why people may go to so many different media sources, and I would put myself in this category, is because I think that objective journalism has devolved. So there isn't necessarily as many places where you can go for trusted objective down the line news.
00:05:14
Speaker
Instead, to get some level of objectivity, you almost have to go to the right wing news source, then go to the left wing news source and try and almost counterbalance them that way. Do you think it is still even possible to be objective as a journalist in 2024 in the post truth world as it's been coined?
00:05:38
Speaker
I think it is. I don't, I don't think what you're saying is wrong. I think there's pockets of that. I think sometimes I, you know, I fear about the activist journalist. I think that is a very, very interesting conundrum. I fear about young people who come in newsroom and that idea of objectivity has been lost because of social media came along and social media can be a bully.
00:06:01
Speaker
And being a young journalist is a very hard thing at the moment because you're very impressionable, you put a story up, there's a pile on on Twitter, suddenly you start second-guessing your own objectivity.
The Possibility of Objectivity in Journalism
00:06:12
Speaker
But do I think it exists? Yeah, I do. In saying all of that, 7 West Media has launched a new national website in the nightly.
00:06:21
Speaker
because we do feel like there is an audience that is looking for a mainstream middle approach to news, which is a common sense view of the news. Objective, not to left, not to right. We've launched that because we think there is an audience that is craving it that probably feels they're not getting, they're not getting served that anymore. You know, they feel like other websites are too right wing, too left wing. So, you know, it's an interesting one because I don't want to say
00:06:49
Speaker
I do think objectivity still exists and I do think most newsrooms are striving for objectivity. I think it can be harder to fight for than ever before, but I do think that, generally speaking, that is what most people get into this craft for.
00:07:06
Speaker
You mentioned young journalists there. I'm curious, since you started your career as a young cadet journalist, have you noticed any changes in the way that young journalists today go about their job or perhaps their attitude towards the role?
00:07:24
Speaker
So I'm, what am I, 38, right? And so I've been in this game for however many years since I was 21. And I started my career in journalism just when the internet was starting to take off, but it wasn't as 24 seven as it is now. So even then, yes, there was a website. Yes, we were putting stuff online really, really fast, but there wasn't this insatiable hunger from the audience and demand from the audience for a story every second.
00:07:54
Speaker
And now there is. And so it's a hard thing because our story is a story is a story, right? So every story that you publish needs to adhere to the standards of journalism. But we put more and more pressure on people to put more and more stories online and to put them online faster and faster and faster.
00:08:11
Speaker
And so young journalists put into a pretty hard spot where they're new to the newsroom. They're expected to put stories up every two seconds. They're expected to put stories up really, really fast. And it's expected from the public that the stories adhere to all the standards of you mentioned earlier. Is the quantity of output that is expected of a young journalist higher today than when you were starting your career?
00:08:35
Speaker
Definitely, definitely. You know, in a, in a perverse way, it only becomes exponentially harder or, you know, grows exponentially. And so like, I think that's fascinating. And I think, you know, again, with the nightly, one of the things we've tried to do is actually slow the pace down a little bit.
00:08:52
Speaker
and talk to our journals and our editors on the nightly about what happens if it's not so much about quantity, it's more about quality. And maybe rather than doing 20 stories, you do 10 stories, but they're the right stories. And I think that's fascinating. The other thing I would say, and I sort of touched on it earlier, is I don't think it's ever been harder to be a journalist.
00:09:16
Speaker
Because the social media attacks and bullying and trolling is hard. Like, it is hard. I'm a cynical, thick-skinned journo, right? When I first started, I would get maybe two or three letters a week saying they want to kill me for some story I've written. Like, you know, and it was serious. You would get a death letter once or twice a week, not happy with what you're doing. I'm going to hunt you down.
00:09:42
Speaker
Make you pay i mean young journals getting that you know they're getting two hundred messages a day saying that's that and it's scary i think the general public gives them credit for it's a scary thing when your public instagram profile gets social gets trolled.
00:10:00
Speaker
And people are saying, you know, we know who your friends are. We know that your partner is this person and we're going to come after you. I mean, that, that is a scary thing. And so all of that adds to this environment we're in at the moment where I think being a young reporter, being impressionable, if you don't have good leadership around you, there can be a recipe for disaster.
00:10:19
Speaker
Yes, it was interesting reading your interview with Kim Williams, the new ABC head, just the other day. And I noted his comment that he wished young journalists would get off Twitter, I imagine, partly for that reason. Another interesting insight there is you said that there is a real desire on your part to go from delivering 20 articles to finding the 10 articles that are the really good ones or the ones that really matter.
00:10:48
Speaker
How do you go about, as an editor, how do you go about the process of working out? What are those 10 really good ones as opposed to the other 10 that maybe aren't necessary or as necessary for a reader?
00:11:01
Speaker
Yeah, it's a fascinating thing too, because I mean, one of the issues we have is it's a data-driven business these days. And it used to just be a gut instinct business, right? It used to be you rely on your gut instinct that this is what people wanted. Then it became a data-driven business. I actually think it got too far down the data path.
00:11:22
Speaker
You could probably, on a map or on a timeline, match the data-driven focus with the rise of clickbait. Because once you saw a story was doing well, you would double down and triple down. And once you saw a headline, a form of story would do well, you'd double down, triple down.
00:11:41
Speaker
I think what's really fascinating is it's beyond time now that we actually re-look at some of the data that we trade on. We trade on a thing called unique browsers, which is just individuals. Like how many individuals, you know, you'll hear the top two or three websites in the country talk about we've had X million people come to our site each month. What they don't tell you is some of those people are spending 15 seconds on that site.
00:12:05
Speaker
Clicking on one story and then clicking out and never coming back to the site so we trade on that we trade on the thing called page impressions which is just how many people have clicked on something on your side but we don't ever talk about where they in that story for ten seconds within that story for four minutes. You know i'm interested in looking.
00:12:24
Speaker
entirely freshly at the environments that our news websites provide for audiences. And also, like, what does that mean for the audience? We need to be able to trade on focus, on intent, on actual engagement, on time on site. So they're the things that I'm becoming more and more fascinated with in terms of the decisions that we make as a news website.
00:12:46
Speaker
There's a tension here though isn't there because there is the noble ambition of doing the right thing as a newsman or a newswoman but also the cold hard facts are that the commercial model of most digital news platforms relies on advertising which relies on clicks. How do you go about balancing that ambition with the reality of being a profitable digital media business.
00:13:14
Speaker
Yeah, 100% right about that is the conundrum. But I think one of the answers to that is us news folk getting better at talking about what matters so that advertisers understand. Like if I'm an advertiser and I want to sell a fridge.
00:13:30
Speaker
I'd much rather have a smaller audience that actually spends time on my site, is highly engaged on my site, rather than have a bigger audience that actually comes and goes in 10 second bursts. And so I don't know, I think part of it is the industry itself being smarter and talking in a much more intelligent manner about who we're chasing, why we're chasing. And like everything, when it comes to metrics, so much of it is ego based. And if we could just leave our egos at the door,
00:13:58
Speaker
it would be a much better environment for everyone. We'd have better quality news websites, better stories, better engagement with our audiences and maybe even more money from advertisers. I call those metrics vanity metrics and you're right, they are prevalent in media. There's a separate but related topic here and that is AI and how AI will and indeed already is influencing the way that you say would run a newsroom.
AI in Newsrooms: A New Age
00:14:28
Speaker
What's your take on the way that AI is changing the media landscape? Yeah, I'm bullish on the benefits of AI because I think a lot of what we do, my thing about AI is that it's never going to replace the fundamental thing of journalism, which is picking up the phone, talking to people and breaking a yard, right?
00:14:52
Speaker
The one thing AI is not going to do is reveal a scoop. But what it can do is lessen the load of a lot of the stuff we do that takes us away from journalism. And a good example is, so we use an AI tool on thewest.com. So the West Australian website is quite fascinating because it's a dynamic paywall, which in short means we don't lock every story. We decide some stories we should lock and put behind a paywall.
00:15:19
Speaker
Some stories might already be out in the ether on the ABC and other free websites. So what's the point of locking them? Let's free them up. Now we were making that decision on a human basis. So my digital producers would put a story together, put it online and then make a manual decision. Should we lock this story or unlock it?
00:15:36
Speaker
We invested in a tool called Sophie AI, which now just tells us. It runs the algorithms, runs the patterns of the day, searches Google, and says to us, lock this story, don't lock that story. Now using Sophie AI has increased our page impressions and our subscriptions, but what it's also done is probably unlock
00:15:55
Speaker
10% of my digital production team's capacity. That 10% can then go into actual journalism. And so for me, it's about how can AI unlock menial tasks that can then free up proper journalism. And again, like that's only a good thing. I'm really bullish on the positives that come with AI.
00:16:16
Speaker
Dig deeper on that term, proper journalism and indeed what that looks like. But before we do, just out of curiosity, what are the parameters around which that AI tool would decide whether something should be paywalled or free? Yeah, it's kind of like I can't tell you all of them off the top of my head, but it's a range of factors from.
00:16:36
Speaker
How many other sites are running the story if those sites are free or not free? Has this particular theme picked up a sub in the past or has it not picked up a sub, sorry, a subscription in the past or not? That sort of stuff. But the point is, is it's an Elgar River. And you know, it's fascinating. Like when we brought it into the newsroom, we'd often have reporters go or had editors, digital producers say, you know, no, no, Sophie's wrong. It should be locked.
00:17:01
Speaker
or Sophie's wrong, it should be free. And you had to actually sit them down and remind them when you're talking about like a super computer algorithm here, like it knows better than you. It's better than your gut instinct. And so yeah, it was fascinating. But again, like the moment we can teach AI to do the sports tables in regional newspapers, that will be a godsend.
00:17:23
Speaker
And then the amount of time we waste doing menial tasks in newspapers is quite profound, right? So if we can get AI to help with that stuff, it can only unlock us to do more journalism. That makes sense.
Balancing Newsroom Demands
00:17:38
Speaker
Let's look at proper journalism and what it looks like on a day-to-day basis. I want to get a feel for the rhythms of a newsroom. Take me through what your day as an editor looks like in 2024.
00:17:54
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, the best way to answer that is to say I don't have a life, to be honest. It is a real editor in chief role. So I'm the editor in chief of the West Australian, which is daily newspaper, Sunday Times, our Sunday newspaper. We have a clickbait website called Perf Now.
00:18:10
Speaker
We have 19 regional newspapers and we have 12 suburban newspapers. We also run a live streaming community sport platform called Streamr. And we've recently just launched 7 West Media's national masthead denitely. So it is a overarching editor-in-chief role across all of those platforms.
00:18:29
Speaker
And so like for me, like the God's honest truth is, is I'm normally up by 5 a.m. every day. Normally go to bed if I'm lucky 12, 30, 1 a.m. So like it is a nonstop 24, 7 circus. But you know, my days kind of have rhythms. Like I wake up at 5, check my emails. You know, we have a 7 a.m. news meeting. I'll check in on that. We have a 9 a.m. news meeting. I'll check in on that.
00:18:53
Speaker
You know, then we have an 11 a.m. or 4 p.m. I have some papers that I put out during the day and paper that I put out at night. But the gods on a Shroof is, it's a 24-7 operation these days. Like, you can't, like, you kind of can't do the geek unless you're prepared to be on 24-7. What are the purpose of those meetings? What are you talking about? What are you trying to get out of them?
00:19:16
Speaker
Yeah, I mean like the early morning meeting is sort of like a set up, like the 7am sort of time meeting is a, hey, what's going on today? You know, like what are we at? What's, you know, is there breaking news? Has there been a horrific crime? Is there a fire? Is there, you know, what's happening in Canberra? Is this where you're trying to identify the 10 stories out of the 20?
00:19:38
Speaker
Not really. The 7am meeting is more of a, are our websites current? Are our websites reflective of what is happening right now? The 9am meeting is more of a,
00:19:51
Speaker
Okay, this is what the day is looking like. We're across it. The prime minister's out here. The premier's out there. The police commissioner is doing this. Today happens to be, I don't know, the Melbourne cup. So we need to be across that. It's more of the 11 AM meeting where you're going, okay, we know the lay of the land. We know the breaking news stories. What's our scoop? Like, you know, what have we got? Are we going with breaking news and live events because they're so big that it's ridiculous to think something's going to knock them off?
00:20:21
Speaker
Or is one of our journals got some spectacular groundbreaking scoop that we're going to go in on and go in hard. And then that sort of 4 p.m. one, which is now sort of 3 p.m., to be honest, because the nightly, you know, we're putting the nightly out at 6 p.m. Eastern standards time.
00:20:40
Speaker
But that through that sort of late Arvo meeting is more of a, okay, we've made our decisions. We're sticking with them. How's it look? And have we sense checked every part of it? Like, you know, is that story rock solid? What do the lawyers say? You know, are we happy to go with it? Even though the lawyers say there's a little bit of ifiness there. What's the front page look like? Is it a front page that is going to grab attention? If it is.
00:21:06
Speaker
That's great. If it's not, well, we need to start again and go harder. And then those late ones are, Hey, we've survived deadline. Did we get it right? Did we get it wrong? What's everyone else doing? They've done that better than us. We need to rev that up. Is there breaking news? What's happening in America?
00:21:24
Speaker
The piece that I'm particularly interested in there is the sense check part. So media organizations are coming under increased scrutiny around fact checking. There is a rise of fact checking units, for example. There's one in the ABC. I noticed Reuters has one. Some people say that there is bias in the fact checking.
00:21:46
Speaker
How do you go about ensuring that what you put out into the world is true and accurate? Yeah. I mean, we still have a pretty old school. I mean, I'm a big believer in an old school sub-editor's desk, an old school, what we call in newspaper world, the back bench, which is, you know, your assistant editors and your night editors and your deputy editors.
00:22:10
Speaker
For those really big, complex stories, like we still have at the West, at the Knightley, we still have an old school senior already, you know, the reporter files the yarn and someone who's been around for a while goes through the yarn. You can't do that on the breaking news stuff that you're trying to get up online.
00:22:29
Speaker
ASAP but even that always has two pairs of hands on it so it might be that a reporter's on the scene they send it over to a digital producer who gives it a sense check and then it goes up. I mean you can't always get it right and I do think there has to be some sort of sense of you're trying to be everything to everyone all the time and you're not always going to get things right and it is a
00:22:50
Speaker
In a way, it's quite an interesting profession because your report card is pretty public. You get something wrong and people know about it. And so I've always been the first person to put their hand up and say, I've got a lot of things wrong. Any editor or reporter who hasn't had something go wrong probably isn't being honest. But my thing is, as long as you feel like you've made the right call at the time and you can justify why you've made that call,
00:23:19
Speaker
If you get something wrong, you can live with it. The times you can't live with it is when you've got something wrong because you've been lazy. You just couldn't be stuffed checking or you couldn't be stuffed making the extra phone call or you couldn't be stuffed sending it to the lawyers. That sort of stuff's unforgivable. But I think if you feel it's the right call and you're pretty experienced and in your head, done a whole bunch of checks and you've gone, yep, I understand why we're doing this and we're going to do it. If you get something wrong, you just need to fix it as quickly as you can.
00:23:47
Speaker
Well, the follow-up question to that is, these types of fact-checking units specifically that are popping up, do you think they're on balance a good or a bad thing for media?
00:23:59
Speaker
I don't know the ins and outs of how they're operating, to be honest, but I think at the end of the day, like each journal, each sub-editor, each digital producer, each newspaper editor is their own fact-checking unit, right? You would like to think, I guess, that your newsroom doesn't need a fact-checking unit because it's acting responsibly.
00:24:21
Speaker
I would hate to think that some newsrooms are taking resources away from the traditional models of fact checking and thinking that, hey, if we strip resources out of the newsroom, but we have some sort of figurehead fact checker team, everything's going to be okay. Like I said, I'm pretty adamant about the newsrooms that I run, have an old school, call it a back bench or a sub editor's hub or whatever. I'm pretty adamant that you can't lose that from a newsroom.
00:24:48
Speaker
You know, there will be people that will say that you can and you can have reporters doing, you know, what the industry likes to call web ready or publishable copy from the get go. But I like that idea of there's a sense check from your senior staff before things go online where possible. That's a good summation of how facts can be objectively verified.
00:25:13
Speaker
There's this softer form of bias that may not be flat out lying, but it does go to how ideology influences what is in the media. So it could be things like how a story is framed, the type of language that is used, the order in which information is put in a story, what stories are chosen or not chosen. None of that is necessarily misinformation, per se.
Bias and Self-Awareness in Journalism
00:25:40
Speaker
But the way that the framing takes place can obviously put forward a particular world view or potentially some people would say it can show a bias. How do you go about monitoring that more softer perhaps insidious form of ideology in use?
00:26:00
Speaker
Going all the way back to your original proposition, there's never really been objectivity in journalism, right? Because the very act of choosing what to write about is a subjective decision, right? The very act as an editor of putting something on the front page is a subjective decision. And so like that sort of stuff, like I don't really know what the answer is to that other than,
00:26:22
Speaker
You're writing stories based on what you think is important. And then it becomes about, okay, well, what does your newspaper stand for? What does your news website stand for? The Nightly stands for common sense. The Nightly stands for middle Australia. The Nightly stands for giving a voice to people who otherwise don't have a voice.
00:26:43
Speaker
The nightly stands for like decent policy and getting rid of red tape and getting rid of green tape. Like, you know, we see ourselves as an economic conservative newspaper that is socially progressive. And so look, I do think some of that stuff comes from the top as an editor in chief, as a leader in the newsroom, you need to know what your values are, what you stand for. And then that gives your reporters and your chief of staff something to aspire to, I guess. Right.
00:27:10
Speaker
But yeah, I think you're right. I mean, I think no matter what you say or do, like journalism can't be 100% objective because the mere act of deciding what you're going to write about or choosing who you speak to is subjective. But I think self-awareness also goes a long way.
00:27:27
Speaker
I remember a really interesting gender equality report came out a few years ago that spoke about the tendency of newsrooms to only talk to people who were male and not thinking about the balance of, hey, if I'm going to do a story about this, I need to talk to
00:27:43
Speaker
a female and a male for different perspectives and stuff like that. I think the more willing you are to be self-aware about how you can improve your journalism, then you can reach some sort of level of objectivity within that space of understanding that nothing is ever really objective.
00:28:01
Speaker
I often think about the way that data is framed as well and often how the exact same data point can be framed in two different ways and convey two different meanings. So if you take that particular sex discrimination report, if you were to say three out of 10 women are
00:28:21
Speaker
Scriminated against that creates a particular perception similarly if you were to say seventy percent of women are completely happy in their jobs that creates a different perception but the same data point. How do you think about the way that numbers and data can be manipulated to push a particular message.
00:28:41
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I mean, data and, you know, data can easily be manipulated, right? But, you know, our job as journalists is to try to find a truth. And then, you know, like I said, it goes back to what are your values? Like, why are you looking, you know, what are you looking at this particular issue for in the first place? But yeah, it's funny. I mean, like I said, I think all of these things are really complex.
00:29:01
Speaker
philosophical debates. You know, my thing is you got to be able to, at the end of the day, look at yourself in the mirror and think you've done the right thing. I'm happy to say I can do that. And, you know, I try to run a newsroom where everyone can do the same. Let's turn to some more specific issues in the Australian media landscape. I mentioned that you spoke to the new head of the ABC, Kim Williams, just the other day. The ABC was founded in 1932.
00:29:30
Speaker
Needless to say, a very different media landscape. Most people had much less or a lower access to information than they do now. Do you think in an environment of almost endless sources of information that there is still a need for a public broadcaster in 2024? That's a good question. I mean, I definitely think so. I mean, I think at the end of the day,
00:29:57
Speaker
Why not have a national broadcaster, I guess. Well, a billion dollars a year, maybe one reason. Yeah, but I do think there are areas of journalism that aren't commercially profitable, no matter how many ways you spin it. Regional journalism is a tough game. I'm the editor of 19 regional newspapers.
00:30:16
Speaker
I'm really proud of those papers. Those papers actually do really well. They're profitable. They wash their own face. But, you know, a lot of other media companies in the last couple of years have shut down regional publications because they couldn't make them work. So, you know, I mean, I think there's that, I mean, there's the whole idea of emergency broadcasting is really important. There's areas of Australia that only the ABC can get to. And, yeah, I mean, I just think, look, I think I would never, ever want to argue against more journalism.
00:30:46
Speaker
Like it's not in my nature. And so, you know, I actually believe in a healthy, strong, financially viable ABC. I think Kim Williams is very fascinating choice as the ABC chair, because he is an innovator. He doesn't hold back. He thinks what he's, you know, he thinks what's on his mind. Oh, he's also quite a traditionalist as well. And, and, you know, the most interesting part of that conversation for me was Kim Williams is a very strict believer in the ABC act.
00:31:16
Speaker
And he believes it's very prescriptive about objectivity and impartiality. And the point that he was making about social media is there is an ABC act. It is the law of the land for ABC journos. It's very prescriptive about objectivity and fact-checking.
00:31:33
Speaker
Can you do that? Can you meet the Act's obligations when you are putting tweets out at a rate of knots? When you're doing 10 tweets in 10 minutes, how are you actually justifying that you're meeting the instructions of the ABC Act? And so I think that's a really fascinating point that he raised.
00:31:52
Speaker
Let's explore that in a bit more depth because obviously it is a favorite talking point of right wing figures in Australia that the ABC has a pervasive left wing bias.
00:32:04
Speaker
Do you think that's the case? I think, look, I would say the other thing I think Kim Williams said, which is fascinating too, is that any claims of bias against any media organizations have to be put into a context, right? And so what he said is, yeah, you might find that one host or one program is biased.
00:32:23
Speaker
Does that mean the entire thing's biased? You know, does that mean that a regional reporter in regional Victoria is being biased? Probably not. And I think that across everything too. I think the same. I mean, I'm a former Murdoch newspaper deputy editor, right? I grew up in the Murdoch company. And so you might think that a Murdoch columnist is biased. But I can hand on my heart, tell you that the Murdoch organization is not biased.
00:32:49
Speaker
And I can guarantee you that there are exceptional journals, like some of the best journals in this country work for the Murdoch Press. So, you know, I think what Kim Williams is trying to say is you might feel that, you know, one particular thing is biased at this particular moment in time. It doesn't mean you should tar an entire organisation with that. I thought it was quite a smart and reasonable
00:33:14
Speaker
thing to say. I was impressed with him. In terms of how you think about or how you measure objectivity as a public broadcaster, is it a simple matter of saying for a show like Q&A for every conservative panelist, you have to have a progressive panelist? Is it a mathematical equation in the newsroom, one left wing for every one right wing, or is there a different way of measuring
00:33:42
Speaker
objectivity in respect to the ABC charter. I think that plays into it, definitely. I think it's harder with a show like Q&A and look, I'll be the first to put my hand up and say, like, I've never produced a show like Q&A, right? And I can imagine that it's a pretty tough job. But, you know, again, like, what is the context of Q&A? Who's watching Q&A? Why are they watching Q&A?
00:34:03
Speaker
You know, and you put that into context and yeah, I don't know. I really don't know. You know, does the same principle apply for Sky News' new show, The Jury? Does that have to have the same principle or do they both serve a specific goal for a specific audience and they balance each other out? But I think fundamentally it has to come back to why you're doing the show in the first place, right? And hopefully you're doing the show to inform.
00:34:30
Speaker
to hold the powers that be to account, to fight for common sense, to fight for traditional Australian values. I think those things are what I'm most interested in. I want to pick up on the traditional role of journalists that you're getting to there, and particularly that role of holding powerful people to account, and I agree very strongly with that.
00:34:52
Speaker
I can't help but think, looking, and I always say particularly in long form television interviews now, that the way that journalists think about holding people to account may have changed. I was watching Don Lemon interview Elon Musk the other day, and this came to mind then, that for me, old school journalists would hold people to account by being very well informed and asking probing insightful questions, and now,
00:35:19
Speaker
There is this mentality. Well, the way I hold people to account is putting forward my point of view is arguing effectively with the other person. Do you think that there is a mentality shift perhaps in how journalists think about.
00:35:32
Speaker
holding people to account? No, I mean, I don't think it's changed. I think it's always been there would be the thing I would
From Probing to Confrontational Journalism
00:35:40
Speaker
say. There's always been good journals, bad journals, gotcha journals, in-depth journals. I think everyone, and I'm the same, you romanticize the past and you romanticize
00:35:51
Speaker
the ideal, right? That's why you never really want to know what gets put into the sausages that you eat, right? But again, I come back, like I am an eternal optimist about the craft. Do I think those in-depth probing journals who want to ask informed questions rather than got your questions exist? Yeah, of course I do.
00:36:10
Speaker
And do I read their stories all the time? Yeah, I do. If you get a chance, you probably already have, hopefully. I feel like I'm talking to a captive audience. But, you know, if you read Christopher Dorr's piece that we put on the nightly yesterday about the Albanese government and the Middle East conundrum and has elbow and Penny Wong let down Jewish Australians, that is a very, very, very good piece of journalism.
00:36:34
Speaker
And it's very critical and it's very analytical and it's very in depth and it makes very complex, but true points about the state of affairs. So yeah, do I, do I think that stuff exists? Yeah. I mean, Phillip Curry in the AFR is a very, very good columnist, very, very good writer. I can name a lot of people who I love every day. I read their stuff every day and I'm very impressed. Now, does that mean that everyone's getting everything right all the time? No, it doesn't.
00:37:03
Speaker
Yes, I've enjoyed reading Christopher Doar in The Nightly, and I've noticed the last two articles that he's written, one was on how Sam Mostyn was a good choice as Governor-General, which incidentally I disagreed with, but then equally the next article was that article on Palestine and Australia's approach to it, which I certainly agreed with. So that's probably where you're trying to position the newspaper.
00:37:28
Speaker
One more question on the Australian media landscape. As you said, you used to be a Murdoch media man. The Murdoch press gets an enormous amount of vitriol directed at it. It is extraordinary how many people hate it. And I don't think that's too strong a word. Do you think that vitriol is in any way justified? And why do you think so many people have that strong feeling towards it?
00:37:56
Speaker
I think there is an intense focus on the Murdoch press because it's the biggest player. And so in that sense, I think it's probably fair enough. Like it's hard to have a chip on your shoulder when you are the biggest in town. And so, yeah, of course, there's always going to be people that read into everything, like I said, because you are the dominant player.
00:38:17
Speaker
But do I think some of it's absurd and taken out of context and all that sort of thing? Definitely. Do I think there's incredible journalism in the Australian, credible journalism in the Daily Telegraph and all of that sort of thing? Do I think Shari Markson is a brilliant journalist on Sky News? Yeah, of course I do.
00:38:34
Speaker
Do you agree with everything it does? No. You know, we've created a disruptor national news platform because we think that there is a market for what we do. And that market has been opened up because we think some of those publications, not the Murdoch ones or, you know, some of the Murdoch ones have given us a bit of an opening to find an audience. But yeah, I mean, by and large, I think generalizations are never a good thing.
The Nightly: Curating Quality Journalism
00:39:02
Speaker
Onto the Nightly. You started the Nightly as an evening newspaper and that's a concept that may sound quaint to some people. It's been tried before in Australia with mixed success. It may be more popular actually say in the UK as a concept.
00:39:18
Speaker
What makes you think that the evening newspaper has a place today when perhaps it's been tried without success in the past? Yeah, definitely. I mean, we looked at the data. So there's a couple of things that are going on. So it's a digital newspaper. And so that's the starting point.
00:39:34
Speaker
And that's because we've looked at our own data and the data of other newsrooms around the world. And one of the only metrics I've seen, you know, I've been editing the West Australian for five years. One of the only metrics I've seen that has gone up year on year on year on year has been the number of people reading our newspaper as a digital replica.
00:39:54
Speaker
So people like it. People like to read a digital newspaper on their phone or on their tablet. So that was the starting point for us was, wow, there's actually this kind of cool thing going on where people want to read a newspaper and they're happy to read it on their phone as a PDF replica.
00:40:09
Speaker
That's important to clarify, actually. You're not talking about just going to a website and clicking on articles. You're literally talking about reading the paper as you would in a physical form, but it is a PDF copy in the app or online.
00:40:26
Speaker
Yeah, 100%. So the Nightly is both things, right? So the Nightly is a 24-7 website, but it also has a digital newspaper, you know, with a page one and a page four and an opinion section and a sports section that we drop every night at 6 p.m. Eastern Standard's time.
00:40:43
Speaker
So, yeah, so one of the starting point for that was, hey, this digital newspaper thing is really, really popular. People like it. And I think that's based on life is an information overload. And so the idea of a curated portion of news with we tell people what's page one and the most important thing for the day, we tell people what's page four.
00:41:04
Speaker
We tell people what's opinion and we tell people what's sport and culture. I think there's a natural love of that. And that's why people still like this digital newspaper product. The other interesting bit of information we had at our disposal was more people are reading at night or consuming information at night than ever before. And so it makes sense. Like I think about my own life, I have a five and a half year old, a two and a half year old.
00:41:31
Speaker
dual income household, so both my wife and I work. When we wake up in the morning, just getting out the door is a miracle. You wake up and it's chaos. You're trying to do breakfast, you're trying to do school runs, you're checking your emails. The idea of sitting around the kitchen table and flicking through the newspaper and getting informed before you start your day is pretty old school.
00:41:54
Speaker
And so what the data showed us was that everyone's me time has actually sort of moved all the way to late at night. And so your me time is actually after dinner. Kids are bathed. They're fed. You've put them down. You've checked your emails. You've collapsed on the couch. That's when you're putting on a podcast or you've been watching TV.
00:42:15
Speaker
Or in our hope, you know, you're reading the news. And so our proposition to our readers at the Nightly is really simple. Give us 20 or 30 minutes of your me time at night and we'll prepare you for the day ahead. So that when you wake up in the morning to all that chaos, you will feel like you're informed and you'll feel like when you get to work, you can speak intelligently on the things that matter.
00:42:39
Speaker
That's our offering and we feel like we have a pretty good message to take to the market. Interesting.
00:42:46
Speaker
There may be a perception among some people of free evening newspapers being a bit trashy. I used to live in the UK and I remember those evening commuter newspapers, I think the Metro was one of them. You read them on the tube because there's literally nothing else to do, but you knew that the stuff that you were ingesting was pretty low quality. Is that a concern of yours, that potential perception of the evening newspaper?
00:43:17
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I'll be honest, like, I don't think that has, out of all the issues that have reared their head, that that hasn't been one, right? Probably because I don't think that tradition, you know, I mean, for example, speaking about perf, you know, the traditional newspaper over here, that was an arvo paper, the Daily News.
00:43:34
Speaker
I mean, it was probably a little bit tabloid, but I don't think it was that full on UK commute tabloid kind of thing. So we haven't, to be honest, that hasn't reared its head. It's more been about telling people like, you know, it's not so much. We don't actually think of it, to be honest, as a commuter crowd. We think of it more as a catch crowd.
00:43:54
Speaker
So, you know, we were dropping it at 6pm. Sure, some people are going to read it on the commute home, but we're really kind of more thinking about it as a, hey, this is your second screen news outlet while you're doing other things. You might have the TV on in the background, but if you give us 20 minutes, we can inform you. And what we're finding, and I don't have the data at my fingertips, but what we're finding is that
00:44:21
Speaker
People are spending a lot of time with the digital newspaper. So, you know, they're not kind of flicking through, they're actually enjoying the habit of spending time in that environment. And I think it's about the top of my head, it's about 20% more time with the nightly than they are spending with the West Australian.
00:44:39
Speaker
And that's a fascinating thing for us. That tells us, which is what I thought it would be, which is that people read the West Australia in the morning and they're catching up and trying to get ahead while they're juggling. Whereas the nightly has a more relaxed soak it in. You know, you would have seen the stories are longer. We're happy to have a story run over five pages, whereas in the West, we'll probably keep it at two pages. So it's a different kind of vibe we're going for.
00:45:05
Speaker
How have you thought about branding? I think that's something I've really liked reading The Nightly so far is the visuals and the style, which tread quite a fine line between being engaging and then being, say, over the top and a bit too tabloid. How have you thought about the look and the feel of the paper?
00:45:25
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, to be honest, like part of that is also just has been being digital first, right? And so, you know, newspapers, going back to my Murdochian days, like newspapers are really a Murdoch template in the sense of he was, you know, Rupert was obsessed with story count and obsessed with put as much stuff on the page as possible, you know, white spaces, the devil, you've got to have facts and figures and lots of briefs on the page to keep people engaged.
00:45:54
Speaker
We've kind of paired all that right back because when you're reading it on your phone, I mean, Apple taught us, for example, that white space is good. Being clean is nice. So we've kind of said, in a way, we want stuff to look sharp.
00:46:10
Speaker
and Chris, but we also kind of want to get out of the way, which is fascinating as an editor. This is a nerdy thing to say, but it's been fascinating as an editor that you feel a little bit unshackled by letting the journalism
00:46:26
Speaker
tell its story and not trying to trick up every element of a page, but just going, look, if the photo is nice and the headline's nice, let's just get out of the way. There's pages in the nightly that might only have text on them.
00:46:41
Speaker
And for me to say that as someone who, you know, honed his newspaper skills in the Daily Telegraph, I mean, that's abhorrent. What are you talking about? There's a page in the newspaper where all there is is font. But it works on the nightly because the backlight of the mobile screen pops and all of that sort of stuff. And yeah, it's been really refreshing, actually. And I actually think our journalism looks better because of it.
00:47:05
Speaker
The fun thing about that for me is how new digital platforms enable you to put a spin on traditional media concepts. It's quite fun. I'll preface my final question with an anecdote that I heard from Jeffrey Archer a few months ago. He told me he was having breakfast with Rupert Murdoch and he noticed at one point
00:47:30
Speaker
watching the way that rupit would read a physical newspaper and he said he had a reverence for the document the way that he would hold the paper the way that he would slowly turn the page as you could tell this is something he had a deep respect and love for even at this late stage in his life and career
00:47:51
Speaker
It gets me thinking about the way that you think about your craft and why you still do it. Why do you put up with the manic hours? Why do you tolerate only having three or four hours of sleep a night? And I guess more generally, what's your message as to why this is still so important, potentially say for young journals out there or prospective journalists?
00:48:16
Speaker
Personally, I've always said to people that for me, it's too much fun to be considered a job, right? You know, like I'm very fortunate and very appreciative of I found a job where I get paid to write about and think about and produce content about the things that we're all talking about anyway. It really feels like a job to me, to be honest, journalism, and it never has, you know, it's always been that way.
00:48:44
Speaker
You know, the idea of when I was a youngster of getting paid to chase down a story, you know, it was always a little bit bizarre. Like, you know, how did I figure out this little loophole in this thing called employment? But on a higher plane, I mean, you know, as we've said this hallway through, there's never been more information and more disinformation.
Values-Based Journalism in the Digital Era
00:49:02
Speaker
There's never been a greater chasm between people in power and people not in power. Governments have never been more pervasive in our lives, like look at COVID-19, pandemic politics, right? I think there's never been a more important time
00:49:17
Speaker
for there to be strong values-based journalism. And I think we have to fight for that, you know, with everything we have. Because, you know, as you've said throughout this conversation a lot, like the idea of relying on a citizen journalist or an activist journalist or a provocateur for your news is quite a dangerous thing. And so, you know, I take very, very seriously, albeit I enjoy it a lot. I take very seriously the craft.
00:49:48
Speaker
How can people read the Nightly? How can people read the Nightly? Really easy, actually. So thenightly.com.au, easiest thing in the world to find, but also there is an app, the Nightly app. We're very successful, six weeks in, tens of thousands of people have downloaded it. If you get the app or you go to the website, everything is very, very easy to navigate.
00:50:09
Speaker
Well, Anthony, as you may have been able to infer from my introduction, I am at times a bit cynical and worried about the state of journalism today. This conversation has gone some way to allaying my concerns. Keep doing what you're doing. I think The Nightly is a wonderful addition to the Australian media landscape. Congratulations. Thank you for coming on, Australiana. Thank you so much. Talk to you soon.
00:50:38
Speaker
Thank you very much for listening to this episode of Australiana. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a rating and a review. And if you really enjoyed the show, head to spectator.com.au forward slash join. Sign up for a digital subscription today and you'll get your first month absolutely free.