Media and Communications

Swinburne Post Graduate student Emma Field recently attended the ‘Future of Journalism’ Summit hosted by the Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance (the Alliance) held in Melbourne and reports on the days proceedings.

The ‘Future of Journalism’ Summit coincided with the release of the Alliance’s Life in the Clickstream: The Future of Journalism report. The report contains industry research on the new media and future of journalism, including an overseas study trip by members of the Alliance to gauge trends and new ideas about this digital revolution.

The summit had several panel sessions and guest speakers including Pulitzer Prize winner Jan Schaffer and executive director of J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism, former editor of The Age  and Director of the Centre for Advanced Journalism, University of Melbourne Michael Gawenda, well known business journalist and now columist with the online Business Spectator Robert Gottliebsen and Professor Phillip Meyer, the author of The Vanishing Newspaper among others.

There was overwhelming consensus that cost cutting was affecting all types of traditional media but the messages about the impact on the industry from all panellists were mixed.

Some were excited about the changes journalism is undergoing, and raved about new ways of communicating and new mediums. Many (if not most) were concerned for the quality of journalism and doubted whether any current business models would ever be able to support the investment needed to produce excellence in news.

Among the gloom there were speakers who stressed the opportunities and the advantages the changes will and are bringing. For example journalism students now had no excuse not to be published with the availability of blogs, wikis and online forums.

Asher Moses, a journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald and Young Journalist of the Year online winner is a good example of such opportunities. He told the summit how he discovered that the Prime Ministers Department was altering the Wikepedia site which led to a huge story just prior to the Federal election last year.

Annie Fox, Editor in Chief of theVine.com.au, Fairfax Digitals’ news, entertainment and citizen journalism site for young people told the audience about how people interact with the site and how being a good blogger can lead to a paid position.

Stephen Quinn, Associate Professor of journalism at Deakin University (and self confessed new technology junkie) believes tools can change journalism but often news organisations do not provide training for staff so most journalists will have to teach themselves.

The message for students was get published, get blogging, get Twittering and get out there and try to differentiate yourself with something ‘different’ on your CV, whether it be working on the SheepWeekly in back of Bourke or volunteering in the Amazon.  And as far as learning new technology don’t bother unless it enhances the story you are trying to tell!

Interesting sites and links
Propublica http://www.propublica.org/ – ProPublica is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest in the US
The Knight Citizen News Network http://www.kcnn.org/– claims to help citizens and journalists amplify community news
Cyber Journalist.net http://www.cyberjournalist.net/
Scoopt http://www.scoopt.com- Scoopt is a media agency that helps members of the public sell photographs and videos of newsworthy events to the media.
Cover it live http://www.coveritlive.com/– live blogging site anyone can use

Tips for journalists and students:
-    Use RSS feeders
-    Monitor blogs for tips and new information
-    Get familiar with the following: Newsgear, Newsplex.org, Vodoo, Twitter. Google Alerts. Technorati, Skype (Court Reporter), Google Maps, Wikileaks,

Melbourne Future of Journalism Summit – Program

Wednesday, November 26 – Telstra Conference Centre
Level 1,
242 Exhibition St (cnr Lonsdale & Exhibition streets),
Melbourne

$80 for non members

Program

9am-9.05am Welcome
Christopher Warren – Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance federal secretary and CEO of the Walkley Foundation

9.05am – 9.25am Launch of Life in the Clickstream – the future of journalism report and discussion of the findings of the Media Alliance mission to US and Western Europe
Matt Brown – producer, ABC Radio, Melbourne
Louise Connor – Alliance Victorian branch secretary
Terry O’Connor – production editor – couriermail.com.au, Queensland branch secretary
Ruth Pollard – Journalist – Sydney Morning Herald, Media Alliance federal president
Christopher Warren – Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance federal secretary and CEO of the Walkley Foundation

9.30-10.10am: In conversation – The state of the global news media
Phil Meyer ­­- Knight Chair of Journalism, University of North Carolina; author – The Vanishing Newspaper
Margaret Simons – Journalist and author – The Content Makers
Moderator: Matt Brown – producer, ABC Radio, Melbourne

10.15am – 10.55am The economics of journalism
Christian Guerra – head of communications, media and entertainment research – Goldman Sachs JBWere
Russel Howcroft – chairman and managing director of George Pattersons Y&R and panellist – ABC TV’s The Gruen Transfer
Ivor Ries – head of research, EL&C Baillieu Stockbroking, former Chanticleer columnist with the Australian Financial Review
Robert Gottliebsen - columnist, Business Spectator, former publisher Business Review Weekly
Moderator: Kathy Bowlen - presenter Stateline, ABC TV

10.55-11.10 Morning tea and networking

11.10am – 11.40pm Opportunities and challenges
Tony Wheeler – founder – Lonely Planet
Jane Schulze – media section editor, The Australian
James Kirby – editor – The Eureka Report
Moderator:  Damien Carrick - presenter/producer – The Law Report, ABC Radio National

11.45pm – 12.30pm Innovation
Matthew Ricketson – media and communications editor – The Age
Trevor Cook - author of Corporate Engagement blog
Rod Peno - editor- Wires and Lights in a Box blog - The Australian
Moderator: Paul Colgan – Deputy Editor of News Digital Media’s news.com.au

12.30-1.30 Lunch and networking

1.30-2.15pm: Keynote discussion – What next for the media?
Jan Schaffer – former Pulitzer Prize winner and executive director of J-Lab
Michael Gawenda – Director of the Centre for Advanced Journalism, University of Melbourne, former editor of The Age

2.15pm-3.00pm: Gadgets and applications – the technology transforming journalism
Asher Moses – Young Australian Journalist of the Year online winner
Stephen Quinn – Associate professor of journalism, Deakin University
Andrew Maiden – Director – Media Communications, Telstra
Moderator: Misha Ketchell - researcher, Media Watch, ABC TV

3.00pm – 3.15pm afternoon tea and networking

3.15pm – 3.55pm Building the journalist of the future
Lawrie Zion – Senior Lecturer and Journalism Coordinator, Media Studies Program, La Trobe University
Chris Smyth – Acting Dean of Murdoch University
Ian Royall – City Editor – Herald Sun and Cadet Trainer – Herald & Weekly Times Ltd
Colin McKinnon – Learning & Development Manager – Editorial – The Age
Moderator: Heather Ewart - journalist, The 7.30 Report, ABC TV

4.00pm – 4.55pm Connecting with the audience
Stephen Brook – assistant news editor – MediaGuardian.co.uk
Annie Fox – editor-in-chief, The Vine – Fairfax
Moderator: Jonathan Este – Director – Communications, Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance

5pm Close followed by drinks

Do newspapers have a future? And how long is that future?

Public Lecture
Tuesday 7 October 2008 @ 06:30 pm – 07:30 pm
Theatre GM 15, Melbourne Law School (bldg 106), 185 Pelham Street, Carlton

A N Smith Lecture in Journalism

Michael Gawenda – three-time winner of Australian journalism’s highly-respected Walkley Award and former newspaper editor – is the inaugural Director of the University of Melbourne’s Centre for the Advanced Study of Journalism, set to open in 2009.

Mr Gawenda is one of Australia’s best known and most distinguished journalists. His career in journalism began at The Age, a newspaper he later went on to serve as Editor and Editor-in-Chief for seven years. He stepped down in 2004 to return to writing as a special correspondent for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.
In 2007, he joined the University of Melbourne to help shape its new Centre for the Advanced Study of Journalism to be a focus for journalism research in
Australia, and a public interface between journalists, academia and the wider public.

Michael Gawenda’s 2008 A N Smith Lecture will explore the future of newspaper journalism, the role journalism plays in a liberal democracy, and some ways in which
newspapers will need to adapt to the great changes facing journalism.

The A N Smith Lecture in Journalism commemorates Arthur Norman Smith, a leading political journalist. Over its 70-year-history the lecture has attracted a series of distinguished speakers and is regarded as the most prestigious lecture on journalism in Australia. Among previous speakers are Rupert Murdoch, Bob Hawke, Michelle Grattan, Peter Beattie, Jon Faine and Maxine McKew.

Admission is Free. Bookings are ESSENTIAL.
TO BOOK PLEASE REGISTER BY CLICKING ON LINK BELOW.
Speaker: Mr Michael Gawenda
Enquiries:
Taryn Groom
+61 3 8344 4278
tgroom@ unimelb.edu.au
http://unimelb-marcom.e-newsletter.com.au/link/id/81764ebbe13605e8c638P/page.html?evuid=b7a31190bbcb8edc0ae2

http://www.peoplestour.net

This is a lovely project designed by Masters (Media and Comms) student Jane Curtis. Jane is now the Web Communications Officer at Moreland City Council and she has produced some very fine web pieces. This is particularly fine. Contact her through the site if you would like to contribute your own people’s tour!

http://www.wefeelfine.org/

Since August 2005, We Feel Fine has been harvesting human feelings from
a large number of weblogs. Every few minutes, the system searches the
world’s newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases “I
feel” and “I am feeling”. When it finds such a phrase, it records the
full sentence, up to the period, and identifies the “feeling” expressed
in that sentence (e.g. sad, happy, depressed, etc.). Because blogs are
structured in largely standard ways, the age, gender, and geographical
location of the author can often be extracted and saved along with the
sentence, as can the local weather conditions at the time the sentence
was written. All of this information is saved.

We have had some intruders in the Digital Newsroom and hence have changed the code. Please email Lisa for the new code. Sorry for the inconvenience.

We are looking for some camera crew and a lighting designer who would be
interested in helping out at a performance event called Hand to Mouth
taking place on the 29th of June at the Meat Market in North Melbourne.
We are struggling with budget at this stage but a small amount of
renumeration is up for negotiation.

Full details below:

Hand to Mouth is a performance/event taking place at the Meat Market in
North Melbourne on the 29th of June, between 6 and 9pm.

The event will involve a production line of approximately 40 people in
blue and brown uniforms working to produce strange and exotic meals
packaged in gloves, or formed in the shape of hands. These will then be
served up to an elevated table of about 10 high class guests. There will
be a live jazz band, waiters in tailored outfits and several production
controllers with megaphones. It promises to be a composition of managed
chaos.

Conceptually, the work is an investigation of relationships of
production and consumption at work in the global economy. In affluent
societies we constantly consume products that have been touched by many
anonymous hands along the way. In a sense, we are also consuming other
people’s lives in this process. The title Hand to Mouth refers both to
all these anonymous hands and to the fact that the bulk of the world’s
population still lives in hand to mouth poverty. The meal prototypes and
the structure of the event are designed to highlight the long process of
material  transformation involved in the production of  the commodities
that we consume on a daily basis. The strange and exotic meals are
rarified products to serve the constant need for novelty that drives
consumption in our affluent culture. We hope to provide a bizarre, funny
and challenging experience for all involved.

We will be producing an art film from the event and are looking for
three camera people, and a lighting design consultant who will receive
credits on the film. The camera operators would either be three
steadycam operators, or two steadycams and one tripod camera. The
operators would need to come to a couple of meetings to talk about
lighting, shots and overall vision etc before the event. The lighting
design consultant would need to be involved from two weeks before the
event for several design meetings and lighting plot.

Contact:

htmproduction@gmail.com

or phone Boo on 0423 305 495.

This might be of interest to some of you.

From:   biancarayner@yahoo.com.au
Subject: Rooming house community garden
Date: 23 May 2008 1:02:17 PM

Following up on our recent conversation regarding the Rooming house community garden project documentation, I have just spoken to Wendy from the EcoCentre. Funding for the project will not be approved until the beginning of 2009 and until that time we will be consulting with stakeholders and having meetings. If any students are interested in documenting this process it would be great, however the real project will be going ahead next year once we have complete approval and funding.

The project will run over most of the year and we would want to capture the consultations with rooming house residents and local community for approx 2 months from Feb – April.
Building the garden and construction of outside communal area will probably take 1 -2 months from April – June.
After construction we would have a celebration – approx July
3 month follow up around October.

Students may wish to document the process in a variety of ways using a variety of media. If any of your students are interested in becoming involved in these early stages of the project, they would be most welcome to attend a working group meeting. The next meeting is on Wednesday the 28th May, 3pm at the EcoCentre in St kilda botanical gardens. I am contactable via email.

Bianca Rayner

 From Kathy Diakovsky:

kdiakovsky@groupwise.swin.edu.au

Expressions of Interest are being sought for a new unit in PG media and Communications

Re: HAM432 Digital Media Production

We are seeking expressions of interest from students for HAM432 which will hopefully be offered over Winter term only (once a week from Monday 23/6 to Monday 28/7 inclusive). At this stage, it is intended for the unit to be scheduled from 9.30am to 1.00pm for each of the six weekly sessions. Please find attached a subject outline. If you have any further queries about the content, please telephone Lisa Gye on (03) 9214 8345.

If you are interested in enrolling for this unit, either in addition to your current studies or in lieu of a unit in which you are enrolled for Semester 2 2008, please email me by COB this Friday 23 May 2008.

An email advising the outcome of the Expression of Interest process for HAM432 will be sent to you in the following week. In the event that the unit will be taught over Winter, you will be advised of the enrolment procedures at the same time.

Sorry for the delay! Here are some names of people you may be interested in interviewing. Please contact either of us for contact details if you are interested in a particular person. Those marked with SWIN are alumni. We’ll add more as we think of them!

Rene Hostettler Infoxchange (SWIN)

Josephine Cafagna ABC  (SWIN)

Cameron Burgess ABC Mildura (SWIN)

Kaz Horsley ABC Bendigo Fim Reviewer (SWIN)

Tim McCarthy Sports 927 (SWIN)

Rod Law Fox Sports (SWIN)

Jennifer Witham Media Giants journalist (SWIN)

Natalie Collins Infoxchange General Manager (SWIN)

Sarah L’Estrange Radio National (SWIN)

Kathy Bowlen ABC TV (SWIN)

Helen Stuckey Curator ACMI (SWIN) (Taken)

Hugh Davies ABC Kids Gateway

Richard Lowenstein Filmmaker (SWIN)

Paolo Righetti Journalist Sporting Pulse

Nick Place Media Giants

Pepi Ronalds Reactive Media (SWIN)

Simon Johanson Editor The Age Online

Anna Chalko PR TAC

Damian Anderson Acceleration Group

Paul Green Mobile content design and web developer (SWIN)