It is a fallacy to believe the present print crisis is due to rapidly declining circulation. All data suggests that, compared to other markets, Australian newspaper circulation is holding up remarkably well. According to the Australian Press Council’s State of the Print News Media 2007, the aggregate circulation of metropolitan dailies has varied since 2002, but has fallen only slightly, from 2,338,000 in 2002 to 2,305,600 last year.14 This doesn’t consider the exponential rise in people visiting news sites regularly and, if combined, suggests more, not less, people are consuming news.
The Alliance commissioned Essential Media to survey shifts in dominant news sources in the past five years:
- Use of online news websites increased 13 per cent
- Use of radio news bulletins increased 3 per cent
- Use of TV news bulletins fell 8 per cent
- Use of newspapers fell 6 per cent
Yet commercial TV remains the dominant source of news for most, with national and metropolitan dailies second.
2.1 What does the audience think of the news media?
The news media’s important role was highlighted when 77 per cent of respondents agreed with the proposition that, if not for courageous journalism, many major Australian scandals would have remained uncovered. Some 71 per cent disagreed, most of them strongly, with the proposition that “with the advent of the Internet and blogs and other ways to spread information, Australia no longer needs a group of trained, professionally skilled journalists”. This suggests widespread acceptance that the blogosphere will not fill a vacuum created by the loss of trained journalists.
Journalists are trusted more than the large corporations they work for. Some 51 per cent endorsed journalists’ trustworthiness, with 40 per cent uncommitted, while only 17 per cent trusted the news corporations and their executives. Offered a dichotomy between journalists and the corporations that employed them, the audience were even clearer: 89 per cent trusted journalists to provide an honest picture of the world; 87 per cent trusted them to find out the things that mattered to average working Australians, 83 per cent trusted journalists to investigate corruption, (in government and business) and 84 per cent trusted journalists to uncover things that big business interests were doing which might harm them or their families.
Whatever else may fragment the news audience, trust and respect remain high. However the research backed important anecdotal concerns at the “dumbing down” of bulletins, newspapers and websites to attract audience. Sixty percent agreed that: “I find the quality of news is dropping, there seems to be more celebrity gossip and less hard news,” with only 13 per cent disagreeing. The proposition that newspapers have more opinions than before was supported by 47 per cent, with only 10 per cent disagreeing. But when asked to rate the proposition: “Newspapers are dry and stale, they don’t pay enough attention to popular culture and what’s really going on in the world”, 48 per cent of respondents disagreed and only 15 per cent agreed. This demonstrates an enduring appetite for hard, authoritative news.
Most people still believe newspapers provide quality journalism, with 63 per cent agreeing, and 37 per cent disagreeing. However 64 per cent agreed the quality of journalism had slipped recently.
2.2 Where are people going online?
NineMSN remains Australia’s most popular website, according to the Nielsen ratings, with 419,579 unique monthly users.15 However those visits bear examination. Our survey showed the vast majority of visitors reach the news sites via search engines (mainly Google and Yahoo) or other sites (mainly social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook) or email links. Globally, almost all companies report at least 50 per cent of the unique page impressions come in sideways – via search engines or other links to a report, rather than through browsing from the front page or masthead. Attitudes to online news vary widely: a majority (51 per cent) used websites and blogs to follow stories that matter to them or their family. However more people (32 per cent to 22 per cent) said they thought news sites and blogs, by their very nature, were superficial and “no substitute for quality journalism and analysis”. Blogs written by expert non-journalists offer in-depth authoritative information, and a slight majority (26 per cent) would rather read information from experts and specialists over trained writers – ie: journalists (23 per cent).
2.3 What are people doing online?
Australia has one of the highest percentages of online news visitors. Hitwise research showed 6.75 per cent of internet visits are to gather news, compared with 3.97 per cent in the US and 4.63 in the UK. Most Australian internet visits are to search engines and social networking sites (10.8 per cent and 8 per cent respectively). Shopping visits (5.93 per cent of market share) lag behind the US (9.54 per cent) and the UK (9.61 per cent). More Australians visited government sites (2.56 per cent) than in the US (1.52 per cent) or UK (0.87 per cent). Importantly, more Australians visit government websites for information from the source (rather than have journalists mediate) than elsewhere.16
Top 100 Australian blogs, by blogging analyst, Meg Tsiamis, shows the most popular Australian blog in September was Gizmodo Australia, a version of the US-based Gizmodo, published by British former newspaper journalist Nick Denton. The most popular news website blog was Andrew Bolt ’s on the Herald Sun, which recently achieved 1m hits in a month and ranks 27th. Crikey recently established a blogroll, an aggregation of blog sites reached through the Crikey portal. Mainly, the most popular blogs are those giving technical advice (Gizmodo, Australian Car Advice, Digital Photography School) and gossip sites such as Defamer.17
While there is little evidence supporting the growth of online “brands”, several bloggers have considerable identities: Darren Rowse, whose Problogger site advises on how to blog; Duncan Riley through his diary; and Marieke Hardy, whose “Reasons You Will Hate Me”, under the pseudonym Ms Fits, won a Bloggie for Best Australian/New Zealand weblog in 2008.
