New developments - glasses half full

Optimism on the developments of journalism featured in this session, with radio journalism receiving a glowing report from Anya Luscombe, and Stephen Harrington offering a different view on the crisis of journalism.

“It is time to consider journalism not as singular, but as a range of different journalisms” said Harrington, proposing that Satire and emergent forms of journalism are actually prospering while others face the ‘crisis’.

Harrington mentioned “Media Chaos”, as mentioned by McNair, being caused by three major reasons: Technical evolution, the collapse of social deference towards institutions and hyper competetitiveness.

According to him, however, this increased media democracy as it offers a more accurate and transparent version of events, citing the execution of Saddam Hussein as an example.

Blogging and Local Media

Andy Price, from Teesside University, used The Evening Gazette as an example of how local papers need not be threatened by the internet.

Over the last year, the paper has launched 20 microwebsites, collaborated with 400 bloggers and in the month of December had 275,000 unique users.

He pointed out that “what is newsworthy on the internet is different from what is newsworthy on conventional media”. and that the internet can be used as a regional press platform.

Andrew Kenyon outlined his research comparing Malaysian, Australiand and Singaporean media, both in Engish and in Malay, drawing, among others, the conclusion that allegations made in Australia are much more targeted and specific than in the other “soft” tyrranical regimes.

Glowing Radio Report

Agreeing with Lashman’s view earlier that radio is bearing the flag for good journalism, Anya Luscombe provided plenty of optimistic data on the status of radio.

90% of the UK population above 18 tune in to the radio each week, 92% in the Netherlands and 93% in the USA. .

In the UK, 7.2 million people have downloaded a podcast, and Radio 4 has an average weekly audience of 10 million, 19% of the total.

The Today Programme on Radio 4 also registered an increse in audience in the final quarter of 2008, with people seeking detailed coverage of the financial crisis and Obama’s election campaign.

Interviews she conducted with journalists working within Radio show that there is a tendency to favour speed over quality and precision, and the “whole business of a crafted, honed, polished piece of writing has largely been jettisoned”.

But overall, the prospect for radio, according to both its workers and the statistics, looks bright.