There can be few worse things in the world of PR than transparently ridiculuous efforts to dress bad news as triumphs of corporate ingenuity.
Today, Ford Australia announced it will cut 1200 jobs.
Bad enough news to draw media comment from the prime minister, deputy prime minister and many others.
This is the headline from Ford's media release: Ford Accelerates Australian Business Transformation.
Worse still, the lead paragraph:
Ford is transforming its Australian business by accelerating the introduction of new products for Australian customers, enhancing the sales and service experience, and improving its business efficiency and profitability.
You don't burnish your reputation with childish corporate spin.
The effort to do so is insulting to your employees, journalists and the broader public.
Paddy Manning's article in Crikey yesterday that prompted his dismissal by Fairfax goes to the heart of the relationship between public relations and journalism now that the newspaper business model is being destroyed by the Internet.
No doubt it makes a lot of sense to the management of the Australian Financial Review to run a series of 'soft' interviews with business leaders with sponsorship from the Commonwealth Bank. But it is advertising not journalism, because the point of the column seems to be about associating the Commonwealth Bank brand with 'business leadership' rather than holding business leaders to account or at least probing beyond the usual corporate media release guff.
The problem is, as Manning points out, that journalism sells newspapers not the advertising content:
It is reporting with fear and favour. And you know what? Nobody reads it. Educated readers -- The AFR's demographic -- hate it. Ultimately, even advertisers shun it. It's a business model for business journalism that had been tried at both The AFR and The Australian. It doesn't work.Business readers are not fools. Very often they know more about a given story than the journalist. They want the facts, balance and genuinely independent analysis and commentary. Tell it like it is.
Manning also had this broader swipe at the AFR:
The AFR's business journalism is built on a fundamental contract between
company and reporter: high-level access in exchange for soft coverage.
Too often -- even for many of its own hard-pressed reporters' liking --
the result is PR-driven "churnalism" which shows up as
"drops" (the poor man's exclusive, or as Verrender once wrote, the
press release a day early), "herograms" for business leaders,
unreadable roundtables and conference-linked spreads featuring plenty of happy
snaps of business leaders with a glass of champagne or mineral water in hand.
Manning is no doubt right. The 'creeping advertorial' approach may bring in more advertising dollars in the short-term, but longer-term it corrodes the reputation of the journalistic content and, therefore, the reason why people buy the paper in the first place.
On the other hand, these are desperate times - and short of a miracle, there may not be much of a longer-term for newspapers and particularly titles like the AFR.
Greater media regulation in Australia seems unlikely despite the continuing efforts of left-wing academics to promote a last-century approach. At the same time, the ALP itself seems to be having some great success in using social media to promote the sort of diversity the ALP's media reforms were meant to achieve.
Laurie Oakes wrote on the weekend about an ALP graph on debt issued to counter a forthcoming Daily Telegraph story that went viral:
The graph was put on the ALP's Facebook page and, to the surprise of almost everyone, it took off. In the first 2 1/2 days there were 10,482 "shares" - people putting the graph on their own page.
By tracking "likes", the ALP's Digital Team was able to determine that it had been seen by 815,360 people in that time, almost 8 1/2 times more than anything the party had posted previously. Since readership of The Daily Telegraph is just over 780,000, Labor is claiming that its own version of the debt story reached more people than the newspaper's. That would certainly be a milestone.
A year ago, one person handled Labor's digital campaigning. Now it has a Digital Team of five paid staff plus interns.
An ALP source says: "Our goal was to have the capability to reach more people than some of the larger media outlets - for example, Alan Jones's radio show - and we can now do that."
Describing Facebook as "exciting and our fastest-growing platform", he adds: "We've been producing more compelling and relevant content that our supporters want to share with their non-political friends."
This just shows - again - that getting clever on new platforms is a much more effective exercise than clumsy exercises to put further regulation on old media outlets.
This week's focus on media reform has left many dilemmas and unsolved problems on the Canberra policy agenda. One of these that is set to grow in the years ahead is how to fit social media into a viable approach to media regulation. The recent reviews commissioned by the Federal Government, and the evidence given by media heavyweights this week, suggest that no-one has a real clue on how to deal with this problem.
The problem in brief. Much of our regulatory framework (legislation, licensing, regulatory bodies etc) suits geographically-limited markets dominated by a small number of players. We know that technology is rendering that world obsolete, but we also know that the big media players still dominate. So if we are to argue for a retention of the old model we must ignore the very real impact of social media today. On the other hand, if we argue for a ditching, or substantial watering down of the old model, we run the risk of a further concentration of the media outlets that still provide most people, most of their daily diet of news and information. Social media is growing rapidly but it is still small by comparison.
The following excerpts from senior media executives earlier this week shows flashes of the frustration that this policy dilemma gives rise to.
The following is a priceless interchange between Senator Doug Comeron (the Chair) and two young advocates from the Institute of Public Affairs (Chris Berg and Simon Breheny). I think it says something about today's world of think tanks and wunderkind commentators (aka confident young ideologues):
CHAIR: Mr Berg and Mr Breheny, why should we give more weight to your evidence than to Mr Finkelstein's and Professor Ricketson's?
Mr Berg : The IPA has strong views; I think it is backed by research evidence. I do not think that the Finkelstein review was as intellectually coherent as some have claimed it was, and I do not think it is the be-all and end-all of media discussion in this country. I do not know why we would raise that up to being the definitive statement on the free press.
CHAIR: But strong views are not the basis on which to make deliberations; strong views are strong views.
Mr Berg : Absolutely; and I would be happy to send you a copy of my book, which details at great length the evidence that we bring to bear on this discussion, which is a historical and philosophical grounding on the importance of the free press and the historical and current threats to it.
CHAIR: Do you have a PhD in the media or something like that?
Mr Berg : No, I do not.
CHAIR: What are your qualifications?
Mr Berg : I have a Bachelor of Arts and I am doing a PhD at the moment at RMIT university.
CHAIR: In what?
Mr Berg : In economics.
CHAIR: So you have no qualifications in the media?
Mr Berg : In the media in general?
CHAIR: Yes.
Mr Berg : I am a published commentator on all sorts of things.
CHAIR: A commentator—
Mr Berg : No, I understand—
CHAIR: I am asking about your professional base. I am not asking whether you are a commentator; we know you are a commentator. Mr Breheny, what about you? What are your qualifications?
Mr Breheny : I am currently a university student; I am studying arts and law at the University of Melbourne.
In the AFR this morning (paywalled), former ALP leader Mark Latham repeats part of the argument he put in his Quarterly Essay (published last week).
Essentially, Latham's idea is that the ALP is neither claiming, nor receiving, the credit its due because of the health of the Australian economy (he give way too much credit to Paul Keating for this economic health)
Latham uses previously published NATSEM statisitcis which point to a steady, and significant, rise in household incomes over the last two decades to suggest that the unhappiness of many Australians about their material well-being and prospects.
This gap between reality and perception, according to Latham, is the product of a 'culture of manufactured
outrage'. Manufactured, that is, by media outlets and politicians (including Rudd at the 2007 election).
There can be no doubt that media and politicians have played on perceptions of declining material well-being in the electorate, for their own benefit. For instance, talkback radio stations (like Fox in the USA) have crafted business models around fueling these feelings of discontent and outrage.
Yet, it is difficult to believe that there is not some reality on which media and politicians feed.
Abbott has switched his strategy from attack to consolidate, making the ALP's challenge all but insurmountable. In doing so, he is following the lead of Howard in 1996 and Rudd in 2007.
In 2007, Rudd eventually won with just about the same 2PP vote as his predecessor, Kim Beazley, was getting in the polls when he was overthrown by the new exciting Rudd / Gillard team in 2006.
For all the frantic activity and commentary in the intervening 10 months or so, the electorate seemed largely unmoved.
The same thing happened in NSW in 2011. Kenneally replaced Rees, campaigned furiously to much acclaim but little movement in the electorate.
A small but significant portion of the electorate decided sometime in the first year or two of Howard's fourth term that they had had enough of him. It might have had something to do with WorkChoices, it might have had something to do with general hubris resulting from control of the Senate; whatever factors or factors contributed to the electoral shift (and we're only talking a few per cent) it proved decisive. The best you could say for the Rudd / Gillard team was that they locked in the shift and did enough to stop the libs getting back. But Beazley might have done that anyway.
NSW is just a more drammatic example. The ALP Government was on a hiding to nothing; it changed leaders (again) and the result was pretty much the same. I suspect that a shift to Rudd at this late stage would be similarly unfruitful.
Since Gillard announced the carbon tax in February 2011, she has been unable to get back the portion of the electorate that had their unfavourable views of her leadership confirmed by this 'treachery'.
Abbott has been successful in exploiting the opportunity to destroy the Government's credibility that Gillard's announcement handed to him. The Opposition has also won the contest on asylum seekers. Meanwhile, Swan has pretty much trashed the Government's economic credentials with his bizarre mishandling of the mining tax and surplus issues.
There have been fluctuations but Abbott's LNP are probably on track to get between 52 - 54 percent of the vote in September.
Unless something really dramatic happens.
The odds are heavily against that because the key electors already have views about Gillard, Swan and one or two other senior government figures. They will remember the news that confirms those perceptions and ignore anything that seems contrary to their views.
Nevertheless, Abbott is now in the process of locking in his considerable political advantages.
He just needs to be safe and look positive.
Howard locked in his advantage in 1996 by promising not to do anything radical, Rudd went even further in 2007 annoying the Libs by saying 'me-too' on most of Howard's conservative economic and social agenda.
Howard, Rudd and, now, Abbott are playing like a cricketer who knows he only has to play a straight bat until stumps and he will win the game.
Abbott has the runs on the board and he only has to defend his wicket against a pretty lame bowling attack for a few more overs.
Books are more plentiful and cheaper than ever before.
The rise of online bookshops, notably Amazon and the Book Depository, have helped Australian readers avoid costs associated with the outrageous protection of Australian publishers (one of the Rudd Government's sillier decisions); the main exception being new and recent Australian titles which are still very expensive. The advent of ebooks and ebook readers has not only seen book prices fall further, but now I can also read a book review in the NY Times, for instance, and then download and start reading it straight away.
I used to be a more frequent habitue of bookshops around Australia, particularly Readings, Gleebooks and Berkelouws - but many others besides.
I still visit these places, but where they were once exciting now they are more often a little sad and disappointing (not too mention expensive). The range is limited by comparison with the huge online databases that I regularly trawl through and the serendipidity I used to relish on dusty shelves I now find from a myriad of online sources.
Online sources for finding out about books have also proliferated from social networking sites like goodreads to highly successful blogs like Reading Matters, run by London based Australian journalist, Kim Forrester.
The world's best literary review magazines can now be read on a Tablet for about the cost of a couple of newspapers, see for instance the New York Review of Books, the London Review of Books, the Asian Literary Review and the Boston Review. Many of my favourite magazines are also moving to make the most of the new tablet / mobile environment. For instance, the New Yorker and the newly re-launched New Republic. There are many more. Not only are these magazines good for finding out about books, they also contain some of the best long-form journalism available anywhere.
As well as these old favourites from a pre-existing paper-only world there are also some emerging online only titles. Notably, the remarkably succcessful Los Angeles Review of Books and back home a new entrant in the form of the Sydney Review of Books.
Australians now have cheap and ready access to a global literary culture, which seems to be expanding rapidly.
Overall the Internet has been a boon but it is not without its regrets. Walking down Pitt Street south of Town Hall in Sydney the other day I felt a little sad remembering the great little second hand bookshops that used to be located around here. These were the places I went to get a cheap copy of my next Orwell, Waugh, Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, Greene, Kerouac etc. But this is just nostalgia.
With our easier access to global culture from far away Australia, do we risk losing a national literature?
Sybil Nolan and Matthew Ricketson seem to suggest the answer is probably yes in a recent article in the Sydney Review of Books. They seem to think that the future of a vibrant Australian literary culture depends a lot on the fate of the Fairfax newspapers and the space they devote to book reviews.
I would like to see a follow-up analysis to that of Nolan and Ricketson which looks at the extent to which the Internet might be providing new ways of creating a national literary culture in Australia.
But at the end of the day, I admit I don't care much. The access to cheap books and places to find out about them online is just too exciting.
Update:Peter Brent has posted an excellent piece on the profoundly misguided Gillard / Swan campaign to redefine the ALP as a big L labour party and not a social democratic or progressive as part of a bigger effort to reconnect with a supposed union / blue collar base. In my view it is a triumph of anachronistic organisational structure over contemporary political reality, as I explain below.
WITH polls showing a potential election wipe-out, the Labor Party remains in denial about the causes of its malaise. It suffers not just a crisis of leadership but a crisis of identity as a political institution.
The idea that structure is the source of the ALP's problems is the key theme of my PhD thesis. I titled it 'between dependence and independence' because both unions and ALP behave in ways that suggest they know that structure has become a problem. That is, that a party dominated by the officials of a small group of large (mostly) blue collar unions is no longer representative (in an organic sense) of the broad communities it needs the support of if it is to be electorally competitive (ie win about half the national and state elections in its own right). The ALP still relies heavily on unions for financial support, though much less than it did a generation ago, and many union officials rely on the relationship for personal career advancement and to exercise (occasional) influence over government decision-making. Officials from affiliated unions are heavily represented in the federal caucus, but there are very few ALP MPs with a background in non-affiliated unions.
Structure is not sexy. Most people believe in the electoral cycle as if it was some iron law of electoral politics, the ALP will come back because the sun will rise in the morning. They also believe that the electorate doesn't care about how the sausage is made. Or like Waleed Aly, they think the ALP's problems can be solved through some ideology or narrative.
These views are complacent.
For a start, major political parties do disappear just not often. The Whigs were replaced by the Republicans in the US, while the Democrats went close to being displaced by the Populists but managed to absorb them instead. In Britain, the Liberals were displaced by the Labour Party. In Australia, the modern iteration of the conservative side of politics was created by Menzies. The disappearance of a major party is rare but not unthinkable. If the ALP thinks it exists by divine right, or historical necessity, then it is kidding itself.
Second, voters do care about the sausage making. In the US, Clinton and Obama were anti-establishment candidates who won the Democrat nomination against the party hierachy's wishes through the primary system. It is probable that the Democrat party, that looked out for the count after it lost the South through its support for civil rights, has been re-invigorated by a more inclusive approach to selecting candidates. Interestingly, the current ALP is very enthusiastic about learning the lessons of Obama's campaigning, but not the pre-selection mechanisms that saw a junior Senator from Illinois beat the powerful Clinton establishment.
In Australia, the ALP has had to find leaders that could appeal to a broader electorate (beyond its blue collar base) to get back into office. These leaders have re-packaged the ALP to make it look less like a union party and more like a broadly based party of the centre or centre left.
Whitlam re-invented the ALP to get into office, under his leadership the ALP became the party of the rapidly growing tertiary educated middle class. Hawke also reinvented the ALP to be the party that could modernise the Australian economy and get union agreement (or acquiesence) to a set of neo-liberal policies. Hawke was uniquely placed to use 'consensus' of making the union party acceptable to business. Rudd also tried to re-invent the ALP in his own image but failed.
Like Latham before him, Rudd tried to consign the union movement to the role of just another interest group and to minimise its influence on the ALP. Latham was more radical in his views and favoured severing formal structural links with the unions altogether. Rudd largely excluded unions from his Government's myriad of reviews and enquiries. Of course, union leaders and factional leaders with strong union links played a major role in bringing Rudd down.
None of these leaders have had much success in reforming the party's essential identity as a party of the urban-based, blue collar unions. And so for 50 years now the structural anachronism of union affiliation has been papered over and has become more absurd as the Australian community becomes more middle-class, more culturally diverse, more tertiary educated and far less unionised.
Waleed Aly is not the first person to suggest that the ALP's problems could be solved by some sort of ideological overhaul or re-focusing. Ideology is fine but where does it come from? Aly and others make it sound like the problem can be solved by the good and the great coming up with a snappy new narrative to annoy the electors with. But an electorally compelling ideology must arise from a dialogue (not focus groups!) with a broad community and it needs to be done through party structures and processes (like primaries). So Aly may be right about the need for a new narrative but the current ALP structure inhibits the development of a new ideology and a new narrative that might appeal to a modern electorate.
If you spend a lot of time thinking deeply about this stuff, as I did in writing my thesis, I think you must end up recognising that the solution starts with structural reform.
ABOUT half of Australian companies have either seen little impact from the introduction of the carbon tax on their energy costs or are yet to calculate the effects, according to surveys by the Australian Industry Group.
About 49 per cent of businesses in the manufacturing, construction and services sectors reported an immediate increase in prices of at least some of their inputs after the introduction of the carbon price on July 1, the AiGroup report found.
A follow-up survey of 485 businesses in November, however, found that a third of manufacturers and construction firms and as many as one half of service sector respondents ''did not yet have enough information'' to gauge the impact of the new tax.
Businesses estimate energy costs have increased by an average of 14.5 per cent because of the carbon levy. Some of that estimate, though, may be because firms incorrectly blamed the tax for wider increases in power bills, such as for new poles and wires.
The Gillard government’s carbon tax has driven up energy costs by 14.5 per cent in its first six months, a business survey says, reigniting debate about whether the impost is doing more damage to the economy than intended.
A survey of 485 businesses, released today by the Australian Industry Group, shows the estimated impact of the tax has been similar across the manufacturing, services and building sectors.
But once the federal government’s assistance to so-called trade-exposed industries is factored into the cost, Ai Group’s research suggests the impact falls unevenly across businesses.
Food manufacturers have been particularly hard hit, with 90 per cent reporting immediate increases in costs and only 10 per cent of those expect to be able to pass that on to customers.
An example of editorial independence and media diversity?
Probably not. The SMH readership is more likely to favour a carbon tax, the AFR audience less likely.
It's more a question of giving your audience what they want.
I have worked in politics, public policy and strategic communications for over 30 years. I was recently awarded a doctorate in Australian politics at the University of Sydney. My thesis was on the (changing) relationship between the ALP and unions. I have been blogging since November 2003 and over the past decade I have written many articles on politics, public relations and social media for newspapers, magazines and websites. I love literature particularly John McGahern and James Joyce.
The header photo is of the Clarence River taken before dawn at Ulmarra in 2012.
