1. Bad News

    Avid user of OurSay, Geoff Pain successfully asked the number one question in the Bad News OurSay in October, 2011. This question was discussed at a classic Readings bookstore event, where three high profile commentators discussed, “Why not enhance the ABC’s Charter to include production and distribution of a newspaper?”

    OurSay also promised to organise a coffee for Pain with academic and author of the Quarterly Essay, “Bad News” Robert Manne. Read more for a transcript of their conversation:


    Geoff
    I see the need, and have done for a number of years, for an ABC newspaper. I see that as a solution to one of the main issues that you raise in your latest article in the Quarterly Essay “Bad News” (Murdoch’s Australian and the shaping of the nation). 
    I want to get your thoughts on the idea and whether you have come across it before, because it’s not new. It goes back, to my knowledge, to the 1970s when Dr Moss Cass raised it with some colleagues, but it did not get much support.
    Then in 1993 I raised it, as a Federal political candidate, and it got picked up by some Murdoch newspapers and as a reaction to that independent publisher Eric Beecher contacted me and said, at the time, he thought it was a good idea and he would like to help in the public interest. So, I was wondering if you have had thoughts - along those lines? 
    Robert
    Yes, well obviously I think that Australia has an aggravated problem in the area of newspapers.
    There are a number of elements to the problem. One is that newspapers (or the serious newspapers) are increasingly becoming unviable. Eric in particular has always brought attention to this – the rivers of gold of classified ads have dried up for the serious parts of the newspaper world and that means that virtually all really serious broadsheet newspapers, at least in the English speaking world, are in trouble - like the Guardian or New York Times. It seems to me anyhow that the time we are living in is one in which there is extraordinary capacity for opinion to be published for example on the internet. There has probably never been a time when opinion is easier to publish than it is now. However the one thing you will never have on the internet is investigative reporting. Presumably it will always be easier for simple bits of news to be broadcast and cast widely on the internet.  So there is a general technical problem with newspapers that rely on profit and that is they can’t  make the old profits and that trend will continue.
    All really serious newspapers are in trouble. As you know I believe that Australia has a particular problem.  With the possible exception of Italy, there is now no country with such a concentration of ownership in media as Australia has, because of the Murdoch positioning. 
    Geoff
    Yes, some 70 percent.
    Robert
    Yes 70 percent of circulation. The only place they are week is in rural press. People don’t even think about the suburban press. Murdoch is incredibly strong there and as we all know he has the only nationwide daily newspaper. When we combine those two problems, the general decline of broadsheet as a commercial enterprise and Australia’s problem with the near-monopoly, or 70 percent control of Murdoch, who is a political activist, we have an incredible problem.
    The time I have thought about this is through Eric Beecher, who has talked to me about if on and off over the years. I have to say it (an ABC newspaper) is an extremely attractive proposition. I also think it is, for cultural reasons, rather unrealistic. So I think there are two ways of looking at the problem. One is that it seems to me we have in the English speaking cultures, that I understand best, we have this tradition of reasonably independent government broadcasters. And we would never think twice, if you are a normal person, that the ABC is fundamental to both television and radio. 
    Geoff
    It’s the reference point, isn’t it?
    Robert
    The reference point, and to be honest, I think even the ideological opponents of the ABC would be genuinely aghast at the thought of it collapsing. Let’s say there was a serious proposal by a lunatic to get rid of the ABC and sell it off or privatize it. I think 98 percent of serious human beings would, in Australia, think that’s a disaster. Even the enemies want to change it, they don’t want to get rid of it. 
    So we accept for some reason that it’s totally legitimate radio and television broadcasting done through taxpayers’ money by the tradition of the capacity to create independent bodies, even though taxpayers pay for them and that government is in charge of them and to some extent controls the laws determining their operation.
    So there is nothing logical that would suggest you couldn’t expand that to a national, serious, broadsheet – called “The ABC Today”. And yet it seems to me the interesting question is - we accept fully radio and television and now online, as being totally legitimate for taxpayers to fund – why there would be a hue and cry in parliament including even the Greens if we were to suggest something as outlandish as your idea!
    The most fruitful question is why we now find it such an outlandish idea. Perhaps we can discuss that. 
    Geoff
    I think it is interesting that you have made reference to broadsheet, because my model in fact cuts through to not even tabloid but even A4 format. I’ve costed it. To reproduce the actual word content of say the Sunday Age front section that contains the meat of the news and editorial and letters and other things – that condenses down to 20 sides of A4, or 10 sheets of paper. That can be produced at commercial rates, as outsourced printing, for twelve cents per copy. And if it were delivered via the most expensive method, that is Australia Post bulk addressed mail at 37 cents per item, we could actually put it into people’s letter box at a total production and distribution cost of 50 cents.
    We might charge them a dollar, or if it is very popular, maybe more. It depends on market forces. I think that way I have cut through one of the primary objections – that you might need to hire printing press time in the various major cities. If we move to A4 production it can be done literally anywhere by copy-printer or high speed offset.
    Robert
    And you could make it look good?
    Geoff
    I think that’s it, yes. I also have an environmental aspect to it, going away from current newspapers because there is a very big environmental problem at the moment with heavy metals used in inks. It is not widely known that there are large amounts of copper, cadmium and other things in the broadsheets and tabloids. Colour, if we are going to have it, would have to be in vegetable dye. There is nothing really to prevent that if you are wanting to make an environmentally responsible product. You can still have colour, but I think the idea of moving to a smaller format, to defeat the need for printing press time, might be the key. 
    The other aspect is that in remote communities one can envisage that the local Post Office, for example and that I see as the initial primary distribution outlet, could actually print to demand. So a customer comes in says I’ll have a copy of the ABC paper please and they wait for virtually no time before it is spun out of the printer – on a small scale that could be done.
    Robert
    Yes. How does that technology work then?
    Geoff
    Well, you just have to have a copier and a pdf file is sent to the agent. 
    Robert
    Just a file?
    Geoff
    Yes, exactly, that would be sent automatically to the distributors who had signed up for that right.
    It’s easy then to cope with remuneration. Newspaper agents get a very little return for their effort. They only get 25 percent of the sales, nothing for anything unsold, and if they are sub-agents they only get 12.5 percent. I think the ABC would be in a position to do a better deal.
    Robert
    Indeed it is interesting you say this because I think newsagents are in danger of becoming unviable. Maybe not in the near term but in the middle to long term, because sales of newspapers are dropping .
    Geoff
    Yes, they rely on getting people into the shop and they get a better return on selling you a Lotto ticket than they do on handling newspapers.
    Robert
    Yes they have to get you there, as newspaper circulation drops.
    Geoff
    I don’t think it is certain that it will drop because my model of distribution with Post Offices and public transport stations and the convenient size of the document. Currently people are distributing free newspapers on our train systems, as you would have seen. 
    Robert
    MX and that sort of thing.
    Geoff
    Yes. I think the key would be to appeal to another edge of the market, that doesn’t like the bulk advertising. The people who don’t want to pick up a broadsheet and have to search for the news. Cut right to the chase and current topics. And there are some people who like to store their newspapers. The A4 model is very nice – with a hole punch you can store a whole year’s newspaper issues and it would only weigh a few kilograms. Potentially a new market. 
    Robert
    When I used the word broadsheet, I didn’t mean literally, it was a metaphor for quality.
    Geoff
    Exactly, yes. 
    Robert
    As you know in Europe and the United States it is declining and I don’t know what they call the intermediate size between tabloid and broadsheet, but you know - there is a new size, where people have public transport, it is a lot easier to read.
    Geoff
    I think we are agreed, you don’t have to be hung up on the actual physical form. By thinking laterally you can possibly get people to reconsider the preconceptions of cost of production and distribution.
    Robert
    Yes and you have done all this carefully. I have never heard of anyone similar. Does Eric know your plans?
    Geoff
    No, I would like to re-establish contact with him, because it’s now getting on almost 20 years since I discussed it with him.
     
     
    Robert
    I know he’s still very keen on the idea. Again this is something I don’t know because it is something I have not worked on properly. Eric told me recently that there are quite a few examples of government funded newspapers in Europe. 
    Geoff
    Oh, that’s interesting. I need to do some research into that.
    Robert
    I’m pretty sure he said that. I think maybe Finland or Sweden or somewhere, or France I think he said. There must be places that have thought seriously and tried to work out ways of doing it. So it’s no longer just an idea.
    Geoff
    I think the other cost aspect is the ABC has this worldwide resource of exceptionally good journalists and what we see is only a tiny fraction of their intellectual output. It’s all edited down. There is still a market of people who don’t go online for which potentially they could re-expand.
    Robert
    There is one point against you. I mean I now read, almost every day really, The Drum, amongst other things, because I find they have a greater variety of opinion than in the daily newspapers, and indeed really than anywhere else. They have half a dozen or eight pieces every day. It’s not investigative journalism, it’s opinion. 
    Geoff
    That’s right, but if you want to take the paper on the train do you really want everyone to be carrying their little tablets or computers? Or would you still like your hard copy to flick over and take to the beach or the park?
    Robert
    Or, to read in comfort. Really the screen is unpleasant if you do too much of it. I think then, if I can think about your idea, apart from the fact that anyone who has an original idea has a battle to get people to listen the two big problems you will have its seems to me will be to get the idea out. One is to combat the idea we have just been talking about – that online is going to replace print, some people would say even for books. Some people say e-books in 20 or 50 years will be more important than printed books. Printed books may be the really attractive decorative books but the bulk publication will happen through e-books. Some people say, I’m not saying they’re right. That would be an argument you would find resisting what you are saying. And you know the way you brought up the ABC. You said the ABC journalists can’t do extended commentary but in fact they do on The Drum. The spine of The Drum are their good journalists who write once or twice per week or whatever.
    Geoff
    Yes, exactly and I’d like the hard copy of that more freely available. 
    Robert
    You know human beings have this sense, often false, of there being a trajectory of invention, I think it is usually untrue, that there is in our mind the idea that one thing replaces another. But really it is much more true that things are added on, rather than things are replaced. There is the image that the horse and carriage is replaced by the motor car and that’s a kind of strong myth. So the idea now is that newspapers and even books will be replaced by online- you know what I am saying. It’s mythology.
    Geoff
    Yes, I see it as growing a bigger cake. 
    Robert
    Yes and you know, the case that would suit you is that people always said cinemas would be destroyed by television or similarly that television would be destroyed by DVD or other forms of carriage and it just hasn’t happened. One thing has added to another and they have specialization of tasks. Your argument will be met with that I am sure.
    Geoff
    Yes already Margaret Simons has suggested that the online route is there and that anyone can basically establish an online newspaper and charge people to view it. 
    Robert
    Give us in detail your answer to that . 
    Geoff
    Once again it’s electronic format focused and I am purely talking about the market, as I have a market research as well as scientific background. There are still people wanting to walk into a local shop and pick up their physical copy and have the actual physical contact with the paper.  There are important issues even the Herald Sun recognizes – it has a 2-page spread of crosswords and puzzles. That’s much more difficult at the moment to get people to engage online with crosswords and so on. The technology is not really there and not as attractive as it is for people to bite the pencil between their lips while they are thinking about this terrible wicked word. A crossword is just a different experience, likewise Sudoku etc.
    Robert
    When you say this, do you think it’s as true of the younger generation as it would be of the older generation?
    Geoff
    I think the interesting thing is what I mentioned before, with these free newspapers that are distributed on the train lines that I have observed.  They are feasted upon by younger people, who may well have plugs in their ears and be listening to their ipods, but it is still targeted at the young audience, from the teeny boppers really .
    Robert
    But you would agree that the habit of younger people buying the daily newspaper is dying. 
    Geoff
    It would appear so, but I think if we can make it cheap and attractive, that we have the potential for reversing that trend, and potentially of course it could be free. That would be extending the ABC Charter even further. We have free to air television and radio, and online – they are not charging us at the moment to view The Drum, so why not?
    Robert
    I’ve always considered it should be free. I’ve never thought of people paying for it. The justification given traditionally was for example the BBC which was unchallenged in the 30s and 40s as part of a civilized community. People needed access to high level opinion and discussion and news, which was not taken by commercial interests. That argument carried the day for a long time and obviously the ABC in which we part of a dominion when the ABC started – a child of the cultural ideas of the BBC. That seems to me from one point of view as being incredibly successful in that there is hardly any institution in Australia I would think which is as broadly supported when paid for by government.
    Geoff
    Absolutely and it’s there as a resource in case of bushfire or emergency. 
    Robert
    So my idea would be to make it free because taxpayers willingly pay whatever it costs to run and have the ABC do its job and to extend the idea of the ABC into newspaper on the grounds that it performs a certain function essential to a civilized society which is investigative journalism, that is not going to be done by anyone in the future. I was talking to an expert who is interested in media recently and it is almost like an accepted crisis for modern democracies that one function that was done by broadsheet newspapers, in the metaphorical sense, is no longer done by anyone, because no-one can afford it. There the best case is Watergate where a couple of young journalists were allowed by the Washington Post to spend, I don’t know – six months, doing nothing, I mean not producing anything on a daily basis, but investigating a story – which eventually changed American politics and changed the world in a way. I don’t think that any newspaper now could afford that sort of thing, or they hardly can afford that sort of investigation. In a way, The Guardian has done it with Murdoch, but that’s probably one of the few newspapers left that will use its resources to do real investigative journalism of a kind that I think is really fundamental to our culture.
    Geoff
    Yes absolutely. You’ve got the Four Corners example with the long period devoted and then the full revelation. 
    Robert
    But that’s thinning our because of cost to some extent. But I also think that with Four Corners, they do it in a different way. I think certain kinds of investigation require print. Chris Masters did this in a creditable job with Queensland in Four Corners, but when you have to do a job which is close analysis of documents, I don’t think you can convey that with film.
    Geoff
    You will often want to compare things, side by side, and say what did we see last week on this issue or last year? 
    Robert
    That’s right, and so it seems to me there is a formal crisis in the decline of investigative reporting because the broadsheets are becoming increasingly unviable, partly because classified advertising going online. Partly because even online competitors are taking some of their audience, anyhow. You know the Huffington Post or whatever have a slate with very good online publications in the United States such as New York Times or Washington Post. If you have this kind of crisis and you feel that a democratic society, particularly with the global financial crisis or climate change, you feel investigative reporting is not going be done by anyone, except in books say and even that’s rather difficult. Even books need to have big markets to succeed. 
    You know then, it seems to me very attractive to have the idea of a truly independent public authority broadcasting and printing.
    Geoff
    Yes and I see another opportunity is that something the physical size of the Quarterly Essay could be periodically put out through the same marketing, printing and distribution process to give further meat to the people who read the paper. 
    Robert
    You mean a specialized or particular bit of investigative reporting, that could be turned into a booklet? 
    Geoff
    Exactly, yes. There is great potential for extending the record and the actual depth of study for a particular topic. 
    Robert
    But then we come to the thing you’ll have to do and I can’t solve, and if you are serious about this, you would have to solve. That’s the problem of the cultural resistance. No, putting it more precisely, there is cultural resistance and commercial resistance.  Cultural resistance is that I would think everyone at first would have a double take to the idea of a publically funded, taxpayer funded, or government funded newspaper. And when you ask why, it is irrational. Irrational, but as a scientist you are probably less sympathetic or less attuned to irrationality, than I as a social scientist.
    There will be incredible cultural resistance for no good reason and that’s what you have to come to terms with. How to shift the cultural assumptions? People would think it somewhat sinister.
    Geoff
    Well exactly, and the contradictions would have to be outed. Because if they are prepared to watch the television, view online and listen to the radio, and it’s the same journalists producing the physical copy. In fact we would need to employ not much more journalist time because you just need to edit it up and plug it into a word processor. So I see, yes, it’s the irrationality that we have to counter. Even with the politically motivated and at the MP level you find resistance.
    Robert
    I am certain that the people who haven’t thought about this, even people of progressive views, and of high intelligence, the first instinct would be resistance. Maybe the second instinct would be resistance as well.
    Geoff
    Oh, I have floated the idea of ABC newspapers with a number of people.  The first reaction has been “you can’t make a profit out of a newspaper, they are all declining, small readership” and so on. So I say it will be not-for-profit and there will be no advertising in it by anyone else than ABC shop and even that would be kept down to a minimal level. We don’t want a document that is full of advertising. 
    Robert
    Forget about profit – free. You would just have to go into a newsagent or a milk bar and request a copy or pick it up. 
    Geoff
    Yes, as you know, at the local shop level those local colour tabloid papers are delivered free – you just pick them up and walk out. They are of course subsidized by the advertising content, so if we remove the advertising content and minimize cost through size and clever production and distribution technology, yes if it’s only going to cost the government say 12 cents per copy to give it away, why not? Maybe we can get a group of people saying YES – as long as it’s free. I don’t mind if that’s how it goes. I personally would be happy to pay a dollar and let the ABC have its funding reinvested, back into drama and science reporting etc.      
    Robert
    But as I say, you’d meet enormous resistance from just prejudice.
    Geoff
    Yes, as a scientist, inventor, patentee of ideas - I know absolutely what you are talking about. You can’t self-promote an idea – you have to have champions, so I am very pleased you are positive about it, but you are obviously aware of all the problems. What we need to do is get a number of high-profile champions to get together and say “WHY NOT? It can be done!!” It’s just a matter of decisive action by those with the money bags and more particularly the vision to see what the effect of actually getting a non-biased news sheet out would be, not driven by some paternalistic ex-Australian living in America.
    Robert
    I think to do that you would have to demonstrate the need. And it seems to me the need is not for variety of opinion, because I don’t think you get it in the newspapers, but you do get it online. I don’t think you can say there is a part of the population that is uncomfortable or unsympathetic to being online, because that’s ephemeral. I’m almost certain that within 20 or 30 years there will be hardly anyone, apart from those who have sight impairment, who will be resistant to going online for part of their day. Although that is now true for older people, it won’t happen in the future. 
    I think it absolutely critical to demonstrate need and I think the argument must turn on the crisis of investigative journalism because I think that’s where I can’t see, and no-one has really been able to work out, with the decline of those old serious newspapers – and apparently both the Guardian and New York Times are in financial difficulty and really struggling to find ways of surviving.    It’s only the papers that Murdoch subsidizes that are not in crisis like the Wall Street Journal or the Australian or the Times. That’s because he puts a lot of money into them because he makes his money through other nefarious or just commercial activities. 
    So it seems to me if the campaign were to work, it would obviously need not only high profile campaigners and supporters , you’d probably need to try and convince at least the Greens or one major political party to be sympathetic or at least open to it. But you would have to do, as it were, research into the decline of investigative reporting to have a real case to be made. I think only if you can demonstrate a really serious political need, which I think you could, I mean one could easily demonstrate that, but that would take quite a lot of work. I know there is a leading figure in the United States, I think who has put a small investigative journalism unit together and they do investigative journalism but they are driven by the thought that this is just no longer happening in the newspaper world or indeed anywhere else. 
    Geoff
    You have to ask what happens if the Australian falls over in Australia, so that even its critics still say that it does supply useful information on a regular basis. It’s quite conceivable that the Murdoch empire will change its priorities in the not too distant future and actually pull the plug. 
    Robert
    My view on that is that if Murdoch lives for another 20 years, which judging by his mother, he might, I think he’ll go on supporting The Australian. It’s very much his baby. But if he retires or dies, then it won’t last more than a couple of years. I don’t think there is anyone likely to take over in News Corporation that would be interested in spending that much money. No-one knows how much it costs, but it clearly costs a heck of a lot. 
    Geoff
    There was an interesting idea floated recently during a Readings bookshop panel discussion and that was to look at it the other way – why don’t we have taxpayer funded journalists, so we actually have journalist Fellows, who then have their work published? But the question then remains – what is the medium? Do they go along to a newspaper where they are at odds with the editorial policy and do they get their material published as they want? I see the ABC as being able to offer that journalistic outlet for taxpayer funded journalists, or commercial. But I do see the problem of creating these public servant journalists in no-man’s land – not an ABC journalist and not fully employed by say, Newscorp. 
    Robert
    Yes, I can’t see the advantage – they’d be battling all the time as individuals. 
    Geoff
    Especially if they are paid by the word, or however it’s done these days. 
    Robert
    The other big political problem just to conclude my view of it, you would meet the most ferocious opposition, not altogether unjustified, from  the present newspapers. I mean obviously from Murdoch – he was even opposed to The Drum, because it’s a competitor with his online paper. Even Fairfax which is on its last legs as a newspaper company (it will make money elsewhere). They would fight like crazy to say that now if there were a print competitor, particularly one that didn’t cost anything, and which was at taxpayers’ expense, it would kill them off, as it probably would.
    Geoff
    The question is will they survive anyway? And their experimenting to look at this paywall concept, where people pay for views, personally I don’t see that as a goer. So yes, Fairfax would have to compete on journalistic integrity and investigative journalism and present other aspects to their newspaper – perhaps a big broadsheet design is still popular. 
    Robert
    One thing to think about, and you have a lot, is what would be covered in this (The ABC) newspaper and what wouldn’t? I can’t see any reason for it, let’s say you took the model of it being like the ABC being taxpayer funded I often wonder what the purpose is of, let’s say if we look at local radio, like 774 in Melbourne? It’s not that different (if you left Jon Faine out of it) - you know, 774 isn’t all that different from commercial radio. It’s much closer now than it used to be and I often wonder, it’s a slightly intellectual point,  what is the point of doing something that is not altogether dissimilar from what goes on commercial radio, whereas it seems to me that what goes on Radio National is simply irreplaceable as the place for really serious analytical discussion .
    Geoff
    You’ve got the choice – if you want the shock jock ABC star without the advertising you can go to 774. 
    Robert
    Let’s say your idea got up, and you had a government funded newspaper, I’m not sure you’d need to have the 774 kind of version as well.
    Geoff
    I agree, the ABC newspaper would concentrate on reporting the news, with no editorial. 
    It would not include the racing form guide or the glossy advertising supplements. The ABC already publishes “lifestyle” magazines covering gardening, cooking etc. But there would be an opportunity to include regional news, adding more “local” content as done on ABC “local radio”.