Competition and diversity are not always good things in the media. It depends what sort of competition you are talking about — as the Diana saga has just shown us.
In a highly competitive media market, such as that of British newspapers (but not Australian newspapers), there is little time for ethics.
I don’t want to argue that journalists in Australian newspapers are much more ethical than their British counterparts. Rather, there are factors of economics and geography that enable Australian newspaper journalists and executives behave much better than their British counterparts.
In Britain eight or nine morning newspapers circulate throughout the country. They can be put on a train in central London at night and be in Scotland at breakfast. That sort of national saturation was not possible in Australia (until recent fax technology, and by then it was too late). Nearly all our papers, like The Canberra Times, The Adelaide Advertiser and the Hobart Mercury, circulate primarily in one city.
So British papers compete head-to-head for the whole national market, or at least whole horizontal sections of it. Further, there is far less home delivery in Britain and more public transport use than in Australia. Generally, the posters shout competitively from the railway stations. Di’s lover tells all. Inside star’s private hell. Etc etc. Readers choose the most titillating.
Further, the papers do not contain the wads of local-city-directed classified advertisements, so they are much thinner. It means each additional copy is cheaper to produce and represents pure profit.
So the geography and economics in Britain add up to newspapers that jostle heavily for extra circulation. It is worth it to pay out defamation damages and contempt fines. It is worth it to throw ethics out the window and in that market it is difficult to hold a story for a day or so to check things out more thoroughly in case a competitor gets it.
In Australia, with city based newspapers, it is unlikely someone will stray from the local paper. People almost have to get the paper for local service guides even if they do not like the flavour of the editorial content.
Notice, incidentally, that where there is some competition within a city market (in Sydney with the Herald and the Telegraph and in Melbourne between the Age and the Herald-Sun) you tend to get more grubbiness. The Telegraph’s antics on the heroin trial and the Melbourne paper’s political biases in opposite directions are good examples.
But mostly in Australia, tomorrow’s paper is already sold; there is no need to exaggerate or titillate to get buyers.
So we should not unquestionally take on board any British proposals to regulate the press on the strength of the Diana tragedy.
But that does not let Australia off the hook.
Our television behaves almost precisely as the British newspapers do. Three networks compete head-to-head nationally for the mass market. Huge amounts of advertising revenue are based on ratings and market share. This is similar to the British newspapers’ chase for cover-price revenue.
Australia commercial television news and current affairs engage in all the tricks of the British press to a greater degree than the Australian press: chequebook journalism, invasion of privacy, contempt of court, defamation, the ignoring of ethical standards and so on. They are driven by ratings which in turn drives revenue, upon which jobs depend.
In Australia you are much more likely to see a competition of prying television cameras than you are to see a ruck of still photographers.
Notice, too, how Australian television standards have become worse in the past decade or so. Two things have contributed most to that. The first is the creation of the three nation-wide programming networks. This has made competition and the chase for the advertising dollar more heated. The second is the decline of the authority and power of the Australian Broadcasting Authority to enforce standards on the pain of suspension or cancellation of the broadcasting licence and the revenue it generates. This was the only economic counter-balancing force against the economic imperative to compete at all costs.
Notice, too, where the print media get most grubby. Magazines. Why? Because magazines compete head-to-head nationwide. Their circulations fluctuate, depending on pick ups from super-market check-outs and from newsagencies. Both these sources are driven by front covers and posters that titillate and exaggerate. It pays them to invade privacy, ignore ethical standards, defame or be in contempt of court.
So when the catch-cries of media competition and diversity are mentioned do not think only of high-brow journals, multi-cultural emphases and different political perspectives. Think also of a money-grubbing cesspit where competition means the survival of the fittest and little concern for very much else.
If geography and economics had put Australian newspapers in a more competitive market do doubt their behaviour would be worse. When survival is at stake, anything goes. When lots more money is at stake, almost anything goes.
Monopolies are not all bad and competition is not a panacea against all evil.
+ While on the subject of Princess Diana and media regulation, this event had a large coverage on the internet — among the first to do so. Indeed, some people’s first knowledge of it came via the internet.
At present the internet has a wide audience and growing, even if it is nowhere near as high as that of the mass media. As a result there have been plenty of calls for greater regulation of it. The Diana tragedy will no doubt add fuel to those calls largely because of the unmitigated tripe that was put on various sites about it. Lunatic conspiracy theories that Diana was murdered by the Royal family because she was inconvenient abounded.
But this view of the need for regulation, both of the mass media and the internet, assumes that readers are morons and need protecting.
There is an extra element with the internet. Never before has so much audience been available to so many writers with so little intelligence. Never before have people been able to say so much to so many with so little financial consequence for their action. (Other than the offshoots of companies with trained people and a publication reputation that have off-shoots on the net.)
Ultimately internet chat will get the credibility it deserves, without regulation.
Caveat lector, I say. Let the reader beware.