Australian Journalists at Work: Their Views on Employment, Unionization, and Professional Identity

The aftermath of dramatic news industry restructuring in Australia, as elsewhere, has major implications for journalistic employment, professional identity, and other collective occupational structures, including unions. Newsroom strikes over job cuts are now common. Journalists believe their livelihoods are at risk as “clickbait” displaces news reporting, degrades professional standards, and threatens public understanding and democracy. This gives rise to the question: Is Australian journalism an occupation in disarray? Drawing on academic and industry research, this chapter describes employment in Australian journalism as significantly more precarious, fragmented, and de-unionized than before. As a result, the popularity of the national journalists’ union, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, has declined. However, by making sure journalists can speak with one voice and get a say in workplace reorganization, it continues to play a strategically important role in protecting jobs and working conditions

Beyond newsrooms: Younger journalists talk about job loss and re-employment in Australian journalism

This article examines the re-employment destinations of 10 younger journalists who lost newsroom jobs in the period 2012 to 2014, to understand the work options available in the current Australian labour market. With field theory as a framework, it considers how and why seven of these younger journalists now work beyond newsrooms, either freelancing or in corporate journalism (but not public relations). The remaining three younger journalists, who were in a position to push ahead with their careers, are still engaged in mainstream news reporting. The transition from full-time newsroom jobs to other forms of employment was tougher for some than others. The article argues these younger journalists pragmatically adjusted their ideas of journalistic work to suit their altered circumstances. These results are interpreted through the lens of field theory, and contextualised in the research on the transformation of journalism.Australian Research Counci

That's Gold! Thinking about excellence in Australian Journalism

This paper reports on the first national study of the annual Walkley Awards for excellence in Australian journalism, the premier media prizes in this country. The research is designed to investigate the meaning of quality journalism at a time of flux in the news industry, as newspapers move online and become multi-platform rather than single-medium news providers. Academic critique of journalism habitually dwells on malpractice and poor performance; this paper proposes instead to critically examine exemplary forms of successful journalistic practice, asking what they might tell us about quality journalism. Notable characteristics of the top prize, the Gold Walkley, awarded in the period between 1988 and 2008, are highlighted in the analysis. These are interpreted in relation to the research literature on prize-winning journalism. Quality journalism emerges as a complex practice that resists quantification and 'monetisation'. The paper argues that, nonetheless, excellence in journalism, properly conceived, requires attention to - and engagement with - the public's ideas about journalism.ARC Linkage Grant (LP0990734

Journalism Education in Australia: Educating Journalists for Convergent, Cosmopolitan, and Uncertain News Environments

There is a high national demand for entry into journalism programs and student interest in journalism careers is impressive. Journalism program enrolments rose by 42% in the 2001-2008 period, compared to an increase of 27% in overall enrolments in higher education programs (Scanlon, 2009). This demand is linked to optimism about employment opportunities for graduates who have information and communication technology skill sets and fascination with the news media (Putnis, Axford, Watson, & Blood, 2002). Research indicates that unrealistic perceptions of the high profile work opportunities, glamor, and wealth supposedly found in journalistic careers are also a factor (Alysen & Oakham, 1996). Many journalism graduates aspire to work in metropolitan daily newspapers. A 2011 survey found 57% of final- year journalism students would look for work “reporting at a newspaper” (Callaghan, 2011). Yet, these newsrooms offer very few entry-level job opportunities (Cokley, Edstrom, McBride, & Ranke, 2011; Cokley, Gilbert, Jovic, & Hanrick, 2015). As a consequence, most of the journalism graduates entering the labor market each year (Hirst, 2010) have to settle for other types of media or non-media work (e.g., niche magazines, public relations)

Journalism and intellectual life: the exemplary case of Donald Horne

Anti-intellectualism is widely seen as a feature of the modern mass media, but it is also widely accepted that much debate about ideas occurs through the mass media and that, for example, the mass media has been the prime vehicle for public intellectuals. In this paper, we examine this paradox and argue that there is a strong case that journalism, or parts of it, can be regarded as a form of intellectual practice. We do this by reference to a case study that examines the journalism of commentary and opinion and its use in fashioning a political and social agenda. This concerns Donald Horne's use of the magazines The Observer and the Bulletin to develop a public debate about Australian politics, society and culture. From this debate emerged the book The lucky country (1964) that set an agenda for public debate for at least 10 years

Pushback journalism: Twitter, user engagement and journalism students' responses to 'The Australian'

This article examines journalism students' responses to claims in 'The Australian', made in October 2014, alleging some of Australia's top universities were indoctrinating rather than educating future journalists. It reports the findings of a case study of user engagement with the story, including social media network and sentiment analysis of the resulting Twitter conversation. We found evidence of what we term "pushback journalism", a new type of user engagement by younger people. Journalism students and other interested users converged to "rewrite" the indoctrination story - using wit, irony and humour as well as argument - with the aim of setting the record straight from their perspectives. In contrast to Australian social media research on adversarial relationships between professional and amateur journalists, we argue "pushback journalism" provides evidence of contiguous but critical relationships between the current generation of professional journalists and upcoming journalists-in-training, based on different if overlapping ideas about, and experiences of, journalism education, media careers and the future of news

JERAA@40: Towards a history of the professional association of Australian journalism academics

The professional association representing Australian journalism educators was established in 1975. This article, on the occasion of the association's 40th anniversary, traces the history and evaluates the role of the Australian Association for Tertiary Education in Journalism (AATEJ) and its successors, the Journalism Education Association (JEA) and the Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia (JERAA). It finds collegiality and a desire to improve standards of journalism teaching have endured as key features of the group's ethos. More recently, the association has taken a leadership role in the contested area of research development and, less consistently, adhered to a founding objective to champion free expression. The authors conclude that this repositioning of the association beyond its capacity as a support group for journalism educators raises the question of whether the time has come to renew the traditional mission statement and rejuvenate JERAA's public profile to account for its newfound disciplinary leadership

Remembering Anne Dunn (1950 - 2012)

When Ian Richards asked for a tribute to our extraordinary colleague, Anne Dunn, who passed away on July 1, 2012, after a long illness, it was hard to know where to begin. This is a very difficult farewell. Anne always seemed invincible, somehow bulletproof. She was a person of enviable vitality, a prodigious work ethic, and an unflappable can-do approach to life that inspired colleagues and students alike. News of her death came as a shock to many. Robbed of the chance to say goodbye, and thank you, we are left to mourn the passing of a remarkable broadcaster, journalism educator and media scholar who will be remembered for her academic leadership in the media and communications field, her bridge-building between industry and academe and her life-long commitment to public service broadcasting

Bearing the Burden of Corporate Restructuring: Job Loss and Precarious Employment in Canadian Journalism

This article reports on job loss among Canadian journalists between 2012 and 2016. Building on Australian research on the aftermath of job loss in journalism, this article examines the experiences of 197 journalists who were laid off or who took a buyout, voluntarily or not, due to corporate restructuring in Canadian media (both French and English). To date, no scholarly research in Canada has examined what happens to journalists after they are laid off, including the personal and professional experiences journalists undergo when they lose their job and seek a new one, or the implications of these experiences for Canadian journalism in general. Overall, in a result that mirrors laid-off Australian journalists’ experiences of re-employment, we find a dramatic shift among journalists’ employment status and a decline in incomes after job loss. The majority of our survey participants moved from full-time, secure, and well remunerated work to more precarious forms of employment in and out of journalism, including freelance, contract and part-time. This shift in employment status demonstrates underlying precariousness in Canadian journalism. We argue that job loss in journalism has implications for broader social life and for journalism as an institution vital for participation in democratic life.Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada

'It has a bleak future': The effects of job loss on regional and rural journalism in Australia

Severe contractions in the Australian media landscape have led to a loss of jobs in major metropolitan newsrooms. In 2015, those cuts spread significantly to regional and rural newsrooms in Australia. This paper explores the effect of job loss on rural and regional journalism through a survey of 31 journalists working at rural and regional media organisations whose positions were made redundant from 2012 to 2015. As well as providing accounts of their own personal redundancy experiences, this paper explores the participants’ opinions of regional and rural journalism. It concludes that those whose positions in local journalism have become redundant are concerned about the resources of local newsrooms, and the quality of journalism these newsrooms can subsequently produce