Week 5 A sad prospect.

1.I read mostly the first few pages, and column 8 [in the 'Stay in Touch' section] along with some letters and caricatures. This is because I find the minor stories most interesting as they have the least opinion, especially the stories about crimes. As Joe Friday would say, crime stories can be relied upon to provide 'Just the facts, ma'am'. They also provide an entertainment value, people are interested in the ingenious schemes developed by criminals to avoid detection, or enthralled by damning daily updates from inquests and trials. National political stories are very interesting, but international stories are extremely unreliable unless provided by overseas correspondents, Reuters or AP etc. International stories written in Astralia are just cluttered with secondhand analysis from pseudo experts and assumptions by journalists who are not in the target country. Even local political stories are very biased by opinion unless they rely upon a mixture of polling, comparison of numbers/estimates, vox populi, and the opinions of "experts" from both sides of a debate. The best source of this mixture is often the letters themselves, not opinion writers. Many times the author of a letter will write in with facts that explode the prevailing cant, or with pithy rebukes to illogical statements by politicians. Letters are also ideal for concisely pointing out how some arguments are completely hypocritical or inconsistent. They are also more honest than many journalists, because they are open about their bias and preferences, while many professionals [sadly the majority of News employees] strive to sway public opinion but will not admit their own prejudice. Column 8 again is a source of simple entertainment, and an outlet for readers to interact with the paper on more lighthearted subjects.
2. I spend much more time watching television than reading newspapers. I read a lot all day but not much of the newspaper. This is difficult to explain. It is not easy to get a paper on the way to the train, in bigger areas it would be easy, most provide papers at the station, but not in the boondocks where I live. Throughout the day I have no time to read in the library, and by evening at home I am not in the mood. Also, to be honest, television, especially Insight and Lateline, are world class in providing a forum for debate of political matters, my primary interst in any news consumption. Then Media Watch and Insiders cover the whole week, one in the media and the other in politics, and can be quite comprehensive and efficient at compressing a whole week long election year news cycle. Any media must provide a forum for debate, not just unargued commentary. Looking at lateline it allows politicians to debate each other, Insiders allows journalists to debate politics, Insight allows for normal voters to debate their concerns with each other and politicians, and Media watch debates the media as a whole singlehandedly.
The newspapers, to get more readers would need to allow for more difference of opinion among writers, and force individual writers to cover data and polls even if they do not support their own opinions. So, basically, more interviews, more tables of comparison, more quotes from politicians and anything that deepens and enriches the feature stories. Feature stories on their own, or the grand narrative style arguments of Piers Ackerman and Miranda devine, where they fabricate little potted histories of an issue to bolster their own assumptions, are the style MOST GUARANTEED TO BORE AND ANNOY READERS. Nobody wants the history or parameters of a debate to be dictated to them by sycophantic converts to a political cause. Nobody. Long opinion pieces simply make a paper flat and bland. The Australian fancies itself as a bastion of deep analysis and evenhanded thrashing out of issues. It is actually a home for the longwinded and self inflating to pass themselves off as authorities. Everybody wants more interaction, more diversity, and yes, deep data, specific data, mature and unemotional weighing up of facts, but not people giving contrived far fetched self justification and passing that off as deep analysis.
3. The fact is, if the story was serious enough, not only would a trick intro be unnecessary, it would possibly appear inappropriate. If a trick intro is being considered, possibly it is for the very reason that the story is so bland it needs 'spicing up', not in an irrelevant way, but just enough to gain reader interest in the split second of decision. So, one could proceed with the intro, but bear in mind it will completely change the tenor of the article. Probably not a bad idea though, because stopping to think what other intro the story may have, it would be even weaker than the story itself, so unlikely to be undermined by an irreverent intro, if anything, it would be enhanced. The worst ase scenario is that it would be so unappealing that nobody decides to read it at all, it does not sound so weighty or hard hitting that there will be an outcry if it was not treated with the utmost gravity. If it is such a serious story, it would probably not even be desirable to use a trick intro anyway.
4. There are many options depending on the problem. If the story is too cluttered with facts to summarise easily, one may be forced to oversimplify the most interesting angle or leave it inconclusive, but with just enough info to spur the reader on. It is not always possible to properly set the scene for a whole story, or give a synopsis in the intro. Start with an intro to a part of the story thought to be most interesting or with the broadest appeal. Then just give the other elements as a bonus. Also, get colleagues to compete for the best first line. Just remember, it is better to just open with one angle to the story that gives you the best chances, there is no law that says you must reveal all in an intro, or capture every possible point of interest, indeed that may lead to an overstretch which actually puts people off who might otherwise have read it. Nobody likes to be cheated,but who is upset by getting a bonus that was not advertised? Only promise what you can deliver, but do not be afraid to deliver more than you promise.
5. Sub editors see such interference as part of their job, so there is no point trying to get exceptional treatment. Confronting people or trying to retain absolute creative control of everything you do, even after it has left your desk do is impossible. A first year communications student has no idea of the power structures in a newspaper beyond what they are taught, but presumably it would be rare to see journalists in control of the process, or complaining about interference. The best approach would be to check for future reference if you can keep intro's that are important to the story. If the sub ed is not amenable to this, then the best approach would be to get your sources to complain, because they can go to another paper if they are not satisfied, while an employee cannot [well, it's tricky]. Make it clear to higher powers that the complaint is not that the sub editor changed the intro, because that would appear too precious, but because the effect was wrong and damaging with sources. If the sources really are upset, they can make themselves plainly heard, they are just as valuable to stories as sub editors are.
Of course some people insist on being difficult and finding fault or changing work just for the sake of it, again, focus only on the occasions when this makes a mess of things, so that you can justify your argument that the sub editor is having a deleterious impact on the stories.
Do not allow it to degenerate into a personality clash.
39% of news consumers mentioned the ABC as their main source of t.v. news, while only 15% relied on SBS for that function. However, intense scrutiny of the ABC in the last decade, for various reasons by such individuals as Brian Harridine, Santo Santoro and Richard Alston along with the withdrawal of Jonestown and controversial board appointments including that of Keith Winshuttle could wear down the national broadcaster's image of freedom from executive interference by a hostile federal government, and lead to SBS overtaking it in terms of independence or at least perceived independence as it could be argued that in the latter case the commercial sponsors have sought less editorial control than the non-commercial ABC.