Alive and Kicking
February 18, 2010

I saw a film on the plane on my way back here recently from an overseas holiday that proved quite sobering, especially as I’d been away for some time and that, in effect, I was about to re-enter the newspaper industry in Australia.

The film was set in a modern-day newsroom and one of the characters, a reporter, was bemoaning the fact that, according to his newspaper’s research, people aged from about 20-30 simply weren’t buying papers any more. As journalists’ careers hinge on the relating of facts, this was quite disheartening to hear (even if it was only a movie).

I used to read a newspaper every day even before becoming a journalist because I knew that was the best way of learning the craft, from others already in the profession. With technology taking over the way printed matter is created and read, we "veterans" of the industry certainly have to move with the times (though I have a gut feeling the paper book will survive the new wave of electronic readers).

The sense of negativity in that film was somewhat dissipated when I read an article (in a broadsheet newspaper!) by the boss of The Wall Street Journal. His theme was that we, as professional journalists, would be attending our own funeral unless we became more creative and clear–headed about the advancing digital era in newspapers. "Journalists have to be flexible," Robert Thomson wrote. “They have to understand that readers’ lives have changed and that unless we are responsive to those changes, and tailor content for these new templates, journalists will have made themselves redundant.”

However, he was generally positive about the future of newspapers, which is heartening for me, and for you if that’s your chosen career. There’s plenty of life yet in the newspaper industry, thank goodness.

Gary Smith

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