Atton, Chris and Hamilton, James
F: Alternative Journalism. Sage, UK, 2008. ISBN 9781412947039
Like a choc-top at
the movies, traditional 'Big Media' journalism is having its head
ripped off at the moment. Thousands of newspaper reporters and editors
in the United States and the UK have lost their permanent jobs in the
past year.
In the United States,
subscribers to venerable printed newspapers such as the 100-year-old Christian Science Monitor and the 146-year-old Hearst regional, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (pictured), now have to settle for daily online delivery
instead.
And even in Brisbane,
newsprint addicts who also like Fairfax products have become accustomed
to reading their version of the daily news online at The Brisbane Times.
Question is: as the
choc-top is ripped off, is there anything other than lily-white ice-cream under there, or is there something of substance perhaps, like those no-boring bits products on the tele?
Newspaper circulations
have been sinking (i.e. not keeping pace with population growth) for the
past 30 years, but since the global financial crisis heated up, thousands
of journalists have actually been sacked.
The comparative few
from Fairfax in Australia late last year have been dwarfed by those
thousands overseas. The rot might yet still spread deeper here. Murdoch's
News Corporation last month announced comparatively huge losses, and
Fairfax bosses have hinted strongly at more adjustments.
Of course, there is
a big 'so what?' factor here. Thousands of miners, manufacturing
workers and retail staff have gotten the bump since June and the numbers
say layoffs are only going to get worse. Why should we feel any sadder
just because journalists are feeling the pinch?
Perhaps it's because
journalists — at least those worth bothering about — are the canaries
in our national mine. You might get a build up of lethal gases but unless
the canaries are there in the first place to tweet, you'll never know. Then everyone dies, including the canary. Unless journalists are
there to help us stay in touch with the problems and issues of our society,
the gas can close in without warning.
So it's reassuring
to see a book which offers an alternative to the canary-shaped journalism
which seems to be keeling over right now.
Two academic researchers, Chris Atton and James
F Hamilton, have combined
to show us that, despite what the Big Media bigwigs of the establishment
say, there is an alternative to the journalism of Murdoch, Fairfax and
the ABC, and