Value and Worth in the News: All the News that’s Fit to Print (week 9)

This week we focused on News Values; a concept defined as the degree of prominence an outlet gives to a particular story. By this definition, the important thing to consider is that the audience’s ‘attention’ is essentially dictated by the degree of prominence given by the outlet.

However, before news values can be discussed, we need to know exactly what news is. The word itself derives from a plural of ‘new’ – first attested in the late 14^th century to mean “new things.” Still today the word retains this meaning, at least from the perspective of news outlets; Arthur Evelyn Waugh described news as “what a chap who doesn't care much about anything wants to read. And it's only news until he's read it. After that it's dead.”

So if ‘news’ exists as stories of what has happened recently, how do journalists, in a society where the events of the entire world are known, sift through the unimaginably huge amount of events that take place each day to present to an audience? This depends on the socio-cultural context of news outlet, and is decided by the news values that they hold.

According to Dr Redman, four factors influence an outlet’s News Values: impact, audience identification, pragmatics and source influence.

Impact refers to the media’s (and thus the journalist’s) dual role: to inform and to entertain; news shocks and generates interest, whether it be through obscurity, disgust or appreciation. Audience identification is imperative; in the calamity of the day’s events world-wide, an audience places value on what is been happening in their immediate geographical, cultural or social context, as these stories are more likely to affect their lives directly. Pragmatics refers to the practical side of telling news; the news that is both ethical and easy to report. Source influence plays a major role due to the paradoxical roles of journalism and public relations. “Journalism loves to hate PR, whether for spinning, controlling access, approving copy, or protecting clients at the expense of the truth” says UK PR executive Julia Hobsbawm, “yet journalism has never needed public relations more, and PR has never done a better job for the media.”

Newsworthiness

The news values of an outlet inform what is known as ‘newsworthiness’ – the value placed on different types of news stories. Newsworthiness is illustrated in the inverted pyramid structure, where information is presented in decreasing order of worth. Because news values inform newsworthiness, the factors of Impact and Audience Identification are demonstrated. This is how we get terms like “if it bleeds it leads” and “if it’s local it leads.” The role of an editor is to have a deep understanding of their respective institution’s news values, and to identify newsworthiness by acting as “human sieves of the torrent of news” (Harold Evans - The Sunday Times editor, 1967-1981). This role can only be adopted through experience in the newsroom – what Evans eloquently refers to as the “college of osmosis.”

Both editors and journalists rely on experience and instinct rather than logic when defining news values, and because of this role newsworthiness exists in an entirely informal manner. Never written down, news values are passed on socially and verbally through the generations of journalists that pass through the newsroom, espoused by the editors as if they are elders passing on some ancient story.

While different news outlets are all different in their own way, there are some inherent factors that influence a sense of newsworthiness. A number of core factor lists have been compiled, each different in length depending on how much depth is being considered. The most famous of these is undoubtedly Galtung & Ruge’s (1965) twelve factors:

•        Negativity                                         
• ·         Proximity (closeness to home)
• ·         Recency
• ·         Currency
• ·         Continuity
• ·         Uniqueness
• ·         Simplicity
• ·         Personality (i.e celebrity)
• ·         Expectedness (predictability)
• ·         Elite Nations or People
• ·         Exclusivity
•        Size 

From these factors, Galtung & Ruge proposed three rather obvious theories (the hypotheses of additively, complementarity and exclusion), which basically explain that more of these values equals more newsworthiness. These factors reflect have been re-interpreted, re-written and shortened many times in many lists since 1965, but all of these emphasise the importance of emotion (i.e shock or interest), locality (‘if it’s local, it leads’), practicality (whether is it suitable for TV/radio/online and the length of time that journalists can milk the story) and the tendency to value the stories of certain people or nations over others (i.e we rarely hear of the three thousand African children who die of malaria every day, but quite a lot about shopping-centre shootings on the Gold Coast).   

A dark future for News Values: Churnalism, Parasitic PR and the Mass Media Merge

·        Yes, that’s right folks; it’s time for Grim Future Mondays! Three major threats concerning news values lurk in the future.

Firstly, the commercialisation of journalism is impeding upon news values and therefore the output of many media institutions. Intense commercial competition has led to the need for rapid news cycles, and with it a universal change in news values aimed at being the first to report a story. The result is incomplete and untrustworthy news.

Furthermore, inadequate training and general laziness on behalf of the journalist and editor has led to an epidemic rise in PR power; incompetent journalists are undergoing less analysis of press releases, instead simply reusing and publishing. As such, the journalist’s (possibly imagined ) noble role as the guardian of truth with sworn loyalty to the public is being degraded as irresponsible, untrustworthy and biased news is being permitted publication under a new definition of new values. 

Finally, the media is beginning to merge into a single entity. The key problem with this is that this ‘media cartel’ (I imagine a group of elderly men in suits with eye patches smoking cigars, laughing hysterically) will control almost all the stories that reach the public. The issues associated with an information dictatorship are easy to imagine.

Thankfully, salvation may come with the new media. The brilliant Jay Rosen explains to the increasingly commercialised and lazy media cartel that 

“you don’t own the eyeballs. You don’t own the press, which is now divided into pro and amateur zones. You don’t control production on the new platform, which isn’t one-way. There’s a new  balance of power between you and us. The people formerly known as the  audience are simply the public made  realer, less fictional, more able, less  predictable. You should welcome that,  media people. But whether you do or not we want you to know we’re here.” (2005). 

However, even if the truth can be accessed by the public, the threats to news values still exist. Whether or not the vast majority of news corporations retain their credibility depends on how well the news values that they rely upon are upheld. 

Exploring the Ethics of Privacy: An Annotated Bibliography

Sanders, K., (2003). Ethics and Journalism. London: Sage Publications

In chapter seven of this academic text, Dr Karen Sanders, a prominent author on ethics in professional communication, attempts to define privacy, our right to privacy, how this concerns the condition of celebrity and the ethics of dealing with privacy in journalism. Her authoritative position and extensive references to other reliable sources establish the text’s credibility.

Sanders refines the definition of privacy to three aspects; physical privacy, mental or communicational privacy and informational privacy. The latter concerns journalists, and is breached when personal information is made public. She emphasises the importance of privacy to anyone’s ability to function in a society. Hence she posits a journalist’s ethical obligation to protect the privacy of others, regardless of the news values that may be conflicting.  Although there is no legal right to privacy in Australia (Solove, 2008), Sanders argues that it is an inherent human right, citing the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She explains that this ethical obligation to protect privacy has influenced all media codes of practice.

Moreover, Sanders argues that all humans have the right to privacy regardless of power or fame. However, she suggests that there is a trade-off between fame and the sacrifice of privacy; some obtain fame at the cost of privacy and some fall out of celebrity status by withholding their right to privacy.  These theoretical concepts are demonstrated in Star’s Secret Affair (King, 2012), The Shameless Airing of an Un-current Affair (Holmes, 2012) and Trial and Error (Doyle & McDermott, 2011).

King, M. (Writer). (2012, April 23). A Current Affair [Television broadcast]. Sydney, NSW: Nine Network. 

Star’s Secret Affair, an episode of Chanel Nine’s television programme A Current Affair, investigated Leanne Edelston’s scandalous relationship with married author Clive James. A Current Affair is a somewhat reliable source of information; the facts that it reports are supported by direct interviews, though it does not withhold a reputable position in the Australian media (Moody, 2009) due the one-sidedness of its largely biased investigations. This nature of this text brings into question the ethical obligation of journalists to protect privacy, even when this contradicts an institution’s news values.

It relates to Ethics and Journalism (Sanders, 2003) in that it demonstrates both Sanders’ definition of privacy and her discussion on how this relates to the celebrity condition. While Ms Edelston was happy to reveal intimate personal information (photographs and emails) regarding her affair, Mr and Ms James clearly were not. Regardless of Ms Edelston’s permission, private information regarding Mr James’ life was made public without his permission. It was therefore, according to Sanders’ definition (2003), an invasion of privacy, albeit an indirect one. Further, this demonstrates the trade-off between fame and privacy that Sanders (2003) discusses. At the expense of private information, Ms Edelston adopted a quasi-celebrity status.

This only occurred due to Chanel Nine’s news values, which are focused on entertainment and generating shock through scandal. This starkly contrasts the news values of the ABC (balance, ethics and the responsibility to inform) (Harrington, 2008), as demonstrated in Four Corners’ episode Trial and Error (Doyle & McDermott, 2011) and Media Watch’s Shameless Airing of an Un-current Affair (Holmes, 2012).

Holmes, J. (Writer). (2012, April 30). Media Watch [Television broadcast]. Sydney, NSW: Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 

The ABC’s Media Watch is hosted by revered journalist Jonathan Holmes, and acts to critique the Australian media. Mr Holmes’ esteemed position adds credibility to the opinions put forward by the programme, and these opinions are frequently backed up by reliable legal and academic sources.

The episode ‘The shameless airing of an un-current affair’ (Holmes, 2012) relates to ‘Star’s secret affair’ (King, 2012) in in a number of ways. The most obvious comparison is that both programmes are written for the medium of television with a short time available for broadcasting, and thus are presented using a similar generic short-form style, providing concise analysis and minimal investigation due to time constraints (Turner, 2005).

Most significantly, this episode of Media Watch is a critique of ‘Star’s secret affair.’ Holmes makes two key criticisms; firstly that the investigation was executed in poor taste and secondly that in its failure to protect the privacy of Mr James and his wife was unethical. Sanders’ (2003) definition of privacy is used to justify this argument. Furthermore, Holmes supports this by referencing the Commercial Television Code of Practice, suggesting that there was no identifiable public interest reason for the information to be broadcasted.

The ABC’s news values are focused on public information over entertainment and credibility over attention (Harrington, 2008), and this represents the link between this episode and Four Corners’ ‘Trial and Error’ (2011). This also contributes to the formal tone of both programmes.

Doyle, M & McDermott, Q. (Writers). (2011, November 3). Four Corners [Television broadcast]. Sydney, NSW: Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

The ABC’s Four Corners focuses on current affairs issues through investigative journalism. The episode ‘Trial and Error’ (Doyle & McDermott, 2011) investigates the conviction of Gordon Wood, sentenced to seventeen years in prison for the murder of Caroline Byrne. Four Corners is well-regarded for its investigative journalism (Hanson & Stuart, 2001), which implies the information it presents has clearly been thoroughly researched. Its credibility is established by interviews with many parties involved in the story, providing a balanced and justified perspective.

‘Trial and Error’ contrasts A Current Affair’s ‘Star’s secret affair’ (2012) in a number of ways. This is evidenced by the nature of the private information, and the means by which the information became public.  The content of ‘Trial and Error’ (2011) came largely from direct interviews given willingly by both parties involved in the case, providing ballance. In stark contrast, ‘Star’s secret affair’ (2012) exclusively investigated Ms Edelston’s rendition of events, and only contacted Mr James by ambushing him as he left his house, producing a one-sided story based on private information that Mr James did not give permission to be released.

The structure of Tiral and Error (Doyle & McDermott, 2011) is contrasted by the structure of both Star’s Secret Affair (King, 2012) and The Shamless airing of an un-current affair (Holmes, 2012). While Four Corners uses a long-form structure for deep analysis and extensive investigation into its feature stories (forty-five minute episodes), both A Current Affair and Media Watch use a shorter form (fifteen-minute episodes) (Turner, 2005).

APA Reference List 

Doyle, M & McDermott, Q. (Writers). (2011, November 3). Four Corners [Television broadcast]. Sydney, NSW: Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Hanson, D. and Stuart, H., (2001). Failing the Reputation Management Test: The Case of BHP, the Big Australian. Corporate Reputation Review, 4(2), pp. 128-143

Harrington, S., (2008). Popular news in the 21st century: Time for a new critical approach? Sage Journals: Journalsim, 9(3), pp 266-284.

Holmes, J. (Writer). (2012, April 30). Media Watch [Television broadcast]. Sydney, NSW: Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

King, M. (Writer). (2012, April 23). A Current Affair [Television broadcast]. Sydney, NSW: Nine Network. 

Moody, K., (2009). Media scepticism, media diets and media landscapes: A consideration of US versus Australian political information environments. Presented at Proceedings of Australian and New Zealand Communication Association Conference. Brisbane, QLD:  Queensland University of Technology Press.

Sanders, K., (2003). Ethics and Journalism. London: Sage Publications

Solve, D., (2008). Understanding Privacy. Harvard: Harvard University Press.

Turner, G., (2005). Ending the Affair: The Decline of Television Current Affairs in Australia. Sydney, NSW: University of New South Whales Press. 

Taste vs Ethics (week 8)

This week we focused on differentiating between taste and ethics in the media. To the untrained eye, the difference between these is hazy. To those who inform the public, whether it be through either advertising or news, the ability to tell the difference is crucial.

Taste, by definition, is subjective and thus one cannot judge an aspect of the media on these grounds. An advertisement should therefore be judged in terms of ethics. Now we are getting philosophical; what is good and what is bad? 

There are three approaches to this. First there is deontology. Basically, this ethical paradigm defines ‘goodness’ as following the rules. This can easily be applied to the media; if it breaks the rules of advertising set in place then it is bad, and if not then it is fine. In my experience, philosophy has never been so simple. The codes regarding the ethics of media output include the MEAA (Media, Entertainment and Arts) code, the PRIA (Public Relations Institute of Australia) code and the AFA (Advertising Federation of Australia) code.

Perhaps the most famous approach to ethics is consequentialism; the greatest good for the greatest amount of people. Personally I find that consequentialism’s flaws lie in the fact that the end always justifies the means, and that the concept of the ‘greatest good’ can easily be used to disempower minority groups.

The final approach is virtue ethics, which espouses the idea that ‘goodness’ (i.e happiness) comes from displaying certain virtues. These virtues consist of courage, justice, temperance and prudence.

Taste as a Tool of Marketing Enterprise 

The subjective nature of ‘taste’ makes it a versatile tool to be exploited at the discretion of advertisers. Many marketeers aim for the cusp between the realms of ‘bad taste’ and ‘unethical’. This generates just enough outrage for programs like A Current Affair to come running, mouths drawling, like hyenas to a carcass, consequently maximising the value of the advertisement. This manoeuvre is usually executed by employing a tactless innuendo or two.

 A tasteless tactic: even by adding these images to this blog, I am contributing to the mammoth value of these premeditatedly poor-taste ads. 

Evaluating Ethics

Ethics can sometimes be easy to assess. The above example could not be made any simpler; it advertises a genuinely unethical concept.  Taste doesn’t even enter into the equation; no matter what ethical paradigm you employ, displaying this ad is quite simply immoral.  It is rarely this easy, though.

Crossing the line between taste and ethics does not necessarily need to come from the subject matter. A perfectly legitimate product or service can be advertised in an unethical way:

Life insurance: unethical or just plain bad taste?, Vogue: unethically in good taste or ethically poor taste? Animal rights: a reasonable and ethical message or a tasteless and insensitive analogy? 

When a complex issue of ethics comes into question, it comes down to personality. Some will be offended by the above advertisements, and some will be perfectly fine with them. Taking a consequentialist perspective, what really needs to be considered is if the majority of viewers will be offended.

 In the above situation, I would say a significant number of views would indeed be offended. Our society has no ethical problem with life insurance, Vogue magazine or animal rights activists. The ethical conundrum in these ads comes from the way the ideas are portrayed. People probably won’t be too offended by the odd sexual innuendo, but describing a parent’s death as a family’s  ‘prince charming’, embodying feminine beauty and perfection as a malnourished model and likening my sausage sandwich to Hitler’s terrible acts of genocide is a different question entirely.   

Evaluating taste against ethics is a challenging but important skill for anyone who contributes to the media. It can mean the difference between a risqué and humorous innuendo in an effective advertisement, and a message that offends an audience of thousands that deserve the right to enjoy the media without such confrontation.  

Chub from Uki

Everyone has a story to tell. A lifetime is such a complex thing that you cannot possibly go through it without having a tale to tell at the end. Some stories are told, some are never told, and some are not told until years after the lifetime that they concern has come to an end. This is the story of my great uncle Eric Sweetnam - or uncle Chub as I always knew him. To anyone else, Chub would seem to be any ordinary bloke. He lived and worked on his dairy farm in Uki, just outside of the town of Murwillumbah, with his wife Margaret. To those who were lucky enough to know him, though, he was far more than ordinary.

I lived on the Gold Coast during my childhood so visiting the Sweetnam farm was a rare treat. The land was endowed with deep rockpools that I have never swam to the bottom of, and rolling hills dotted with cows that stared mindlessly at you as you walked past. Like his land, Chub seemed timeless. He was a third-generation farmer, and was as much married to his farm as he was to Margaret.

He once told me of the time he was bitten by a king brown snake; he sucked the venom out himself, killed the snake, put it in a lunch-box so the doctors could identify the venom and made it to the hospital with moments to spare. It is stories like this, combined with his kind nature, that made me respect him so much as a child. To me as a boy, he was like the intersection between Chuck Norris and Santa Claus. He passed away in November last year, but I only came to know the most interesting side to Chub’s life very recently. When I contacted Margret to talk over information for this story, she gave me a recount of Chub’s time at war - something that I never heard him talk about. Understanding what he went through gave a whole new context to his attitude toward life.

Chub was too young to be a soldier. He lied about his age so that he could travel the world with the military, fighting the enemy and having a jolly good time in the process. This was appealing to a country boy who had never even set foot on a train before. However, even on his first day of basic training in Tamworth he realised that the idea of the war portrayed by the propaganda was far from reality. I can only begin to imagine the torturous process of turning a teenager into a soldier; it was enough for Chub to vow never to step foot in Tamworth again, and he was a man of his word.

From Tamworth he went to Perth, and from there he travelled by sea to the Middle East on an old Cruise ship that had been stripped bare to fit thousands of soldiers. In the mayhem of boarding the colossal Queen Mary he was separated from some of his friends from Murwoolambah. These friends missed the boat by just minutes and would be sent to a different battle on a different boat, ultimately to their death. I suspect it is tragedies like this that made Chub so reluctant to speak of his time overseas. He fought in the battle of El Alamein, in which more than thirteen-thousand men died. The supplies given to Chub’s battalion by local Egyptians ensured their survival throughout the gruesome fight.

This would not be the end of Chub’s experience in the war, though. From the hot sands of the battle for Europe in the Middle-East, he was sent to the tropics to defend Australia. As the Japanese advanced upon southern Asia, Chub’s battalion touched down in Papua New Guinea. Once again his life was saved by the kindness of strangers. The ‘Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels’ (a group of local Papua New Guineans) risked their lives to bring food and medical supplies to the Australian soldiers trapped on a hillside, subject to heavy shelling from the Japanese. Margaret emphasised Chub’s respect for these brave men.

It was in this battle that Chub was shot in the chest. The bullet travelled through his arm in the direction of his heart, only to be stopped by the metallic shaving mirror that he kept in his left pocket. Yet again, by chance or fate, he was saved; shortly after he was taken from Papua New Guinea to a medical station in Borneo, the remainder of his platoon were captured and made prisoners of war until the Japanese surrendered years later. Chub recovered despite the disease-ridden tropical conditions, and went on to earn seven medals in combat. After many long years, he returned home to the comfort of the Sweetnam Farm, and to Margret.

Despite his admirable bravery, he was never proud of being part of the war. His medals were hidden away, only to see be worn on ANZAC day each year. Even then they meant little to him. His one prize was a short letter that his Commander had sent to Chub’s mother at some point: “Eric is doing a fine job and you should be proud of him.” He carried this note in his pocket whenever he left the farm.

Literally up until the day he died -at the remarkable age of ninety-one - he got up early each morning to ride the tractor and heard the cattle in. After almost a century he was still active and witty as ever. He now lies in the Murwillumbah cemetery with the three generations of Sweetnams above him. He witnessed the brunt of mankind’s greed take the lives of his friends, but still held faith in humanity after witnessing the kindness of the locals who risked their lives to save him. The remarkable thing about Chub was that he had the strength of character to go through the depths of hell and ultimately come out with an optimistic view of the world.

*    *    *

Five Inspirational Scientists

The progression of science can be measured by the input of several remarkable human beings. Here are five of them; a small collection of my favourites. Some are remarkable for the way they thought, some for the things that they discovered and some for the way they communicated science and made others love it as much as they did.

Carl Sagan 

“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”

The first time I read Carl Sagan’s name, it was underneath this quote. I forget where I read it, but it stayed with me. The concept was simple but brilliant. After some research into Sagan’s eventful life I came across his television series ‘Cosmos: A Personal Voyage’ – something that I would encourage anyone to watch. Sagan’s most important and fascinating research involved the science behind the possibility of extra-terrestrial life, demonstrating how amino acids can be synthesised from inorganic chemicals through radiation. His greatest significance, though, was his ability to connect and inspire others to appreciate the wonderment of the natural world. 

Albert Einstein

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

I couldn’t resist putting good old Albert on the list. My knowledge of physics is limited to say the least, and I find it hard to comprehend most of Einstein’s major scientific findings. My physics friends tell me they are rather important. The thing that I find inspirational bout Einstein is the way he though. He proved that creativity is just as important to science as it is to art, and that a fast recall of knowledge is by no means required in good science. He taught us that scientific concepts are, in essence, very simple and that people should never consider themselves ‘too dumb’ for science. After all, Einstein himself failed his first university entry exams. 

Sir David Attenborough

“I just wish the world was twice as big and half of it was still unexplored.”

This man needs to introduction; we all know him by his warm voice and bewildering knowledge of the natural world. I grew up watching David Attenborough’s films, every one of which is nothing short of amazing. He created a sense of exploration and wonder by looking closely at some of the most apparently bland forms of life. Attenborough is one of the key reasons that I study science and strive to appreciate the natural world for what it is. 

Brian Cox

“We are the cosmos made conscious and life is the means by which the universe understands itself.”

Yet another physicist whose research I struggle to understand; nonetheless it's interesting. Cox spent a large portion of his life as a keyboard player in the band D:ream, undoubtedly one of the most terrible music groups ever to form. Thankfully, he spent the remainder of his life focusing on high energy particle physics. Like Sagan, Cox’s influence came in his incredible ability to communicate science, generating fascination and interest. 

Richard Dawkins

“The feeling of awed wonder that science can give us is one of the highest experiences of which the human psyche is capable. It is a deep aesthetic passion to rank with the finest that music and poetry can deliver. It is truly one of the things that makes life worth living and it does so, if anything, more effectively if it convinces us that the time we have for living is quite finite.”

I came across this man only two weeks ago when he featured on Q&A . Upon further research, I found many interesting books that he published – some of which had major influences in the field of evolutionary biology. Dawkins was Oxford University’s Professor for Public Understanding of Science from 1995 until 2008 and is most famous for his controversial book ‘The God Delusion.’ His attitude toward science and the pursuit of truth is truly  inspiring. 

Week Seven: Public Media

This week’s lecture looked at the Public Media; its role in society, the major corporations involved and the media they produce, and challenges they face and the future of public media.

In essence, a public media corporation is one whose purpose or mission is to serve and engage with the public, and not to gain profit. Public media corporations can make a profit, but this profit will ultimately be fed back into the corporations’ media production. In Australia, there are two major players in public media; the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS).

For eighty-nine years, the ABC has changed to reflect our national identity in its attempt to be what Dr Redman describes as “a tacit answer to the kind of nation we though we ought to be.”

The ABC is a government-funded corporation, owned by the citizens of Australia. Based on the BBC model, it was initially created as a ‘nation-building’ project in 1923 to create a sense of unity by equally spreading information among the then young nation. The ABC has always been regarded these days as a highly professional and reliable source of quality information. It has always been aimed at acting as what Dr Redman described as “a tacit answer to the kind of nation we though we ought to be.” Thus, just as our national identity has changed over time, the ABC’s character has changed accordingly. Initially, the ABC took the approach of reflecting the mother country, and many ABC presenters appeared to speak with a stronger English accent than most BBC presenters. These days, the ABC is focusing on connecting with younger generations in a similar way to Chanel 4 in the UK – though it is no easy task to get rid of its perception as being ‘Aunty ABC.’

The ABC’s pride and joy is its ‘News CAFF’ – productions like 4Corners and Q&A that are about importance over interest. Like many other public media corporations, the approach is ‘broadsheet’ over ‘tabloid’. Robert Richter described the public media as the “last bastion of long-from investigative journalism.” The ABC has demonstrated this; investigations into live cattle export, the moonlight state and high tension within the labour party all resulted in genuine political outcomes in parliament. Once again, this demonstrates public media’s role in democratic society. In addition to News Caff, the ABC produces numerous shows to connect with younger generations; Triple J, Good Game, ABC3 and Hungry Beast just to name a few.

The SBS receives significant funding from the government, on top of revenue from ‘The World Game Shop’ and the semi-commercial business model that it employs. Thus, there is some advertisement but revenue ultimately feeds back into further SBS productions. Launched as chanel 0/28 in 1980, the Special Broadcasting Service has a strong ethnic and multicultural focus. It produces shows like Living Black, Insight and Go back to where you came from, as well as entertainment productions including Wilfred and Rockwiz. The most successful productions to come from the SBS are the World Game, and SBS World News Australia – shows that are relevant to all Australian citizens.

 So what is the role and purpose of public media in democratic society? All public media, by definition, aims to engage with and serve the public. Although different corporations around the world define this aim differently, they are all heavily focused on the following:

•       Public consultation
•       Geographical universality
•       Weighing public value against market interest
•       Distancing produced media from vested interests.

The BBC defines its purpose as “embedding a public service ethos.” 

In addition to this purpose, the public media serves an even more significant role; to be completely unbiased in terms of political issues, to be completely removed from any specific political ideology, and to hold the government to account.  This means that corporations funded by the government (i.e the ABC) must conditionally bight the hand that feeds them. This relationship seems absurd, but such is the democratic role of public media. The importance of public media in democratic society cannot be denied. As Dr Redman put it, “the minute the government starts to like the ABC, we’re buggered.”

There are a number of  key problems that face public media in Australia. Firstly, there is the need to remove the ‘mature aged’ stigma that comes with non-commercial television. Secondly, there is the issue of funds. In the UK, a television subscription licence is used to generate funds, on top of government funding and revenue from ‘BBC Worldwide.’ This is not the case in Australia. The ABC must rely on just two means of income; government funding (which is limited) and the revenue from ABC Commercial (selling footage to producers and programs to the public). This is barely enough money for the kind of quality productions that the ABC demands, and ABC News24 had to be created without any additional funding. TVNZ in New Zealand faced similar problems with funding, and made the decision to go commercial. Advertising became increasingly prevalent on TVNZ until the station ultimately became consumed by commercial owners. Thus, New Zealand effectively lost its public media. Although the ABC and SBS struggle with funding and  public perception, they are safe for now. The Australian public media is a treasure in a capitalist media landscape; its downfall would be an immeasurable loss to social minority groups, the general public and democratic society. 

Life on Mars

NASA researchers say there is a 99% certainty of life on Mars after a re-analysis of data recorded in the 1970s. My alien-filled childhood dreams have at last come true:

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/04/13/3476970.htm?WT.mc_id=science_twitterfeed_latest&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+abcscience_latestnews+%28ABC+Science%3A+Latest+News%29