Crikey's Eric Beecher

Eric Beecher (Publisher of Crikey) painted a dark future for the print versions of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspaper during a panel discussion for ABC Radio’s Saturday Extra program earlier today. The discussion ‘Quality Journalism: How to Pay for it? Does it Matter?’ focused on the future of print journalism in Australia, new business models and the concept of public trust journalism.

Pointing to the fact that few cities internationally are able to sustain two daily newspapers (many are struggling to sustain one), Beecher made the point that News Corporation with The Australian and its tabloid dailies in Melbourne and Sydney would take the opportunity to ‘wipe out’ the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. A ‘not unlikely scenario’, he said.

I think I thought quite deeply through both acts. I almost texted this line:

It’s time that we re-assessed what Media actually is?

Much later I believed that we are ultimately moving towards a confrontation between Biology, Chemistry and Physics, and we are on the side of Biology. Convergence is the dominant theme in time. Discuss.

This begs the question. Can convergence every represent the individual?

I am off track.

Taken from another angle I wondered whether the speakers and organisors at Ad:tech Sydney 2009 represented the intelligensia of the marketing industry. One has to wonder, when the discussion is focused completely on what commercial advantage we can gain from social media.

Coming back to the question of what is media I believe that what is occurring is a progression of sorts. Fly on the wall documentaries and Reality TV represent a metaphorical highway which We took on the road of Media Fragmentation.

Today every individual IS THE ‘Media’.

Taking a quick tangent, I also pondered the proposition that social media is the latest tool of class and control.

In theory, social media is a wonderful but if I was asked to explain my point of view in the most simplest terms, I would say that the things that we describe as a ‘the Corporation’ and ‘Government’ will come to control social media in the medium to long term.

To summise:

If this were a film, I would advise people not to continue watching if they disagreed with this statement:

“If you put 20 Monkeys in a room for infinity, they would eventually write the complete works of Shakespeare.”

But this thought process a.k.a. theory presents an opportunity for the commercial sector and Government to demonstrate that they genuinely mean well.

One thinks that they will fail to take the opportunity.