Mark Pearson

Australia Day and National Identity

Mark Pearson — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 18:15:46 PDT

This dissertation argues that the scope and substance of the celebration of Australia Day this century can be explained using theories of national identity and invented tradition. It draws upon the columns of capital city newspapers in selected years to gauge how Australians celebrated their national day and what they thought about its significance. The dissertation argues that for most of this century Australia Day failed to make its mark on the national calendar because Australians' perceptions of their nationality were inextricably tied to their feelings of kinship with the British people. Australia Day was identified more with the hedonism its public holiday facilitated than with any widespread feeling of patriotism. However, the dissertation notes a recent shift in the theme of Australia Day to a celebration of migration, arrival and rebirth which indicates that the day may have struck a chord of genuine popular resonance.

Quantifying government media relations in Queensland

Mark Pearson et al. — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 23:44:02 PDT

This article draws upon historical and contemporary data to attempt to identify key issues in government media relations and to discuss the processes and challenges involved in attempting to quantify the expenditure on this activity in Queensland in the modern era. A combination of investigative journalism and academic research methods have been used to position Queensland Government media relations as a practice and to gauge expenditure, staffing, and cost to the taxpayer. The Electoral and Administrative Review Commission‟s Report on Review of Government Media and Information Services was the first comprehensive measure of such costs and since then only some insights were offered by Premiers Beattie and Bligh in 2006 and 2008 in response to parliamentary questions on notice. This article reviews these costs, canvasses expert estimates of the real cost of government media relations and debates some of the competing interests at stake.

Suppression orders: Reskilling journalists and the judiciary

Mark Pearson et al. — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 23:44:00 PDT

Journalists, media organisations and industry bodies have long complained about the number of suppression orders issued in Australia each year and the inconsistency of approaches across the nation's nine jurisdictions. State and federal governments have recently taken steps towards developing a national notification system for supression orders, which would at least improve communication to media organisations about the order. Yet important problems still remain for journalists trying to cover court cases, including the widely varied approaches of judicial officers, financial constraints on media organisations which have previously appealed such orders and the inexperience of journalists with the process of objecting to such orders in the court room. This article reviews the law and practice in the area and suggests a strategy of education for both journalists and the judiciary.

Researching journalists and vulnerable sources: Issues in the design and implementation of a national study

Stephen Tanner et al. — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 23:43:59 PDT

The privacy mandala: Towards a newsroom checklist for ethical decisions

Mark Pearson — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 23:29:34 PDT

Regulators and the courts are increasing privacy constraints upon the news media. Journalists and editors are being called to account for their decisions which intrude into the private lives of citizens under the pretext of being in the so-called “public interest”. Judges and self-regulatory bodies are demanding news organizations explain their internal processes for decisions which have legal and ethical consequences. This paper tracks the developments in privacy law and ethical regulation and suggests a schema journalists might use when weighing up the privacy elements of a news item. As one stage in a larger study of privacy, it focuses primarily upon the codes of practice of six main media self-regulation bodies and identifies the key elements in the privacy-journalism domain. It then draws upon them to propose a decision-making tool for newsroom use, labeled the “Privacy Mandala”. Finally, it suggests a filter by which editors and news directors can view the commercial criteria they will inevitably be motivated to consider as part of the process.

A comparison of teenage views on journalism as a career in Australia and New Zealand

Mark Pearson — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 23:29:33 PDT

Australian and New Zealand journalism programmes report a disproportionate number of female students and the industry in both countries is becoming increasingly feminised. Densem (2006) explored the reasons for the popularity of journalism as a career among young New Zealand women and the relative lack of appeal for young men. This article reports upon preliminary results from an Australian study covering some common ground and offers some comparisons and contrasts with the New Zealand findings. This article uses the high school student responses from a larger study as the basis of comparison with similar data in the Densem (2006) study. Key similarities are that young respondents in both countries did not see journalism as a 'blokey' career; many showed ignorance about journalism salaries; and they perceived both male and female journalists as intelligent and serious. Students in both countries perceived good looks as a more important quality for female journalists than males. There were, however, marked differences in the responses of high school males in Australia to the perceptions of the qualities of female journalists. Rather than the intelligence, credibility and seriousness they assigned to male journalists (and their New Zealand male counterparts also assigned to female journalists), the young Australian males ranked good looks, pushiness and nosiness as the chief qualities assigned to female journalists, a disturbing finding worthy of more investigation.

Suppression, privacy, contempt and spin: Australia's struggle with censorship in a Western democracy

Mark Pearson — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 23:29:32 PDT

Australia’s media organisations have joined forces to combat a level of suppression and censorship that has seen that nation languish amongst the lowest ranked western democracies in international press freedom ratings. The lobby group – called Australia’s Right To Know – held a major conference in March 2009 where prominent journalists, academics and industry leaders reviewed and debated the impact of key legislative and judge-made laws upon the work of journalists. This paper reviews that debate and assesses the steps needed to improve Australia’s international press freedom standing. It pays special attention to the potential impact of changes to the laws of freedom of information, privacy and whistleblower protections upon truth-seeking and truth-telling by Australian journalists.

Girls, girls, girls. A study of the popularity of journalism as a career among female teenagers and its corresponding lack of appeal to young males

Mike Grenby et al. — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 21:16:30 PDT

Australian journalism programs have long reported a disproportionate number of female students and the industry is becoming increasingly feminised. The latest (2006) Census figures showed that, for the first time in Australian history, women outnumbered men in journalism and related occupations. While many researchers have commented upon the increased popularity of journalism as a career choice among young women and its decline in popularity among young men, none have undertaken a comprehensive project researching the reasons for this phenomenon. This study has addressed this gap in the research. The research team conducted an extensive literature review, surveyed 444 senior secondary school students and 32 high school careers advisers, and conducted in-depth interviews with 15 ‘elite’ journalism industry personnel to explore the reasons for this trend. This monograph reviews the literature of the field, highlights the findings of the study, and discusses the implications for Australian journalism of the increasingly feminised newsroom. It identifies several gaps between the perceptions of teenagers about journalism and the realities of the career and questions the motivations and knowledge base of many students when deciding to pursue or reject the career choice. It suggests some careers advice they receive might be misguided, particularly when the advice is based upon performance in senior school English studies. The monograph concludes with a call for journalism programs and the industry generally to improve their communication with high school students, teachers and careers advisers to enhance their knowledge of the range of journalism careers and the mission of journalism in a democratic society. The authors also suggest further research be conducted into the compatibility of the senior secondary English curriculum with the workplace requirements of the entry level journalist.

Learning to value media freedom in an age of spin

Mark Pearson — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:37:27 PDT

Extract:

It is time for those who genuinely believe in the value of press freedom to invest in its future before a new generation of media critics expunges it forever.

Bridging the gap between education and training in the provincial media

Mark Pearson — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:37:26 PDT

Extract:

While the journalists and the employers want an improvement in work-based skills as the primary fruit of their courses, our challenge is to meet this need and also provide a framework for them to think about their work and continue to evaluate and develop their professional outlook. In other words, we need to provide the training that is asked of us - all the practical hands-on back to basics skills which must be there if our involvement is to have any legitimacy in the eyes of the journalists and their employers. The challenge for us is to inject intellectual fibre wherever possible and thus help journalists cope with the Whys of their work environment as well as the Hows. In other words, at the end of our courses journalists need to be able to a) do the job better, and b) think about what they are doing and why they are doing it.

Defamation and privacy: The view from Down Under

Mark Pearson — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:37:25 PDT

Extract:

Australia is about as far from Oxford as you can get, so why would media law advocates at a summer school here find any relevance in hearing about defamation and privacy in that part of the world? Well, firstly, from what I have read about your program you come from many parts of the world so you seem to have a diverse range of backgrounds and interests. Secondly, we can often learn much more about our own legal systems and the issues they face by comparing and contrasting them with a case study from another jurisdiction. For those reasons, I sincerely hope you find the session interesting and useful.

Postcards from the coalface: Journalism graduates’ transition to the newsroom

Mark Pearson — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:37:24 PDT

Like many offices, news rooms can be cold and heartless places, staffed by disillusioned people who manage to make even the world's most important events appear mundane. Perhaps such an atmosphere in an accountancy firm would come as no surprise to a business graduate on her first day at work. To ease the transition she might well have read some Dickens or Paterson, portraying a city office life peopled by frail, pencil pushing pedants whose lives depend upon their carefully scratched entries onto perfect, pristine balance sheets. But what if she has entered journalism with her heart set on becoming the next Jana Wendt or has her sights on a career as an investigative reporter like Watergate's Bernstein and Woodward; her mind full of celluloid and best-seller images of journalism as an action-packed, glamorous, jet-setting career of sojourns with famous people and world exclusive bylined front pages? Certainly, the literature supports the notion that many entrants have such a pre-conception (Pearson, 1988). Having struck the jackpot of getting a media position on graduation, our graduate could well find herself sitting in the corner of a dingy office for the next several months, typing and formatting the television programs in between making coffee for a scowling, chauvinistic editor, barely able to feed and clothe herself on a below-poverty line pittance, with her only hope of some variation in the routine being a promise that, if she performs well, she might be promoted in six months or so to writing promotional paragraphs about some of the advertisers.

Look who's talking: A pilot study of the use of discussion lists by journalism educators and students

Mark Pearson — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:37:23 PDT

This paper analyses postings over a week-long period to two electronic discussion lists to position them as communication forms and to assess their potential value to journalism educators, students and researchers. The lists — Journet and Stumedia — feature advantages including networking and scholarly co-operation, knowledge acquisition, a sense of communion, and an opportunity to keep pace with innovation. Disadvantages are the sheer bulk of correspondence, low participation rates, maleness, US-centricity and the preponderance of "junk mail".

Journalism education and the Internet: Conferring in cyberspace

Mark Pearson — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:37:22 PDT

This article analyses postings over a week-long period to two electronic discussion lists to position them as communication forms and to assess their potential value to journalism educators and students. The lists — Journet and Stumedia — are examined using both quantitative and qualitative techniques. The author concludes that advantages of participation on such lists include networking and scholarly co-operation, knowledge acquisition, a sense of communion, and an opportunity to keep pace with innovation. Disadvantages are the sheer bulk of correspondence, low participation rates, male and US-centricity and the preponderance of "junk mail".

The media and the Internet: Threat or opportunity?

Mark Pearson — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:37:21 PDT

Extract:

I’m a great fan of newspapers. My whole career has been built upon them. Production-wise it’s easy to see why they’re called the daily miracle. I still can’t fathom how those two rolls of paper arrive on my front lawn every morning... the human and physical resources that have gone into them ... the efforts of correspondents in Finland relayed to news agencies, where sub-editors process copy and send it thousands of kilometres to other news agencies who forward it to newspapers where it is selected, edited and placed alongside photographs and advertisements which have been through equally complex processes. And somehow it’s all printed and transported and passed through many more hands before it arrives next to my letterbox and I have to fight my wife and 14 year old son to read it.

Australia’s media climate: Time to renegotiate control

Jane Johnston et al. — Thu, 14 May 2009 18:44:30 PDT

In 2007, Australia was rated by two international media bodies as well down the chain in media freedom. Within its own borders, internal media groups—in particular the Australian Press Council and the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, as well as a consortium of major employer groups—have recently released reports investigating the position of media freedoms. This article examines a select few of these shrinking freedoms which range from the passive restrictions on access to documents to the overt threat of imprisonment for publishing sensitive material. In particular, it considers laws relating to freedom of information, camera access to courts, shield laws and whistleblower protection and finally, revamped anti-terrorism laws. The article maps the landscape of Australia’s downgraded press freedom and suggests that laws controlling media reportage need to be renegotiated.

Careers in journalism

Mark Pearson — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 22:25:58 PDT

Curricular implications of the influences of the Internet on journalism.

Mark Pearson — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:58:05 PST

This paper presents and discusses the results of a grounded theory study of the implications for the journalism education curriculum of the influences of the Internet upon journalism practice. Based upon analysis of three months of dialogue across four electronic discussion lists used by journalists and educators in early 1997, the paper identifies more than 160 new tasks and practices required of journalists in the new media environment and discusses the implications of this finding for the resourcing, teaching, curriculum and outcomes of journalism education. It concludes that the Internet, in influencing journalism's context and practice, has forced a fundamental re-evaluation of the mission and enterprise of journalism education and the content of its curriculum. Influences of the Internet upon both the context of journalism and its practice render current approaches anachronistic and demand a re-evaluation of the aim, role and function of journalism education.

The Journalist’s Guide to Media Law. Dealing with legal and ethical issues

Mark Pearson — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:58:04 PST

Mark Pearson's widely used introduction to media law takes a journalist's perspective. Writing in a clear non-legalistic fashion, he shows how journalists can produce ethical, hard-edged reportage while staying on the right side of the law. He also explains how to negotiate some of the key ethical minefields of day-to-day reporting, focussing on ethical dilemmas which can have legal consequences.

This fully revised and much expanded third edition includes new material on defamation, anti-terrorism and intellectual property to reflect changes in legislation.

Whither media regulation?

Mark Pearson — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:58:04 PST

Several models of media regulation have developed in Australia, from the Australian Broadcasting Authority's rarely exercised legislative muscle through to the Australian Press Council, the watchdog regarded as having a hearty bark but no bite. In between there have been low profile MEAA judiciary committees, in-house codes of conduct, and even a failed experiment with a newspaper ombudsman. Some argue that the ABC's Media Watch program has been the most effective regulator of them all. What has happened with all these regulatory mechanisms and what kind of regulatory model best suits the Australian news media today? This paper reviews the attempts at governmental and self-regulation and proposes a self-funded model which stands to offer a realistic check on media excesses without further government interference.