The world’s five most dangerous countries for women
The Thomas Reuters Foundation has launched a much-needed media hub on women’s rights - Women’s Rights - Trust Law.
"we are now living through a technological innovation at least the equivalent of the printing press. Over time, it will change just about everything. But it is not the first time that technology has changed how we receive news, how we think, what we think about and even how we conceive what it means to be human."
— Margaret Simons, The Content Makers
Who ever said love is all you need is clearly not in publishing - farewell New Matilda
I love the Beatles, I really, really do. But damn, they missed the mark with their hopeful tune Love is all you need. There comes a certain time in life when you realise, as wonderful as love is, it’s just not enough. Such is the case with the curtains closing on one of Australia’s savviest independent publications, New Matilda.
With a readership larger than ever, it isn’t love New Matilda is lacking. It’s money.
“We’ve certainly achieved the first of those aims: each year for the past three years our hits have more than doubled. There’s a steady and growing cohort of readers who return daily to newmatilda.com for news and analysis.
“However, the advertising simply hasn’t followed. Moreover, as the site has increased in popularity, so have our running costs - and with them the knowledge that we are unable to subsidise the project indefinitely. The big media players are struggling to find a workable online business model that allows them to pay their writers and maintain high standards - and so are we. Since we already run a very lean operation, cutting costs is not an option and we are taking the only path available to us at this time.”
There is some twittering going on about possible strategies to save the publication, or at least it’s back catalogue of material, but the lack of an adequate funding model for this online publication is a reminder of how volatile the journalism and publishing industry is right now.
While I am hopeful about the future, the thought has crossed my mind that the folding of New Matilda could be the canary in the publishing mine for independent journalism in Australia.
New Matilda, it’s been real, but all too brief x
Should Channel 7 have aired the David Campbell story? 44,000 people say no.
What is the best piece of advice you have ignored to get where you are?
This is the question I suggested Kate Carruthers ask a successful business woman, and she did. The answer given by Jo White (a very succesful business woman, as you may have guessed) is excellent:
What is the best piece of advice you have ignored to get where you are?
I try to never ignore advice, however there is some I’ll give more weight to than others. Successful women entrepreneurs are people I really pay attention to, especially if they have had aspects of the journey I share. I turn into their biggest fans. There are not many of them.There remains a view that startups are too risky for people like me – a mother of four. I also ignore the people who say you can’t manage a family, an academic career and a startup. What they’re really saying is that they can’t do it. Not that I can’t. And that’s okay.
The bold at the end there is my emphasis. What a good reminder that no one else can ever know what things will be like for you.
"The question for most of us is not if we will use the technologies of our age, from cell phones to social media, the question is how can we do so with mindfulness, meaning, and wisdom?"
— Soren Gordhamer in Wisdom 2.0: Living Consciously In A Connected World on Beth’s Blog
The Era of Aggregation
By Lyrian Fleming, first published in Tresspass Mag on April 28, 2010
One of the hottest topics going around media-town these days is the future of publishing. The ways in which we seek and receive information is galloping ahead with phenomenal speed, matched only by the changing face of the mediums through which we consume it.
Backyard barbecues and blogs alike are full of the prophesising of people in the industry, wondering just what lies ahead for those who create, and those who publish media content.
With media powerhouses such as the New York Times charging for access to its online content, the journalistic twitterati have been all aflutter with the certainty of their industry’s demise; the predictions vary from excitement at the opportunities new media presents, and concern at whether this will mean the end of quality journalism.
After all, why pay a regular member of staff to research a story over time when chances are there is someone out there who at least knows a bit about what is going on, and willing is to say so for free? Especially when detail becomes less of a concern for audiences who can only take in bite sized sound bites. Isn’t this all our shrinking attention spans can cope with anyway?
When immediacy counts above everything else, the people who bring us news have less time to check the facts, to edit their work, and to seek informed opinions from all sides. More and more news broadcasters are relying on ‘eye witness’ accounts, voices right in the thick of it, and we are all invited to SMS news and submit amateur video footage and photographs to news outlets who will happily add our perspectives into the mix of a breaking story. All this sure does sound like the end of quality information. Or does it?
As the wave of change has torn through the world of journalism as a whole, and news in particular, there has also been a significant change in the means available to people who want their news, and want it from all perspectives.
Publishing, meet the era of aggregation.
We’re entering an age where people seek news all right, but they seek it from a range of sources, with a range of perspectives, often delivered to them in the one place. Google Fast Flip, Crikey, and The National Times are all examples of aggregation in action.
For our fast-paced, constantly connected lifestyles, scanning the headlines of all the major news outlets in Australia, for example, is a piece of cake. If that’s not enough, there is Google Fast Flip which captures pages of online content from international news giants like New York Times, BBC, The Guardian, and displays them alongside stories by Cosmopolitan, The Daily Beast, Seventeen and The Smithsonian. If you want something more personalized, Google Reader is your friend. All this even before the much anticipated iPad hits Austalia.
This aggregation of media sources does more than make it easier for us to find news; they allow us to read about the same topics across a range of publications. Rather than longer, in-depth pieces that tell the whole story, it is often now up to the reader to build the whole story themselves, building ‘the truth’ from the range of opinions on offer.
Where does this leave the people who create the content?
