Profit Motive versus Editorial Integrity
The wave of economic rationalism in the 1990s increased pressure on the editor's role in the media, including book publishing, to be profit driven. An editor may have to juggle this consideration with those of free speech, public interest, balanced reporting, literary merit, as well as historical and cultural issues.
The Profit Motive
To put the case for the profit motive, here are three excerpts from Lachlan Murdoch's controversial speech given on 18 October 2002 at the annual Andrew Ollie Lecture, Australia's pre-eminent media event, sponsored by the ABC.
Excerpt 1
Over the last 25 years, I have been privileged to grow up retaining the love of good journalism, the craft, while learning its business: the dollars and cents. I have learnt that they are not mutually exclusive but integrally self-reliant. Each dependent on the other.
Good journalism is good business practice; good business supports great journalism.
I know that reality may be anathema to many of you here tonight. But I don't expect I should be here to tell you what you want to hear. Good speeches are those that come from the heart, that ring true. And tonight I want to challenge what I regard as the orthodoxy of the media elite.
The industry is littered with self-styled purists who believe the business of media – the requirement to make a profit – somehow corrupts the craft. The self-anointed media elite among us believe, somewhat self-servingly, that not only the act, or process of making a profit is positively sinister, but also that the very desire to do so is.
Two years ago this forum was told that Australian journalists worked in two distinct camps – "commercial journalism or serious journalism". In that speech we were told, and I quote: "The horse has bolted. The idea that owners of media organisations regard the practise of journalism as a public service is as outdated as the idea that businesses operate in the interests of a better world. If you want to apportion guilt, blame a system that demands growth and profits and lower costs from every public organisation."
The speaker went on to say that commercial journalism encompassed "popular magazines, tabloid newspapers and news and current affairs on commercial TV and radio", while serious journalism, he told us, was restricted to metropolitan broadsheets and the ABC, because, absurdly, serious journalism was more akin to charity than to business.
Well, this bloke couldn't have been more wrong.
You can see here that the Australian media elite define their club through standards designed only to exclude. Entry requires that you either rely on tax payer's money to draw your paycheque, or that your newspaper folds twice over, and god forbid, don't ever even think about a profit.
Questions:
- What is a media elite?
- To what extent is Lachlan Murdoch not a member of a media elite?
Excerpt 2
The profit motive is not only fundamental to our ability to reward shareholders and pay employees; it's fundamental to excellent journalism. Far from corrupting the craft, profits enhance it. Expansion drives diversity and diversity protects and stengthens our craft.
As Baz Luhrmann once put it: "Our currency is not dollars and cents. Our currency is stories. Dollars and cents are the by-product". A by-product that allows us to constantly improve the real currency, the story.
Our profits enable us to grow as we seek to meet the increasing demands of an increasing number of readers and viewers in a challenging and fragmented marketplace. It is the profit factor that has underpinned the enormous advances made in newspaper technology in such a relatively short time.
Only fifteen years ago newspapers were printed in black and white with occasional spot colour. Our image reproduction was terrible, and full colour coverage was an impossibility. While we employed the very best photo-journalists and artists in the world, their work was drastically undermined by the industrial limitations of the printing process.
Every successful newspaper company has now invested hundreds of millions of dollars in new colour plants, all paid for out of profits. Today Australian newspapers reproduce better than any in the world, and our photographs and associated artwork more accurately represent the images that they capture.
But the investment has not been limited to physical production alone. The earnings from our most popular media products enable us to take editorial and artistic chances that may not make a lot of money - but make the media industry more exciting and again more diverse.
Take The Australian, for instance, created because we believed a national newspaper was essential for the nation but at first entirely supported by the profits of our state-based newspapers. It's no secret that The Australian once struggled for profitability. In those days, it was the profits from elsewhere in the group that supported the paper.
At the other end of the spectrum, we launched a sexy newspaper in Melbourne last year, called MX. This paper is designed specifically for younger, urban people who are not regular newspaper readers.
It has been a great success and is internationally renowned for its groundbreaking design and unique perspective. The important point here is that both the Australian and MX were launched out of the profits of our other newspapers, with whom they now compete vigorously. The Australian competes against all our metropolitan dailies and MX with the Herald-Sun. The profits of those papers have thus allowed for greater diversity and a greater range of quality journalism in Australia.
Profits have increased competition, not lessened it, and made our media landscape far richer.
Another manner in which the health and ultimate growth of our company has broadly benefited our industry is in the sharing of something very powerful: human talent. The ability to move individuals and intellect from all over the globe has given Australia an enormous benefit, as Australians now populate many key positions in the media overseas.
Questions:
- How has Murdoch improved the diversity of the news media?
- How important are design/colour advances?
- Are there competing conceptions of media diversity? What are they?
Excerpt 3
Media is much more than an outlet for news; it is a forum for opinions, emotions and shared convictions that strengthen us all when we need strength most. This is why the providers of media must focus so hard on the pursuit of profits: because that enables us not to focus on profits at the times when our best and most important work has nothing to do with them.
This is true not just in the case of monumental global events but all the time and in all our businesses. Profits fund the excellence of our media services and the high quality of our products. They also provide a measure of our success that is critical to our desire to improve.
Our hard work to maximise revenues at our newspapers and TV stations year-round means we won't be forced to compromise the quality of those papers and stations in the event of a worldwide advertising slump, a price war declared by a rival or the kind of event we saw last year or last week.
At News our three fundamental beliefs – the good use of profit, the importance of international diversity and the dangers of elitism – are what drive the value, in my opinion, of all modern media providers.
Great journalism needs profits, it needs to be broad minded and it needs to always steer clear of elitism.
Questions:
- According to Murdoch, what is the role of the news media?
- When is the appropriate time for no profits?
- What is media diversity?
General Question:
Are profitability and editorial integrity destined to be in collision or can they cohabit?
The full text is here
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