Once a newspaper is gone — just like when you lose parkland to unchecked development — it’s hard to bring it back.
Founding Father John Adams once said, “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” But this is no longer Adams’ America, where facts were unalterable.
To stem the rising influence of fake news, some countries have made the creation and distribution of deliberately false information a crime.
The writing has been on the wall for at least a decade. The hallowed cartooning traditions of the 20th century cannot continue without facing up to fundamental changes in the industry. Although the New York Times decision doesn’t spell the end of cartooning as we know it, this may very well be a tipping point for the global cartooning industry.
Attitudes towards news media and consumption behaviour in Canada pose a sort of conundrum. In general, Canadians have a positive view of journalism and relatively high trust in media, but on the other hand, they are little inclined to pay for digital news sources.
Australian news consumers access news less often and have lower interest in it compared to citizens in many other countries. At the same time, Australians are more likely to think the news media are doing a good job keeping them up to date and explaining what’s happening.
You hear a lot of heated claims and baseless generalities these days about what’s wrong with the news media. What’s seldom heard is what the underlying data indicate about true problem areas and where journalists need to improve.
As a journalist and a media academic, I have always assumed that I’m a fairly savvy media consumer. I know when something is genuine, and when what I’m looking at misinformation, disinformation and propaganda.
Election 2019 may well prove a watershed event in more ways than one. This will likely be the first time in the country’s electoral history that more voters are following the campaign online than via conventional media – television, newspapers and radio.
This week New Zealand’s largest newspaper, the NZ Herald, launched digital subscriptions for its online content, making history at the same time. Its paywall is the first for a general newspaper in New Zealand.