i’m really tired of being silent on this issue. personally, i don’t think what i’m about to say should present any kind of threat or surprise to my bosses, but if it does to the point that they feel like kicking me up the bracket for it … well, so be it. i’ll take that bracket-kicking. it’ll be worth it just to get these thoughts out there.
i am a run-of-the-mill, under-the-radar, hard-working honest journalist on a regional daily newspaper owned by News Limited here in Australia. it won’t take you too much digging around to figure out which one, given i link to it all the time.
i don’t know one colleague in our newsroom who thinks the actions of the News of the World are anything less than repugnant and offensive.
i don’t know one colleague in our newsroom who would for one moment consider similar actions in order to get a story.
i am sick to my back teeth of being tarred with the same brush as the News of the World and its actions, simply because we are owned by the same corporation.
i am sick, frankly, of being considered similar to even my News Limited colleagues in the big metropolitan daily papers in this country.
Not because i think those papers are behaving in NotW-like fashion — far from it — but because the differences between regional and daily newspapers in terms of resources and ethos are chalk and cheese.
saying we are all the same is a false argument.
the newsroom i work in is small by any standard other than regional weeklies and freebies. it used to be a lot bigger. but News Limited’s way of satisfying its fiduciary responsibilities to its shareholders is to maximise profit while minimising costs. i can’t argue with that, regardless of how hard it makes my job.
the journalists in our newsroom are, for the most part, young, keen, green and on the steepest learning curve imaginable. they are also idealistic and, enthusiastic and, without fail, well-meaning. they would no more consider unethical practices than i would consider entering Miss Universe.
i’m tired of the huddled masses hating my profession on reflex. people are quick to forget the good stories, the community-minded stories, the well-written stories, the worthy stories. people are quick to label us biased, with an agenda. believe it or not, with the exception of a planned campaign on, say, wiping out crime on our city’s streets, or exposing an incompetent city council, agendas just never come into it. we don’t have the time, or the resources.
none of it is true, at least in my 23-year experience as a News Limited journalist. when i started at my paper we weren’t even part of News Limited.
we’re just a bunch of workers, trying to do our job, in a frankly under-resourced, over-pressured environment that makes me break out in hives on a daily basis.
i’m not saying that there isn’t corruption somewhere in the Australian mastheads of News Limited. i wouldn’t know where or when. but i know that the vast majority of our journalists, editors and managing directors are honest, hard-working, talented people who get tired of the abuse.
I AM NOT A SCUMBAG, I AM A HUMAN BEING WHOSE ONLY MISTAKE WAS TO CHOOSE A CAREER ONLY A MOTHER COULD LOVE. APPARENTLY.
July 13, 2011 at 7:30 PM
I have spent 16 years trying to get the soldiers story published in ant Australian Heraldsun or Murdoch newspaper that tells what happened to 200 serving army diggers under John Howard and peter reith – no murdoch paper or murdoch journo will touch it.why?
July 13, 2011 at 7:44 PM
i don’t know, is the honest answer to that. as i said in my piece, there is a world of difference between the big metros and nationals and the regional daily i work for. my point was simply that judging all of us by one newspaper’s actions is a mistake and unfair on the majority of us just trying to do our job.
July 14, 2011 at 7:12 AM
Well, if you want our sympathy/trust/support/whatever, it might help if you don’t refer to us as “huddled masses” who “hate”.
July 14, 2011 at 5:36 PM
honestly i fail to see the pejorative in ‘huddled masses’. if i’d said ‘ignorant masses’ fair enough. but i didn’t. as for ‘hate’, i’m not sure how you can deny it. people hate journalists on sight. not even on sight. simply knowing they are journalists is enough. i’m not asking for respect, actually. i’m asking to be judged on the quality of MY work, on the content of MY character, MY professionalism, MY ethics. and not by the standards of some hack who may have offended you once. that’s all.
July 14, 2011 at 8:06 PM
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me”
No, nothing pejorative in that…
And you wonder why us wretched folk have so little faith in your profession.
July 14, 2011 at 8:50 PM
(a) i’m not american, so that particular piece of prose is not tattooed on the back of my eyelids. (b) there is nothing pejorative in that. huddled masses. masses that are huddled. if you think that’s pejorative you can’t think much of immigrants. seriously? this is what you’re choosing to focus on?
July 14, 2011 at 8:51 PM
again, i didn’t use the words wretched, refuse or the rest. give me a break.
July 14, 2011 at 10:43 AM
Lowest Common Denominator Journalism is everywhere.
In Charters Towers the BBQ Fuel that passes for a newspaper would not print a word uttered by the Elected Labor State Member. Although they did offer her Advertorial Space at a discounted rate. Strangely the current LNP Member, at the time dominated the Letter’s to the Editor in almost every edition. Perhaps not corrupt, but I would classify this as having an Agenda, wouldn’t you?
For every one of you, there are 2 of him, and they’re normally in management.
July 14, 2011 at 5:37 PM
that’s right. the journalists are just humping along doing their job, doing what their editors tell them to do. i can’t speak to the Charters Towers paper. is it independently owned?
July 14, 2011 at 9:31 PM
Cate,
I think you are being over-sensitive here. You write a post claiming ‘people’ are tarring all journalists with the NotW brush. No evidence that we actually are. Then you insult us by invoking the ‘huddled masses’ image and accuse us of hate. Pot, Kettle, I think.
You say you aren’t that familiar with the Emma Lazarus poem, yet you invoke its image. Words are your craft, so if you want to be judged on your work, you should take more care. If you don’t know what the phrase ‘huddled masses’ means, and can’t be bothered looking it up, then don’t use it.
Janet