Analysis

Another savage blow to regional media spells disaster for the communities they serve

Kristy Hess Associate Professor (Communication), Deakin University With swift and savage force, the COVID-19 pandemic has inadvertently attacked Australia’s local news media ecology, which was already battling a weakened immune system. As a researcher working on Australia’s largest academic study into the future of local newspapers, the phones have been running hot in recent weeks. We’ve had calls from everyday people, journalists made redundant, cadets surviving on JobKeeper, and independent news proprietors, all navigating their way through the crisis. News Corp has announced plans to close or suspend printing operations of more than 100 suburban and small community titles. Its more successful publications, such as the Geelong Advertiser, Gold Coast Bulletin, Hobart Mercury and the iconic Northern Territory News, will remain with print and digital editions. Other independently-owned newspapers across rural and regional Australia are still breathing: they are gasping for air, but they are breathing. They’ve either temporarily suspended operations, cut back the number of print editions or shifted to a digital-only model to “see how it goes”. Since the COVID-19 crisis emerged, there have been two key funding schemes introduced (or re-introduced) to support news providers – the government’s $50 million Public Interest News Gathering Program and a $5 million Regional and Small Publishers Innovation Fund. The federal government has also announced plans to force Google and Facebook to share advertising revenue with producers of quality journalism in Australia. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is now seeking views on its new draft mandatory code that will address bargaining power imbalances between Australia’s news media businesses, and Google and Facebook. This has been met with some initial concern from the Country Press Association of Australia amid fears the modelling may only benefit big companies and not the little players that serve small towns and cities. The Victorian government has waded in to provide more than $4 million in additional advertising […]

Rebuilding fairly will be a global challenge

Since the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, disaster recovery plans are almost always framed with aspirational plans to “build back better”. It’s a fine sentiment – we all want to build better societies and economies. But, as the Cheshire Cat tells Alice when she is lost, where we ought to go depends very much on where we want to get to. The ambition to build back better therefore needs to be made explicit and transparent as countries slowly re-emerge from their COVID-19 cocoons. The Asian Development Bank attempted last year to define build-back-better aspirations more precisely and concretely. The bank described four criteria: build back safer, build back faster, build back potential and build back fairer. The first three are obvious. We clearly want our economies to recover fast, be safer and be more sustainable into the future. It’s the last objective – fairness – that will inevitably be the most challenging long-term goal at both the national and international level. Economic fallout from the pandemic is already being experienced disproportionately among poorer households, in poorer regions within countries, and in poorer countries in general. Some governments are aware of this and are trying to ameliorate this brewing inequality. At the same time, it is seen as politically unpalatable to engage in redistribution during a global crisis. Most governments are opting for broad-brush policies aimed at everyone, lest they appear to be encouraging class warfare and division or, in the case of New Zealand, electioneering. In fact, politicians’ typical focus on the next election aligns well with the public appetite for a fast recovery. We know that speedier recoveries are more complete, as delays dampen investment and people move away from economically depressed places. Speed is also linked to safety. As we know from other disasters, this recovery cannot be completed as long as the […]

Fang Fang’s Wuhan diaries are a personal account of shared memory

Meng XiaPhD candidate on Literature, memory and trauma, UNSW Starting on January 25 2020, novelist and poet Fang Fang has posted 60 daily diary entries about life and death in her home town of Wuhan to WeChat, China’s most popular social media platform. Born in 1955, Fang has a long and respected career as a writer of poems, novels and novellas. She won the prestigious Lu Xun Literary Prize in 2010, and was elected president of the government-funded Writers Association of Hubei Province in 2007. But her work has rarely been translated into English. Her diaries were read widely in China, and but their reception was mixed. Some readers celebrated Fang for voicing people’s struggles in lockdown, others criticised her viewpoints. In her diary, Fang wrote* about her persistence: “I’m never too old to lose the strength of criticising.” News of publication of her translated diaries in English and German only the inflamed debate in China. But in any language, Fang Fang’s unfolding recording of the pandemic will be valuable for the globe’s understanding of our shared memories of this time. Fang Fang and her dairies Before becoming a writer, Fang worked as a dockworker at the Port of Wuhan, on the Yangtze and Hanjiang rivers. Her stories mostly depict struggling social underdogs in Wuhan. Fang’s diaries (which I read in the original Mandarin) chronicle the situation in Wuhan throughout the lockdown. She describes her daily life in quarantine: food shopping, online communication with families and friends, and responding to readers. She touches on sensitive topics: the investigation of China’s belated reporting on coronavirus, overcrowded hospitals, and those dying at home unattended. There are heartbreaking snapshots: scattered, unclaimed cell phones at a mortuary; sweet moments when volunteers help with the old and the weak. She reflects on the dilemma of media workers in a […]

The last thing companies should be doing right now is paying dividends

The economic heart attack induced by COVID-19 has revealed an ugly truth – many very large companies have too little cash to ride out sharp downturns. Cash flow variability, and the inability to retain earnings to buffer that variability, is one of the most common reasons small businesses fail. Because large companies have raised large amounts of cash through public offers, and take in large amounts of cash in their ordinary operations, they ought to be more resilient. Yet even though the pandemic-inspired shutdowns are mere weeks old, many big companies such as Virgin Australia and listed childcare providers are already pleading for or receiving public guarantees and bailouts. Other companies such as Flight Centre and Cochlear are rushing to raise extra funds though discounted share placements. Bond and debt markets are experiencing severe problems, making it difficult for these companies to borrow. Why are big companies so vulnerable? Catastrophic declines in cash flow are only half the story. The other half is the three-decade focus on maximising shareholder returns. Companies have used four strategies to keep their share prices high and push them higher. First, they have paid out profits to shareholders in the form of dividends, leaving them with less to build cash buffers, pay higher wages and reinvest in the business. Reserve Bank research shows that over the past three decades dividend payouts have trended up over time to more than 80 cents of every dollar of corporate profits. In some companies dividends payouts exceed 100% of profits. Second, the same Reserve Bank research points to the increased use of share buy-backs and dividend reinvestment plans. The former boosts share prices by shrinking the stock of shares. The latter boosts demand for that stock. Third, to lock in these historically high dividend payout ratios, shareholders, including institutional shareholders such as superannuation funds, have demanded boards agree to dividend guarantees. […]

How do economic crises end?

The Issue We are now in the acute economic phase of a crisis that is unprecedented in modern times — a health crisis from the coronavirus pandemic that has sparked a follow-on economic crisis. The virus represents both a supply shock (as people are forced not to work and supply chains are disrupted by the need for social distancing) and a demand shock (as incomes plunge, people are unable to go out, and economic uncertainty surges). Moreover, these shocks have put severe strains on the financial system. Against this backdrop, the economic outlook has darkened considerably since the pandemic burst into public view, and many macro forecasters now expect a deep and painful recession as economic activity is abruptly curtailed. While much remains unknown about the spread and severity of the coronavirus crisis, and even though there are clear differences from the current situation, we can look at two past economic crises — the Financial Crisis and the Great Depression — to draw lessons. History suggests that two ingredients are needed to stanch the acute phase of an economic crisis; a transparent resolution of the underlying cause of the crisis and a dramatic economic policy response that both mitigates the economic damage and causes a shift in business and consumer sentiment. History suggests two ingredients are needed to stanch the acute phase of an economic crisis; a resolution of the underlying cause and a dramatic economic policy response that mitigates the economic damage and causes a shift in sentiment. The Facts: The Great Depression began with a financial panic that was ignited by the stock market collapse in October 1929. That panic quickly led to a run on banks and many bank failures. Indeed, the number of banks operating in the United States at the end of 1933 was down by almost half from its […]

Is this the person the media world is now watching?

It was always Rupert. The focus was on the father who has been so active over the past 60 years to create a media empire the world had never seen before. Through this time of triumph and turmoil the father kept his children close by. As heir apparents they had a vital role to play in the future of News Corp. But things changed. Thanks to the News of the World scandal, James dropped away and Elizabeth just isn’t around much anymore. Lachlan is the one, he is standing upfront and running things. He is the public face And the history of this family in media means that what he does will be watched closely. And company results will be watched closely. When will there be another book by Michael Wolff, when will the next crises at Fox raise its head. And why does it seem that it is this media company and this media empire that gets most of the attention when things go wrong, just as when things go right? Because the founder put his neck on the line so many times to creative a business so strong and powerful and significant that the rest of the world watched him do it. He made enemies, he made friends. Sure, there are other large and famous family media businesses. They mainly are quieter, less controversial and not so much watched for their every move. And because this family of media people – the Murdochs – somehow draw the attention, how will Lachlan handle it? He is 46 and by the time he reaches his father’s age, we may well be looking at a whole new ball game.

When crackpot conspiracy theories are touted as news we all lose

Peter Ellerton, Lecturer in Critical Thinking, The University of Queensland Humans are fascinated by potential disasters, legends or prophecies that promise the end of the world. There is even a word for the study of such things: eschatology, from the Greek eschatos for “last” and -ology “to speak” or “to study”. There is also something about the grandeur of such claims that makes them magnets for conspiracy theorists and religious fanatics. But just because this fascination exists, it doesn’t mean it’s desirable to pander to it. Not when it’s without reason, and especially not in the name of science. Alt-journalism Recently the UK’s The Sun newspaper demonstrated a spectacular jettisoning of journalistic rigour to report that Earth was about to be struck by a giant rock and that the results of this collision would be catastrophic. Now, this is disturbing for three reasons, none of which are do do with the possible consequences of such an impact. Leaving aside appeals to alternative facts, the first reason this is disturbing is that this claim was published at all. While there is indeed an object meandering in our general direction, it will pass us at a distance that is further than the closest approach of the planet Venus. If you manage to sleep well with Venus in such proximity, this new body need not disturb you either. This bit of information is so easily found that ignoring it in the article speaks volumes about the intent of the piece. And that’s leaving aside nonsensical sentences such as “it’s so huge you’ll be able to see it from Britain”, because seeing something from Britain seems more of an issue of positioning than size. The second reason is that this tenuous thread of hysteria was linked to wider conspiracy theories, an act one […]

The World: A Brief Introduction

An invaluable primer from Richard Haass, president of the US Council on Foreign Relations, that will help anyone, expert and non-expert alike, navigate a time in which many of our biggest challenges come from the world beyond our borders. Like it or not, we live in a global era, in which what happens thousands of miles away has the ability to affect our lives. This time, it is a Coronavirus known as Covid-19, which originated in a Chinese city many had never heard of but has spread to the corners of the earth. Next time it could well be another infectious disease from somewhere else. Twenty years ago it was a group of terrorists trained in Afghanistan and armed with box-cutters who commandeered four airplanes and flew them into buildings (and in one case a field) and claimed nearly three thousand lives. Next time it could be terrorists who use a truck bomb or gain access to a weapon of mass destruction. In 2016 hackers in a nondescript office building in Russia traveled virtually in cyberspace to manipulate America’s elections. Now they have burrowed into our political life. In recent years, severe hurricanes and large fires linked to climate change have ravaged parts of the earth; in the future we can anticipate even more serious natural disasters. In 2008, it was a global financial crisis caused by mortgage-backed securities in America, but one day it could well be a financial contagion originating in Europe, Asia, or Africa. This is the new normal of the 21st century. The World is designed to provide readers of any age and experience with the essential background and building blocks they need to make sense of this complicated and interconnected world. It will empower them to manage the flood of daily news. Readers will become more […]

If more of us work from home after coronavirus we’ll need to rethink city planning

We have seen an unprecedented rise in the number of people working from home as directed by governments and employers around the world to help stop the spread of COVID-19. If, as some expect, people are likely to work from home more often after the pandemic, what will this mean for infrastructure planning? Will cities still need all the multibillion-dollar road, public transport, telecommunications and energy projects, including some already in the pipeline? World’s largest work-from-home experiment Remote working was steadily on the rise well before COVID-19. But the pandemic suddenly escalated the trend into the “world’s largest work-from-home experiment”. Many people who have had to embrace remote working during the pandemic might not want to return to the office every day once restrictions are lifted. They might have found some work tasks are actually easier to do at home. Or they (and their employers) might have discovered things that weren’t thought possible to do from home are possible. They might then question why they had to go into the workplace so often in the first place. But what impact will this have on our cities? After all, many aspects of our cities were designed with commuting, not working from home, in mind. Stress test for NBN and energy networks From a telecommunications perspective, the huge increase in people working from home challenges the ways in which our existing networks were designed. Data from Aussie Broadband show evening peak broadband use has increased 25% during the shutdown. Additional daytime increases are expected due to home schooling with term 2 starting. Research by the then federal Department of Communications in 2018 estimated the average Australian household would need a maximum download speed of 49Mbps during peak-use times by 2026. If more people work from home after COVID-19, the size and times of peak use might need to be recalculated. […]

The Dictionary of Lost Words

by Pip Williams In 1901, the word ‘Bondmaid’ was discovered missing from the Oxford English Dictionary. This is the story of the girl who stole it. Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the ‘Scriptorium’, a garden shed in Oxford where her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Esme’s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word ‘bondmaid’ flutters to the floor. Esme rescues the slip and stashes it in an old wooden case that belongs to her friend, Lizzie, a young servant in the big house. Esme begins to collect other words from the Scriptorium that are misplaced, discarded or have been neglected by the dictionary men. They help her make sense of the world. Over time, Esme realises that some words are considered more important than others, and that words and meanings relating to women’s experiences often go unrecorded. While she dedicates her life to the Oxford English Dictionary, secretly, she begins to collect words for another dictionary: The Dictionary of Lost Words. Set when the women’s suffrage movement was at its height and the Great War loomed, The Dictionary of Lost Words reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men. It’s a delightful, lyrical and deeply thought-provoking celebration of words, and the power of language to shape the world and our experience of it.

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