Published: 13 May 2022
Last updated: 4 March 2024
How do journalists report crises amid digital overload and fake news? DEBORAH STONE reflects on a panel she will moderate at Melbourne Jewish book Week
WHEN MOST WORKERS were required to stay home under Covid-19 public isolations order, journalists were among those exempted. Like food supply, health care and emergency plumbing, the media industry was classified as essential for a society in a time of crisis.
It was a timely reminder that for all its failure and frivolities, journalism is a noble profession with an important role to play in society.
Journalists rarely hear such endorsements from the public. More often we are buttonholed at social gatherings and called to account for the many inadequacies of the profession.
In Jewish circles, of course, reporting on Israel is a constant cause of strong opinions, and allegations of bias are as frequent as smoked salmon at a simcha. Journalists have a heuristic for measuring impartiality: if both sides think you have favoured the other, you’ve probably been even-handed. Jews are usually surprised to learn that most Israel reporting passes this test.
Of course, all professions have their detractors. Lawyers get lawyer jokes. Doctors are subjected to interminable stories of intractable health problems and arrogant colleagues. IT professionals get the details of every PC bug and help desk failure (I bought my husband a sweatshirt which reads “Have you tried switching it off and on again?).
What makes it tough in the media is that our client is society as a whole – not an individual who may or may not be satisfied with a given experience. We rarely talk about the essential role of that discourse in keeping us safe, connected and engaged.
So it is with great pleasure that I will be moderating a panel at Melbourne Jewish Book Week, titled Reporting in Times of Crisis, on May 29 at Glen Eira Town Hall, an event sponsored by The Jewish Independent.
MJBW Director Nicholas Brasch has drawn together a remarkable panel which includes a Nobel prize-winner, a Gold Walkley Award-winner, and one of Australia’s leading journalists and journalism academics: a daunting collection which is a tribute to the capacity of the Jewish community to act as host on broader important social issues, without requiring that the participants are members of the Jewish community.
Facilitating this panel feels like a very appropriate task as I step into the role of Editor-in-Chief at The Jewish Independent next month. I am joining a visionary enterprise, dedicated to broadening the conversation about Australia, Israel and the Jewish world. Talking about the role of the messenger seems a great way to begin.
Reporting in Times of Crisis will consider the impact of media during Covid-19, in covering the current war in Ukraine, and in confronting other current issues. We will explore the impact of changing technology and industry structures, the impact of social media and citizen journalism, and best and worst examples of the craft. The panel include both media insiders and subject experts able to assess the media’s performance in key areas of public interest.
Nobel Prize-winning immunologist Professor Peter Doherty and physician journalist Dr Norman Swan, co-host of Coronacast, will bring their respective perspectives on reporting the Covid-19 pandemic. Politico contributing editor Zoya Sheftalovich, who was born in Ukraine, will provide insights on the Russian invasion and the European context.
Award-winning journalist and leading journalism academic Professor Margaret Simons will bring her knowledge of the media industry and her expertise in public interest journalism.
The challenges of recent years - a pandemic, war, climate crisis, the rise of populism – are occurring in the context of a volatile and struggling media industry.
The past 20 years has been a time of immense change in the media industry. The old economy which underwrote public interest journalism in the golden age of advertising has all but disappeared. Professional media – often disparaged as “legacy media” – has lost thousands of skilled professionals and faces declining audiences. Structural changes have made it very difficult for journalists to continue to do their job and for the media to act as a genuine force in upholding the public interest.
At the same time, the new media environment, which offers instant access to everybody, does so at a heavy price. Fake news is rife and - the rise of conspiracy theories – including new forms of antisemitic canards – is impossible to control.
Less dramatic but equally dangerous is the sheer logjam of information which descends on us daily without order, analysis, judgement, or meaning.
In this context, we need professional media more than ever.
For many years, the screensaver which greeted me I saw whenever I logged to do my modest work as a reporter was a grand quotation from American astronomer Clifford Stoll: “Data is not information, information is not knowledge, knowledge is not understanding, understanding is not wisdom.”
Good journalism turns data into information and information into knowledge. Great journalism turns knowledge into understanding. Wisdom won’t come until we have the rest working.
Reporting in Times of Crisis
Sunday 29 May, 12pm to 1.15pm
Glen Eira Town Hall
CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS AND DETAILS
