***** TURNER ***********EJC/REC Vol. 3, No. 3 & 4, 1993 ****

QUALITY JOURNALISM'S VITAL ROLE IN AUSTRALIAN
COMMUNICATION:  A CASE FOR INTERVENTION[1]


Geoff Turner
University of Queensland


        Abstract.  While it is difficult to quantify
     the exact number of journalists employed full-time
     in the Australian news media, it would appear that
     little more than 4000 people control the news and
     current affairs that Australians read, hear and
     see.  In such a concentrated news process -- with
     little more than half as many journalists per head
     of population as the US, for instance -- it is
     unlikely that Australians are offered the quality
     and diversity of news necessary for the fully
     informed debate on which democratic society should
     be based.  The author looks to some overseas
     examples for ways in which an Australian
     government could attempt to ensure the nation's
     news media fulfilled their social responsibility,
     but concludes that it is unlikely to intervene to
     protect the public interest.

     The quality of journalism in a modern social democracy
is of vital importance because of the key role played by the
news media in shaping public opinion and community
consensus.  One of the indicators, if not determinants, of
journalistic quality is often quantity -- the number of
journalists employed to perform the news-gathering and
dissemination functions.  This linkage stems from two main
factors:  firstly, greater diversity of news sources means
more journalists if staffing levels are maintained; and
secondly, staffing levels on news media organisations need
to be more than just adequate to allow quality journalism,
based on investigation and reflection, rather than
superficial regurgitation of easily accessible material.  To
determine how well a community is being served by its media,
it is useful to look at trends in the size of the
journalistic workforce over time.  But to do this, some
benchmark must be established against which future
examinations can be compared.  This article investigates
whether such a benchmark can be determined from available
data in Australia, where journalism tends to be fragmented
and the academic literature is still comparatively sparse;
looks at some recent trends; and considers some of the
ramifications of this issue for the Australian community.

     Graber (1992) draws on the work of the Commission on
Freedom of the Press (1947), or Hutchins Commission as it
has become known, to conclude that "the quality of democracy
depends in major ways on the quality of news made available
by news media" (p. 4).  McQuail (1987) sees the main points
of social responsibility theory as being that "media should
accept and fulfil certain obligations to society", with
these obligations "mainly to be met by setting high or
professional standards of informativeness, truth, accuracy,
objectivity and balance" (p. 117).  But as Perkins (1991b)
argues, the fewer the journalists employed, the fewer the
sources of news available for public consumption.  The
International Federation of Journalists' president, Mia
Doornaert (1989), also warns that while "the media
revolution should be a positive process, increasing the
diversity of the information media" (p. 2) there is a danger
that the reverse will happen.  Doornaert notes:

     In a liberal democracy the need to inform the
     community in a balanced and responsible manner is
     the duty of professional journalists.  Journalists
     need to be able to work in an atmosphere free from
     pressure -- either from proprietors or from the
     State. (p. 2)

     In a small employment market, and particularly if that
market is shrinking rather than expanding, journalists are
more likely to be inhibited from speaking out against
proprietorial influence.  Of course, this is exacerbated by
any concurrent contraction of diversity in media ownership.
Chadwick (1989) has shown how the concentration of media
ownership in Australia has led to more self-censorship among
Australian journalists for reasons of self-preservation:

     As ownership becomes more concentrated and
     alternative employers more scarce it is inevitable
     that more journalists will comply more often, even
     when they know what is being done is not right
     according to journalistic principle.  (p. 215)

     The preservation of newspapers is particularly
important in fully informing the community, since in
Australia print is the only commercial medium to have
historically provided the necessary depth of analysis and
potential oversupply of information.  Newspapers are
notoriously circulation-sensitive:  and trimming news
budgets can jeopardise circulation, which in extreme cases
can threaten the continued existence of a title (see, for
instance, Turner, 1992).  Kwitny (1990) raises the question
of shrinking news holes as "an unhealthy trend" (p. 28)
contributing to declining literacy and education levels in
United States children.  Ward (1992) shows the dangers for
the political process inherent in relying on television news
as a medium of political information, for young people at
least, because of its polysemic nature.  The Canadian Royal
Commission on Newspapers (1981) suggested that in Canada, as
well as a threat to education, the consequence of reduced
editorial budgets is a threat to freedom itself:

     It seems, indeed, all too true that while
     conglomerates do not bother with the editorial
     content of their papers, their main motive is not
     their concern for freedom; indifference is
     rewarded in dollars.  (p. 221)

     One of the ways in which this happens can be understood
by looking at the type of person most likely to make it to
the top of the editorial ladder in a news organisation for
which profit is the sole goal.  Rosenau (1988) notes that
the senior news employees most likely to survive a budgetary
purge are the ones who are the best administrators.  They
will not necessarily be good journalists as well, he argues.
Nor does it follow that "good news people will not have
their journalistic souls cut out by the budget knife" (p.
50).

     There is no authoritative source of statistics on the
size of the Australian journalistic workforce.  Rather,
several areas can be explored in the hope of putting
together a mosaic of the industry.  These data sources
include earlier research results; Federal Government
departments and agencies; the various employers and employer
groups; and the Australian Journalists' Association, now the
Media, Arts and Entertainment Alliance, which includes most
Australian news journalists among its membership, though
neither exhaustively nor exclusively.

     Unfortunately, none of these sources is able to provide
a full picture of industry trends.  For instance,
computerised records held by some state branches of the AJA
are not even archived once a year, as they effectively were
in membership lists in old annual reports.  The author is
researching these lists in an effort to develop a more
complete picture of employment trends in Australian
journalism.  One earlier researcher, Hudson (1963), looked
at the size of the workforce as part of his work on
metropolitan daily journalists in Australia.  He found that
at the time of a national referendum of journalists in 1944
there were a little more than 1,950 journalists in
Australia.  The most recent figures available to him from
the AJA, for 1962, showed 1,652 journalists, 237 of them
cadets, on 14 metropolitan newspapers around the country.
More recently Henningham (1992), in the preliminary results
released from his national survey of journalists, estimated
on the basis of his research that there were about 4,200
"full-time journalists in Australian mainstream news media",
irrespective of individuals' membership status.

     These figures are of little comparative value, of
course, and even Federal Government records are incomplete.
From 1979 to 1986 the Department of Employment and
Industrial Relations issued an employment _Outlook_ series
which examined job prospects according to occupation and
industry.  Median results for journalism varied between 6000
and 7500 journalists but the series was discontinued after
1986.  This might not have been such a bad thing;
departmental sources suggest privately that while the
employment outlook figures were soundly based for
occupations with a controlled intake, such as law and
medicine, they were at times little more than guesses for
occupations such as journalism.  The imprecision in the
estimate for any year, with the range of the estimate
varying from 500 to 2000, supports this contention.

     More recent data on the number of journalists working
in the Australian news media are available from three main
sources:  employers, particularly for the print media; the
Australian Broadcasting Tribunal (now the Australian
Broadcasting Authority), particularly for the radio sector;
and the AJA.

     The print news media in Australia operate at four main
levels:  metropolitans, regional dailies, provincial
non-dailies and suburbans.  The Metropolitan Daily Newspaper
Proprietors surveyed member publications in February 1990 to
gain a detailed employment profile for Australian Industrial
Relations Commission proceedings.  They found a total of
2,635 graded staff (including press artists and
photographers).  In similar surveys, the Regional Dailies
Association of Australia found the total number of
journalists and photographers employed full-time on
Australian regional daily newspapers in 1984 to be 658,
rising to 871 in both 1990 and 1991.  Other research in this
period indicated that these figures probably represented 762
journalists and 109 photographers.  Country Press Australia
surveyed its member newspapers in 1990 and found 342 graded
journalists and editors and 119 cadets.  But as Country
Press Australia (1992) noted, "a lot of newspapers
(belonging to big groups or small independents) are not
members, especially in NSW" (p. 1).  The Australian Suburban
Newspapers Association (1992) says it has no data on member
publishers' workforces, which although rarely substantial on
a title-by-title basis are likely to mount up when
considered nationally.  News magazines, on the other hand,
are few in number, even though Australia has relatively high
sales of general (especially women's) magazines.  With the
exception of the _Bulletin_ and to a lesser extent the less
localised _Time Australia_, they are also unlikely to be
substantial employers of news journalists.  The number of
journalists, authors and related professionals employed on
magazines in 1988 was estimated to be 512 (AJA, 1991), but
only a small minority of these would work on _news_
magazines, especially as neither rates in the top 15
magazines by circulation (House of Representatives Select
Committee on the Print Media, 1992).

     In radio, the data has been more readily available
through the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal, which analysed
the employment data from all Australian radio stations,
counting part-time and casual staff counted as 0.1
journalists for each half-day shift worked per week.  For
1988 to 1990, the last years for which the figures were
available, the totals rose from 400.8 to 411.8, only to drop
back to 399.9.  In 1989, public radio jobs also started to
come on stream, adding a further 17.0 positions.
Unfortunately, similar data for television stations is not
available, either from the Australian Broadcasting Authority
(which has replaced the tribunal) or through the Federation
of Australian Commercial Television Stations.

     The Australian Bureau of Statistics' Census data could
become a valuable independent source of information on the
size of the Australian journalistic workforce, but
occupational data has been collected in a sufficiently
specific form only in the 1986 and 1991 surveys.  The 1991
data will not be freely available until later this year, so
the only figure available is that of 9906 journalists for
1986.  It should also be remembered that not all Census
respondents declaring themselves to be journalists would be
employed in the news media.

     As mentioned, the other main source for information
about the number of Australian journalists is their
industrial association, now called the Media, Entertainment
and Arts Alliance.  The association recently published data
of its own, both in connection with the Federal House of
Representatives Select Committee of Inquiry into the Print
Media in Australia and as part of the union's campaign for
amalgamation with other unions, which succeeded in a
plebiscite in March 1992.  As part of the campaign, the AJA
issued an analysis of its membership at January 1, 1992,
which showed 2,912 members employed by metropolitan
newspapers; 859 by regional papers; 415 by provincial
non-dailies; 595 by suburbans; 329 by magazines; 450 by
other print media; 146 by the national news agency, AAP; 765
by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation; 473 by
commercial television; 189 by the Special Broadcasting
Service (Australia's multicultural broadcaster); and 315 by
commercial radio -- a total of 6258 journalists.  There were
4496 other members, including freelancers, unemployed
journalists, public relations practitioners (including
government press secretaries) and book editors.  If the 779
members employed by magazines and other print media were
excluded as being in the main unlikely to be news
journalists, that leaves 5,479 AJA members employed in the
news media at January 1, 1992.

     As has been stated, not all journalists are members of
the association.  In its submission to the Federal House of
Representatives Select Committee of Inquiry into the Print
Media in Australia, the AJA (1991) said there were about
12,500 journalists, artists and photographers (including
non-union members) in Australia working in the print and
broadcast media and in public relations.  It estimated that
in 1988, 3,997 journalists and 1,802 other editorial staff
(including photographers and artists) worked in newspapers.
As the AJA noted,

     It is a remarkably small professional group.
     Compared to nurses with about 150,000 in
     Australia, or teachers with 250,000, or even
     doctors and lawyers, it is a profession drawn from
     a small pool.  (p. 9)

     The AJA estimated that "before the recession" (p. 9),
about 8,500 of these 12,500 workers had been in full-time
employment, with the remainder freelance, contract,
self-employed, or temporarily out of the industry.  It said
about 5,250 of its members were working in the print media,
with the spread of employment being:  metropolitan daily
newspapers, 2,500; regional daily newspapers, 800; suburban
newspapers, 600; provincial non-daily newspapers, 500;
magazines, 700; and AAP, 150.

     So it is not possible, on the available data, to
provide a conclusive answer to the question:  How many
journalists are there working full-time in the news media in
Australia in 1993?  The best guess, based on the data from a
variety of sources using a variety of definitional criteria
at various times over the past few years is:  there are
probably about 10,000 journalists working in Australia in
1993; about 6,000 of these are working in news media; and
about 4,000 of these are employed full-time.  This core
figure, which approximates the estimate by Henningham
(1992), is the important figure, because these 4,000 or so
journalists define the political and other processes so
crucial in the conduct of our society.  This journalistic
core brings Australians their daily news, news features and
commentaries in the newspapers; their non-daily suburban and
country papers as well; and their constant wash of radio and
television news and current affairs.  And as Henningham
(1993) has pointed out, this shows that Australian
journalists make up only about 55 percent of the proportion
of the population made up by journalists in the US.  Put
another way, the flow of news in the Australian community is
almost twice as concentrated, with obvious implications for
the diversity of views offered to those seeking to make
informed decisions about community issues.

     An attempt to determine whether that concentration is
increasing or decreasing is even more complicated by
incomplete data and varying criteria for measuring the
workforce.  But unemployment stands at more than 11 percent
in Australia in 1993, and anecdotal evidence would suggest
that journalism has fared no better, and in fact may have
fared worse, than average in the jobs slump.  Even though
Australian government officials were trying to recruit
newspaper sub-editors from overseas until quite recently --
the Department of Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic
Affairs (1991) says sub-editors were included on priority
occupations lists from July 1986 to April 1989 -- job losses
in Australian journalism were substantial between 1989 and
1992.  The AJA reported (_The Journalist_ 1991a) that in the
1990-91 financial year, association membership declined "in
the wake of record job losses through paper closures and
redundancies through radio and television" (p. 9).  It said
total membership had dropped from 12,611 to 12,554, with
financial membership down from 11,058 to 10,965.  Membership
was continuing to fall in the period between July 1, 1991,
and September 30, 1991, when annual fees were due.  The
association added that "ominously, estimates from branch
secretaries show that only about 7,700 of the total
financial membership are working as employees" (p. 9).

     Late that year the AJA (1991) told the Federal House of
Representatives Select Committee of Inquiry into the Print
Media in Australia that in the 12 months to late in 1991,
about 1000 journalists, artists and photographers in
Australia had lost their jobs.  Pearson (1991) suggests that
in New South Wales at least, the impact of job losses was
masked to an extent in AJA membership records by the
association's membership drive in the book industry and
other non-news areas.  In Victoria, 265 journalists lost
their full-time jobs in 1990-91 (Sutherland 1991).  These
included 189 jobs in newspapers and 19 in broadcast news.
Sutherland estimated that another 100 casuals and freelances
had lost their regular income.  He identified newspaper
closures and mergers at Rupert Murdoch's News Ltd newspapers
and other nominally independent but News Ltd-reliant titles
as the source of most of the job losses.  Green (1991), then
the Queensland secretary of the association, described
1990-91 as "one of the blackest in the AJA's 81 year
history" (p. 2) with 12 percent of "mainstream" journalists
losing their jobs while "as expected, the recession and bad
media management struck hardest at the workers in the
industry" (p. 2).

     The AJA warned (_The Journalist_, 1991b) that the jobs
slump was continuing nationally into 1991-1992.  It
estimated membership had fallen another 500 between July and
December 1991 and "branches expect this trend to continue
during the next six months" (p. 1).  The Victorian branch
(_The Journalist_, 1991b) estimated it lost another 100
members in the second half of 1991 and "branch secretary
Mike Sutherland says he believes at least 100 will leave in
the first half of 1992" (p. 1).  The AJA (1991) put the
figures in stark relief when it told the Federal House of
Representatives Select Committee of Inquiry into the Print
Media in Australia:  "More journalists have lost their jobs
this past year than ever before in Australian history" (p.
37).

     The list of major job losses in the 50 years to 1987
provided by the AJA (1991) is relatively insignificant by
comparison.  These included 53 journalists dismissed when
Fairfax took over Associated Newspapers, publishers of
Sydney _Sun_, in 1953; 111 when the Melbourne _Argus_ was
closed in 1957; 79 in Sydney and Melbourne during the 1961
credit squeeze; and 39 from _The Australian_ and 20 from
Australian Consolidated Press in the 1982-3 recession.

     The print media are the largest employers of full-time
journalists in Australia, so it could be expected that at a
time of job losses, print job losses would be greatest.  But
few commentators would have expected the extent of the print
job losses, especially since 1987, the year of News
Corporation's acquisition of the Herald and Weekly Times.
The closure of the Brisbane _Sun_ in December 1991 and of
the Adelaide _News_ in March 1992 meant the end of the
afternoon metropolitan daily in Australia.  The closure of
these two papers followed the loss of the _Daily News_ in
Perth early in 1990 and the Brisbane _Telegraph_ and Sydney
_Sun_ in 1988.  Two other afternoon papers, the Melbourne
_Herald_ and Sydney _Daily Mirror_, were effectively closed
in 1990 when they were amalgamated with their sister
publications, the _Sun News-Pictorial_ and _Daily Telegraph_
respectively, although these amalgamated papers, the _Herald
Sun_ and _Telegraph Mirror_, continued to publish afternoon
editions.  Several smaller papers were closed and many other
newsrooms froze staff levels or did not replace departing
journalists.

     Australia, which had 17 capital-city and national
dailies in 1987, now has 10:  the _Courier-Mail_ (Brisbane),
_Sydney Morning Herald_ and _Telegraph Mirror_ (Sydney),
_Herald Sun_ and _Age_ (Melbourne), _Mercury_ (Hobart),
_Advertiser_ (Adelaide), _West Australian_ (Perth), and
_Australian_ and _Australian Financial Review_ (national).
As well as closures, other factors costing jobs in
journalism were identified by the AJA (1991) as:
syndication and copy-swapping between publications in the
same metropolitan or regional group; the establishment of
central sub-editing pools for suburban titles; and
production of regional non-dailies by regional dailies.  The
AJA argued that as well as reducing employment opportunities
for journalists and other editorial employees, these
developments inevitably introduced a generalised and
at-times bland tone into reporting, substantially reduced
local orientation, and formed a major barrier to new
entrants.

     Job losses in the commercial radio news industry seem
to have hit particularly hard in Queensland, where "about 14
jobs out of 60 have been lost in south-east Queensland
alone" (Perkins 1991a, p. 7).  A dispute over job cuts at a
Queensland station led the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal
to research the situation nationally.  The station, QFM at
Ipswich, reduced its newsroom staff from five to one -- a
drastic step, but not as drastic as the step taken at
another Queensland station, 4IP, which closed its newsroom
altogether despite its licence obligations under the
Broadcasting Act to provide an adequate and comprehensive
service.  The tribunal found (ABT, 1991) that the total
number of journalists employed by commercial radio stations
remained virtually constant from 1988 to 1990 while
non-journalist staff levels increased.  Analysis of the
figures showed metropolitan stations had cut editorial staff
by 10 percent, with the slack being taken up by regional
stations, for which nine new licences were issued.

     Perkins (1991a) used the data to push for the
establishment of a minimum "floor level of staff in
commercial radio newsrooms" (p. 7); that is, for licensees
to be required not only to provide a news service, but also
to employ enough journalists to provide such a service
adequately.  It is debatable what such a "floor level" would
be for a metropolitan station, but it is interesting to note
that when Curtain (1988) surveyed the newsrooms of all 38
stations in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth,
Canberra, Geelong and Wollongong in 1985-1986, he found the
mean size was seven journalists and the median size was six.

     In a later annual report, the Australian Broadcasting
Tribunal (1992) showed that Perkins' fears of a drop in the
number of commercial radio journalists in Australia had been
well-founded.  The number of metropolitan radio journalists
was 236.5, down from 251.1 in 1990 and 279.0 in 1988; the
number of regional journalists was 129.2, down from 148.8 in
1990 and 121.8 in 1988; and overall, the number was 365.7,
down from 399.9 in 1990 and 400.8 in 1988.  This meant that
while the number of metropolitan journalists continued to
fall, the compensating rise in regional employment had been
reversed and the 1988-1990 gains in this area had been all
but wiped out.  The overall figure represented an 8.76
percent drop in employment in just three years.

     Compared with radio, television newsrooms average more
staff, although there are fewer of them.  Henningham (1988)
estimated on the basis of his 1986 survey of television
newsrooms in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth
and Darwin that

     newsroom staffs, including journalists, cameramen,
     tape editors and support staff ... total about 100
     in major Sydney newsrooms, incorporating Canberra
     bureaus.  About a third of that number are
     journalists.  The number of news journalists in
     other state capitals vary between a dozen and
     twenty.  (p. 15)

In this context, it can be seen that the dismissal of 40
journalists from the Ten network during the 1982-3 recession
(AJA 1991) was a major blow.  But this was overshadowed by
Ten's dismissal of 100 journalists in 1990 (Green 1991),
after a less drastic round of redundancies a year earlier.

     The reported massive job losses in journalism,
especially since 1987, mean more than unemployment for
individual journalists.  Fewer journalists means either
fewer sources of news, with all that implies for the good of
the society, or it means "sweatshop" conditions on existing
media outlets and a lessening of quality.  The AJA (1991)
argued that the job losses represented "the greatest loss of
journalistic talent from the industry in over half a
century" (p. 37), and although the association was speaking
in aggregate terms, a case can also be made that
individually, many of the best journalists have been forced
to leave the industry.  In a climate where jobs are tight,
it is the least skilled and talented who feel the brunt of
the workplace realities.  But when times are tight _and_
there are mass sackings as newspapers close and television
stations are placed in the hands of receivers, even the most
skilled and talented can find themselves on the employment
scrap-heap.

     Another factor increasing the likelihood of the most
experienced staff being lost to the industry when newspapers
close is that redundancy packages are usually based on the
number of years' service to the newspaper.  As the AJA
(1991) noted, long-serving employees were most likely to
volunteer for retrenchment.  The post-1987 job cuts have
left Australia with a smaller, younger, less skilled and
less secure editorial workforce, as the AJA (1991) noted.
This "culture of impermanence" (p. 39) has serious
implications for the community because while journalism had
become "a confident, active, if at times aggressive craft"
in the preceding decades, "much of that confidence that
comes from security has gone.  The loser in this is, of
course, the public interest that active journalism serves"
(p. 39).

     Pessimism about the future of journalism in Australia
comes also from Henningham (1991), who suggests that "from
many points of view, journalism in Australia faces a bleak
future, especially in the short term" (p. 255).  This is
more than just a cyclical phenomenon, as "structural
unemployment" (Mackay 1993, p. 7) becomes a reality in the
information age.  Some of the jobs lost in the past few
years will no doubt re-emerge as the national economy turns
around and overall unemployment rates drop.  But as the AJA
(1991) notes, "the overwhelming majority of these jobs are
gone for good, simply because the papers they were on are
themselves gone" (p. 37).

     No one would deny that commercial news media are, in
the words of one editor, in "business, with the word
`business' underlined" (Turner, 1992, p. 64).  But the
social responsibility theory dictates that if the media's
obligations to society are not met -- that is, if the
expected standards are not achieved -- "intervention can be
justified to secure the, or a, public good" (McQuail, 1987,
p. 118).  That is to say, the unique place of the media in
society warrants something more than a _laissez-faire_
approach to this "business".  In Australia the relatively
free-market approach to the print media has meant not the
freedom of the public to expect and receive news and current
affairs from a wide range of sources, but the freedom of the
dominant media owners to further concentrate media
ownership.

     If an interventionist wave were uncharacteristically to
sweep the Australian government, it would have adequate
international precedents to suggest a way to reverse this
trend, particularly for newspapers.  The Swedish, British
and Canadian governments, concerned at similar trends, have
looked at ways which might be used to slow the rate of
increase in concentration of their newspaper industries.
However, only in Sweden were the recommendations of the
various inquiries implemented, with the Swedish Government
moving in 1970 to implement a subsidy scheme, well
documented by Gustafsson and Hadenius (1976).  As Dunnett
(1988) observes, the Swedish system subsidises "newspapers
with smaller circulations and high editorial costs enabling
them to survive" (p. 60).  The Swedish system has been only
a qualified success because it has had the unintended
consequence of making it harder for new newspapers to start.
Dunnett (1988) also notes that it has been expensive.  But
it has preserved jobs (see Bohere, 1984).

     The proposal formulated by the Kent royal commission in
Canada would have been revenue-neutral to the government,
transferring funds from "low-quality" newspapers to
"high-quality" newspapers through tax credits and deficits
on the basis of a newspaper's ratio of editorial expenses to
revenues compared with the industry average.  The commission
described its proposed Canada Newspaper Act as "affirmative
legislation designed to separate the editorial conduct of a
newspaper from business interests outside that newspaper"
(Royal Commission on Newspapers, 1981, p. 252).  The
commission suggested its proposal would "make it easier for
newspapers to serve their readers well and at the same time
make a satisfactory after-tax profit" (p. 252).  But it
would penalise the papers "if they exploit their monopoly
position by taking, as profit, resources that are needed to
do a good job for the public" (p. 252).  Dunnett (1988)
suggests the main stumbling block for this proposal was that
it was seen as likely to have encouraged wasteful editorial
expenditures, an argument apparently predicated on the
dubious assumption that newspaper proprietors and managers
are incapable of spending editorial resources in a
cost-efficient manner beyond a certain level; that is, that
they are unable to continue to buy circulation (market
share) with increased resources and higher quality.  Benesh
(1986) shows that the Canadian newspaper industry was able
to mount a "freedom of the press" campaign to prevent most
of the Kent recommendations being put into legislation.

     The political clout of the (concentrated) media owners
fearing interference with their profit-making potential also
killed the main British proposal, made by Lord Kalder to the
1961 Royal Commission.  Kalder suggested a levy system to
help balance the economies of scale for large-circulation
national dailies by increasing the cost to a publisher once
circulation reached a certain level.  This might have helped
the competitive position, and therefore the prospects, of
smaller newspapers.  It would have done nothing to lift the
editorial expense ratios, and thereby the quality, of the
newspapers, as the proposed Canadian scheme would have done.

     Irrespective of the comparative merits of such
proposals, however, it seems unlikely that an Australian
government would want to intervene.  Indeed, the record in
the broadcast media in Australia, where an existing
regulatory framework has been watered down in the name of
"self-regulation", suggests the opposite.  Herman and
Chomsky (1988) suggest that in democratic societies the need
for dominant forces to manufacture consent through the news
media is greater than in authoritarian societies, where
other social tools are available.  But even for those who
reject the Chomsky view of the world, there is ample
evidence in phenomena such as the US presidential election
process to demonstrate how the ideals of the democratic
system can become perverted by the combined power of money
and media (see, for instance, Bagdikian, 1990).  In
Australia, the choice offered to the voters at a federal
level is, on the one hand, a Labor Government with its
powerful media "mates"; or alternatively, a conservative
coalition in Opposition with a fundamental ideological
distaste of the concept of a powerful central state.  As
Bowman (1988) points out, the present situation suits both
Labor, a party with "faith in massive enterprises and
massive power" (p. 225), and the coalition, with its
free-market emphasis.  In a political environment where
far-sightedness has little reward, particularly when a
hostile media may be able to tip the balance at the next
election, neither political group is likely to tackle
Australia's increasingly centralised media by instituting
measures aimed at ensuring that the nation's news media
operate with an eye to community responsibility as well as
to the bottom line.  In the end, Australians as a whole
might come to regret that.


                            Note

[1]  The paper draws on parts of a PhD thesis being written
     under the supervision of Professor John Henningham.


                         References

Australian Broadcasting Tribunal. (1992). Broadcasting in
     Australia (4th ed.). Sydney:  ABT.

Australian Broadcasting Tribunal. (1991). 4QM "Conditions"
     Inquiry Staff Information Paper, 30 May.

Australian Broadcasting Tribunal. (1990).  Broadcasting
     financial yearbook 1988-89. North Sydney:  ABT.

Australian Journalists' Association.  (1991).  Submission to
     House of Representative Select Committee on the Print
     Media. Submissions, Vol 4,  738-876.

Australian Suburban Newspapers Association. (1992). Personal
     correspondence dated 24 January.

Bagdikian, B. (1990). The media monopoly, Boston: Beacon.

Benesh, P. (1986, December 13).  Where the press cocks a
     snook at Govt.  The Sydney Morning Herald, p. 15.

Bohere, G. (1984).  Profession:  Journalist.  Geneva:
     International Labour Office.

Bowman, D. (1988).  The captive press. Ringwood:  Penguin.

Chadwick, P. (1989).  Media mates:  Carving up Australia's
     media.  South Melbourne:  Sun.

Commission on Freedom of the Press.  (1947).  A free and
     responsible press.  Chicago:  University of Chicago
     Press.

Country Press Australia.  (1992).  Personal communication
     dated 23 January.

Country Press Australia.  (1990).  Journalists survey of CPA
     members.  [internal association document].

Curtain, R. (1988).  Problems facing radio.  Australian
     Journalism Review, 10, 111.

Department of Employment and Industrial Relations.  (1986).
     Occupational outlook:  The supply and demand for
     skilled labour.  Canberra:  Australian Government
     Publishing Service.

Department of Employment and Industrial Relations.  (1985a).
     Occupational outlook:  An employment and training
     analysis 1984.  Canberra:  Australian Government
     Publishing Service.

Department of Employment and Industrial Relations.  (1985b).
     Occupational outlook 1985:  The supply and demand for
     skilled labour.  Canberra:  Australian Government
     Publishing Service.

Department of Employment and Industrial Relations.  (1980,
     1979, 1978).  Employment prospects by industry and
     occupation:  A labour market analysis.  Canberra:
     Australian Government Publishing Service.

Department of Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic
     Affairs. (1991). Personal communication, November 27.

Doornaert, M. (1989, February).  Legislating for press
     freedom:  Journalists and the media revolution.  Paper
     presented to "News Unlimited" conference, Sydney
     University.

Dunnett, P. (1988).  The world newspaper industry. London:
     Croom Helm.

Graber, D. (1992).  News and democracy:  Are their paths
     diverging?  Bloomington:  Indiana University School of
     Journalism.

Green, B. (1991).  Secretary's report.  In Annual Report and
     Balance Sheet 1991. Australian Journalists Association
     Queensland Branch, pp. 2-5.

Gustafsson, K., and S. Hadenius (1976).  Swedish press
     policy. Stockholm:  The Swedish Institute.

Henningham, J. (1993, October).  Journalism in the United
     States and Australia:  Some comparisons.  Paper
     presented to the "The News Media:  Power and
     Responsibility" Fulbright Symposium, Sydney.

Henningham, J. (1992).  National survey of journalists:
     preliminary results.  Summary sent to survey
     participants, December.

Henningham, J. (1991).  Mass media.  In J. Henningham (Ed.),
     Institutions in Australian society (pp. 254-275).  St
     Lucia:  University of Queensland Department of
     Journalism.

Henningham, J. (1988).  Looking at television news.
     Melbourne:  Longman Cheshire.

Herman, E., & Chomsky, N. (1988).  Manufacturing consent:
     The political economy of the mass media.  New York:
     Pantheon.

House of Representatives Select Committee on the Print
     Media.  (1992).  News and fair facts.  Canberra:
     Australian Government Publishing Service.

Hudson, W. (1963).  Metropolitan daily journalism in
     Australia.  Unpublished MA thesis, University of
     Melbourne (School of Political Science).

Journalist, The (1991a, September).  Member numbers decline.
     p. 9.

Journalist, The (1991b, December).  Membership slumps in
     recession. p. 1.

Kwitny, J. (1990).  The high cost of high profits.
     Washington Journalism Review, 12(5), 19-29.

Mackay, H. (1993, February 2).  Death of the work ethic.
     The Australian, p. 7.

McQuail, D. (1987).  Mass communication theory:  An
     introduction. London:  Sage.

Metropolitan Daily Newspaper Proprietors.  (1990).
     Submission to Industrial Relations Commission hearing
     on Metropolitan Daily Newspaper Award negotiations.

Pearson, W. (1991).  Secretary's report.  In Annual Report
     and Balance Sheet 1991.  Australian Journalists
     Association New South Wales Branch, p. 4-10.

Perkins, C. (1991a).  Assistant secretary's report.  In
     Annual Report and Balance Sheet 1991.  Australian
     Journalists Association Queensland Branch, p. 6-7.

Perkins, C. (1991b).  Submission to Australian Broadcasting
     Tribunal in response to 4QM "Conditions" Inquiry Staff
     Information Paper, 31 October.

Regional Dailies Assoication of Australia (1992).  Summary
     of staff 1984, 1990, 1991, internal documents supplied
     to author with personal communication 28 February.

Rosenau, N. (1988).  After the cutbacks:  What's the damage
     to local TV news?  Columbia Journalism Review, 27(3),
     46-50.

Royal Commission on Newspapers (1991).  Report.  Hull,
     Quebec:  Canadian Government Publishing Centre.

Sutherland, M. (1991, November).  Secretary's report
     1990-91:  A very bad year.  Off the Record, p. 11.

Turner, G. (1992).  Information underload:  Recent trends in
     The Courier-Mail's information news content.
     Australian Studies in Journalism, 1, 43-72.

Ward, I. (1992).  Rich, wrinkly and rowdy politicians:  Is
     this how teenagers `read' television news?  Australian
     Journal of Political Science, 27(2), 213-229.
------------------------------------------------------------

Correspondence:  Geoff Turner
                 Journalism Department,
                 University of Queensland
                 Brisbane 4072 Queensland Australia
                 g.turner@mailbox.uq.oz.au
                 (07) 365 3345 direct
                 (07) 365 3088 office
                 (07) 365 1377 fax
------------------------------------------------------------
                      Copyright 1993
   Communication Institute for Online Scholarship, Inc.

     This file may not be publicly distributed or reproduced
without written permission of the Communication Institute
for Online Scholarship, P.O.  Box 57, Rotterdam Jct., NY
12150 USA (phone:  518-887-2443).