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Sarah Ferguson: Radio and television are important

Walkleys host tells it like it is, including a few home truths for the ABC.

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2014-12-05_0823Walkleys host and ABC presenter Sarah Ferguson last night defended the national broadcaster’s role in journalism and lamented the impact of funding cuts, including how they have been handled by management.

“I was going to do a little bit of satire tonight, a little bit of light hearted entertainment, but then I remembered how much grief you get into when serious people from serious programs try to be funny. So I thought better of it,” she told guests.

“So many of my ABC colleagues, journalists like us, some of them in this room indeed, are right now in their pre-Christmas shark pools waiting to find out if they’re going to be jobless by Christmas day. It’s just not funny, and I can’t be laughing about it.”

“The question … is about structure, so we are real admirers of organisations like yourselves, true digit­al organisations, who don’t have like us a legacy to deal with.”

Despite ABC Managing Director Mark Scott in the room, Ferguson criticised ABC push towards digital news at the expense of television and radio.

“Yesterday I was at the Walkleys Storyology conference when the head of ABC Digital, inspired no doubt by his digital idol the head of Buzzfeed, referred to TV and radio at the ABC as a legacy that needed to be dealt with. It’s an interesting word legacy I think. You know legacy is the word Qantas uses to describe all those bits of the airline that aren’t Jetstar.

“The way I look at it legacy is what my fast departing colleagues with their years of broadcasting experience leave behind for those of us who still hold fast to the idea that the journalism we do on radio and television is important. These days of course they call it content.

“You imagine what the digital world would look like without it. Sorry for being a little bit Four Corners and fierce, but we here, all of us, see constantly how the media is changing.”

Via: Mumbrella

3 Responses

  2. Digital radio is fine for people in the large cities, the rest cannot use it. I prefer my am radio for news and current affairs as I can see no reason for paying for internet usage when my radio is free and the reception is excellent.

    Newspapers are shrinking by the day and with it the terrific in depth reporting that used to be a feature, especially of politics and the weekend papers.

    Sadly a thing of the past. Guess we are stuck with press releases and shallow puff pieces.

  3. We know what the digital world looks like without established media — Buzzfeed.

    But the best and most thorough journalism is not radio or TV, it was done by broadsheet newspapers funded by their classifieds. But the internet has already killed off that model by stripping off the classified revenue and making the journalism dependant on a small stream of revenue from web clicks and reducing it to reporting form press releases , blogs and twitter posts.

    Radio and TV journalists start their day by reading the newspaper articles put together the night before and responding. Then they read press releases and attend press conferences. Finally they sit in the studio interviewing politicians and spokesmen to generate entertaining content to compete with what’s on the other channels.

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