What The People Want

The print media is in decline,both in readership and their ability to influence. Clearly Public Radio is more credible and entertaining ie NPR, BBC and ABC. There is a clear message here for Political Parties, you need to connect with people on a more credible and informative basis, rather than TV " door stops" and Print media Headlines.recent trends in U.S. political campaigns have shown the people power of the Internet. Howard Dean used it brilliantly in 2004 and it wont be long before it becomes the preferred source of political and candidate information in ALL campaigns.My other comment is that Howard has seen the influence of the ABC and has moved to neutralise it, in his recent policy of " balanced " reporting..read less critical comments and presenters! I get my print news via N.Y. Times and L.A. Times on line as well as listening to the BBC and NPR on line and via ABC,s News Radio. I wonder if the Federal Government will attempt to enforce its Media balance on those programmes? The other message is that the Public wonts diversity and intelligent information, uncluttered by bias.

Dave, your criticisms are reasonable. We can dissect by voting intention if we want, and as an exercise I might do that to see whether there are any significant differences.

I think the importance with this group is that they are "early adopters" and their responses point the direction for what might happen in the future. At the moment, probably most people don't get their news from the Internet, but then, even with this group, there is a wide variation.

Anais' comments re sample bias are apt.
Not only do respondents self-select on the basis of an interest in current affairs, but also on their willingness to use the Internet. We could reasonably expect people who are happy to fill an on-line survey to be more willing than most to get their news on-line. I understand that this survey exercise is a joint initiative with the ABC, promoted primarily through one of its regional programs. So we also getting a larger-than-usual sample of existing listeners to public radio.

This group's 2006 Budget report identified and corrected for the sources of its sample bias by analysing responses according to voting intention. It was important to do so: the conclusions were quite different when adjusting proportions to reflect voting patterns in the general population.
Do we have the necessary data (and a good foundation for our assumptions) to do the same in this case?

For the record, I love a daily broadsheet newspaper for the opportunity it gives me to get up-to-date on my train commute. Primarily, actually, for the Opinion and Letters pages. For "breaking news", radio serves; however, I *rapidly* tire of the enthusiasm that radio news has for this surface reporting. We rarely actually need minute-by-minute reporting of breaking news. Emergencies are an exception. ABC NewsRadio is breathless and tedious. For me, one broadcast per morning is sufficient.
I am concerned at the eagerness of the Sydney Morning Herald to ensure that all its news is entertaining. Opinion adds colour, and so we get plenty of it - everywhere, including on the front page. I *want* opinion, but I would like it quarantined a bit more.

My computer is a workplace and even now I'm distracted from what I intended to do this morning. I generally use on-line newspapers for their archive/search facility. I don't disrespect the medium at all: on the contrary, I'm likely to become entrapped by it! Better to confine my news to a "lean-back" dose on the train. I may well be a consumer of on-line readable news when it's as easy as print to read when travelling.

I'm a 40-50 year old male.

I have found the results interesting,at least I'm not alone in my opinion that many reporters are biased & don't give the whole story.

I must confess I read the CM daily but this is only for local (Qld) news. Tha Australian falls down badly here. As far as being influenced by the CM's so called News I discount it all as the CM has always been a subservient pro-government paper both in Joh's Time and now in Baby Joh's (opps Beattie's) time. The CM also runs a very definite anti-Christian aggenda so anything they espouse must ne taken with a big grain of salt. Oh for some real competition and journalistic integriry! As far as TV goes no station including (definitely the ABC) can be trusted to (1) run an unbiased story and (2) analyse anything objectively in depth. I am gradually becoming an internet news person for these reasons.

Existing media companies should be worried that infuture we wont just consume the local content we are lumped with, but will pick and choose the best in the world to our personal tastes. Lana you mention that you can't listen to radio all day. I am the opposite. I am 30 and working from home. I used to listen to local ABC radio all day but now listen to half radio (over the net) and half podcasts all day. Who has the time to read a news paper? (Not anyone with a young family.) I search for a little more detail on relevant stories online and find them in news papers but never read the courier snail (half of it is ads and the other half is Broncos news).

Being in technology I now listen to tech podcasts daily (find out what a pod cast is here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcasting) and visit tech news sites. During the QLD election the thing I found most interesting where election blogs with insight and opinion. The news media would all just run the same story for the day (eg Beatties hat blowing off) with no depth. We don't have to take what we are fed by some uncaring journo in the paper or on TV anymore. Now we can get so much more depth to stories online and can get sites directed to our interests.

Even with radio, living in Brisbane I prefer to listen to ABC 702 Sydney streamed via the internet (they actualy win the ratings down there). So with the internet we don't have to take what we have been fed for years (eg Courier Mail and 612).

A search on google news will ususaly bring up a minimum of 10 stories on a national topic and for an international story will bring up 100s so I can pick and choose the slant (even getting a story on terrorism from a muslim country's newspaper for example).

With TV I record it all to a computer (PVR/Media Centre) so I just skim through the ABC news and 7:30 report skipping the stories I don't like. I only watched the 9 news during the state election to compare what election line they were running compared with other sources and it was all within 80% of each other. (Seems a bit like fund managers all having to basicaly have the same weighting in certain stocks so all funds get the same results and no suprises).

So I think old media sources should be worried. I get my tech news from California, Political news from Bloggers, and radio from interstate/overseas. So at the lack of getting a little less local content we can pick and choose from the best in the world. Before were were stuck with the poor quality conteht we were serverd up localy but not any more - the switch is on.

I am one of the (very?) few under 30 women who appears to have taken this survey. To people like Maria (and I am not attacking you or your opinion:)) try to keep in mind that the Internet has most of the articles from international daily newspapers available online, plus there are the various websites (crikey, various blogs) that provide indepth analysis. The information may not seem accessable, but once you know where to look, it's even easier than buying a paper (though to Sandra Manning, I understand entirely the allure of newsprint to a booklover!).

I still enjoy having a browse through a big weekend paper, though I've noticed that I tend to read the culture and more trashy or opinion based pieces, saving my hard news absorbtion for the Internet and radio.

While I would love it if 'the average Australian' really was turning away from commercial TV & radio when they are looking for reliable news coverage, I fear that the pool of people who are answering these surveys are in a minority. My experience is that someone like myself (and I gather many people who answer these surveys) is in the minority of people who want real current affairs and news rather than exposes on dodgy plummers (as evidenced by the continued popularity of shockjocks, Today Tonight, ACA and National Nine News). I am not suggesting that On Line Opinion et al stop running these surveys, just that we need to take into account the demographic who is answering them when analysing the data.
I don't doubting that there is a large cross section of society who is represented by this survey, but our mutual interest in news/politics/current affairs has an effect on the results.
Thanks.

Interesting results Graham. I am just 60 but choose to keep the company of those 35 or younger mainly because those of my generation and the one before have conveniently forgotten how they behaved in the good ole 70's and 80's and have suddenly discovered "morals". My main source of news (has been for years) is the ABC 7pm, 7.30 Report and Lateline. I have little or no faith in the accuracy or truth of anything published in newspapers. For factual reports on overseas news I find Online Newsletters such as Information Clearing House much more edifying. Can you imagine what state our media will be in if the latest proposals by the government are passed.

Very interesting results. It really reflects how little time we have to sit down and do one activity. We like to listen to the radio while doing other things, or check the internet at work etc. Life really is becoming more busy.

I agree with the previous comments about the Australian being a bit bias, in some circles it is called the New Texas Times.

As for the editorial content, just give me the cartoons, they seem to be far more honest and less likely to be constantly cheering on the governments extreme right-wing agenda.

Ruddock's burning books, this after setting up concentration camps and remote island gulags and now one has to wonder what is next. Do you think any journalist out there are willing to question him about the novel notion of "preserving our way of life", not a one.

Could the recent election in Queensland account for their high response? The poor response from WA et al makes it difficult to evaluate.
WA folk have only one newspaper read by only around 8%. The Australian is being read more these days by mostly the intellectuals or for the SPORT it is better than the WEST Sport! The highest WEST sales day is a Saturday for the TV times!. The paper is so one eyed most people have stopped reading it. Politics are so depressing people tell me they switch off to the news in any form. This is especially so with the X and Y generation. The news is too viloent for children.

The reason I find the internet more reliable as a news source is that I am able to compare and contrast different reports from all parts of the globe (except perhaps mainland China) so that the bias may be discerned and omissions and distortions detected.

Re "none of your beeswax" The internet alows me to look at international papert, the Guardian, the Washington Post et al, and gain a good understanding of events and problems. I find the Australian very biased and selective in its editing of international stories. For Australian news its hard to beat the ABC. Australian journalists seem to never really probe into things political and comment by them is rather trite, accepting all that 'the powers that be', say as the gospel. A lot more research is needed to bring newspapers back.

Graham, I dont remember getting this survey, but I can tell you that I dont trust the media at all, not one bit, and there are only a few outlets on the net that I trust...
Do you know that there have been about 6000 terrorist attacks since Sep 11th and that is not including the ones before the attack, or the ones that are not reported, or the horrors that Muslim are doing in their countries of adoption, but we only hear of a few of these through the media every year...
Most of the reporting in Israel, Iraq and other Muslim outrages have been reported so biased that it is simply untrue what they say, I wonder if it is becuase there is a saudi prince who owns shares in (I think it is ) murdocks papers.. and I believe that there are other papers which are going to go the same way... so as unreliable that the net is I trust it more then TV or the worlds papers...

An interesting set of findings. I suspect, however, tht if you had estimated some aspect of socioeconomic status, such as education, you would find this is a pretty elite sample. Are we likely to be opinion or consumption leaders for the rest? I doubt it.

The newspapers only have themselves to blame for declining readership. They have rarely. if ever, been unbiased providers of news. It is well known that Australian newspaper barons promote their own political and business interests over fair, unbiased and independant news reporting. I hope they go broke and the internet takes over!

I agree with Sandra Manning. I do not know how anyone can possible get the whole news picture via the internet. "The Australian" gives such a good coverage of national and world news with excellent feature writers. People must spend an enormous time on the internet to be able to read the equivalent amount of news as that in a newspaper. Mr Gilchrist must live in Toowoomba! Most articles are just so trivial - front page story: the colour of a woman's underclothes gave her confidence and helped to to get a job!! No indepth articles on the council and their deliberations etc. etc.

How very interesting the comments are. I like to read newspapers on theinternet. Our local daily paper never seems to get anything right and is always 24 hours behind the Courier Mail, also being a scrooge I refuse to pay $1 for pages and pages of ads.The only thing I read re our local is the hatched , matched and dispatched just in case my name is there.

Don't worry all of you newspaper lovers and those of you who seek good content from a newspaper. Analysis, politics, colour photographs, no editorials, good cartoons, no whiney letter writers from Croydon, no misleading headlines with bad puns, in fact no headlines, only bolded first paragraphs and subject matter based headings instead of headlines, just like the papers of old.

All I need is ten million dollars and my dream can come true. A thrice weekley national broadsheet to trump all thrice weekleys 'ere it.

And it will be written entirely in freespell

http://www.freespeling.com/index.html

I'm not quite in the 'over 60s' group yet (just), I have loved reading books for more than 50 years (at present about 6/week), and I have a full time job. However, I read all my newspapers on line, only. For one, I can't afford to the hard copies and for another my green conscience would never permit me to buy three papers just to fill the recycling bin in the evening. Ciao,

I'm in the "over 60's" group and I'm really astounded that newspapers seem to be on the decline. Maybe there's not enough of us oldies contributing to these surveys. I'm still in full time work so I don't have the opportunity to listen to radio all day (only during my drives to and from work) and I do catch ABC News every night as well as the 7.30 Report. However, I can't even begin to compare the Internet for news to my every day delivered newspaper! Even though I access The Courier Mail and Australian via the Internet, usually so I can "vote" on stuff that interests me. I guess as a book lover since I could read, I'm probably biased towards having something solid in my hands. So my daily newspaper not only allows me to read what I want when I want - I can put it down and pick it up again - so, to me, it feels a bit more real!

Anyhow, that's just the way this old blonde broad feels about her newspapers.

Cheers for now!

I agree there Graham with the Internet taking over more for media. I use the internet to read most of my news.