About the speaker
Our speaker today is Mr Peter Longman.
Peter is the State Director at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). In his role, he is responsible for communicating with internal and external stakeholders, to ensure that the ABC is in touch with community needs across NSW, and to represent the ABC objectives, views and interests and obtaining feedback.
Peter also chairs the NSW Leadership Group, Body Corporate, NSW OHS, Green At Work, Workplace Giving and Indigenous Working Group, as well as the Emergency Coordinator heading the Emergency Planning Committee (EPC) for New South Wales.
He started his broadcasting and journalist career at the ABC in News before moving into the Sports Department. He has worked in Hobart, Brisbane and Sydney as a sports broadcaster and journalist. During this period, Peter was responsible for the coverage of six Olympic Games and five Commonwealth Games as a broadcaster or Executive Producer, either on Radio or Television.
Peter was the founding Executive Producer of the Grandstand Sports program on ABC Radio, and then moved on to become the Editor of ABC Radio Sport. In this time he was responsible for the introduction of providing sport news and commentary across a wide range of broadcast platforms.
It gives me great pleasure to invite Mr Peter Longman to deliver the occasional address.
Speech
Chancellor, Vice chancellor, members of council, distinguished members of the faculty, graduates and graduates families and friends, ladies and gentlemen. Firstly thank you for inviting me here today to talk to you on such an important day in your life.
I would also like to acknowledge the Gadigal people ,the traditional custodians of this Land, I would like to also pay respect to the Elders both past and present of the Eora Nation and extend that respect to other Aboriginals present.
Having experienced a couple of graduation ceremonies with my children in the last few years, I can assure it is as greater day for your family and friends as it is for you . As parents and friends, we have all lived through the angst and delight of you completing a degree. It is no small achievement to reach the end of this study and be ready to move onto the next phase of your life.
Today I want to briefly look at a subject very dear to my heart and no doubt dear to many people in this room...the Media.
The media in Australia and the World is undoubtedly going through the most significant changes in its history. We constantly are seeing the impact of change with the sad news this week that Fairfax proposing to sack 80 staff from the photographic and sub editor areas of their papers . Corp. We can’t afford to have less media or platforms in this country , we need more.
At the ABC we look at 10 year plans to try and make sure we are agile enough to adjust and be ready for the huge technological changes that feel like they are appearing every day of the year. 10 year plans can morph into 10 week plans such is the speed of change in technology and consumer habits at the moment. Our Managing Director Mark Scott summed it up very well a few weeks ago in a speech when he said “ Media companies have lost the ability to shape the world as they wanted it “. Now the audience is deciding how and when they want news, information and entertainment not the Media companies.
Many of you will be entering the Media industry in what can be described as the most exciting but at the same time most challenging and for some the most terrifying time in its history. The range of platforms that news, information and entertainment can be delivered on, appears endless. I spent a lot of my career in a world where TV, Radio and Newspapers were the only real sources of news and information. There were 1 or maybe 2 deadlines each day, you had time to think about new angles, dig deeper and find the real story. Now you are on a 24 hour news cycle. The hungry beast ,which is whatever platform, needs something, anything, all day and night.
I started out in ABC Newsroom where I was a copyboy. I was given the menial stories to do that no one else wanted. But in return for doing those chores I had the opportunity to talk to senior journalists about the tricks of the trade. While your degree is very important in your development in your career, can I encourage all of you to take advantage of the experience you find in a workplace to listen and learn. Most of you would not know of two of the pioneers of Sports Broadcasting in this country Alan MacGilvray and Norman May. They would give of their time so generously to me even if it meant spending many hours chasing them in and out of various hotels around Darlinghurst and Surry Hills.
I learnt the disciplines of working to deadlines, economic use of words to tell a story and checking and rechecking facts. It was days before mobile phones where you had to organise for the person you were chasing to be by a phone when you rang or it meant going to their place of work or home or to a pub you knew they drank at. It was much easier for someone who had to answer some hard questions to hide away. It made the chase more difficult but at the same time made you more determined to overcome the obstacles put in front of you. It was the days before press releases, mobile phones , PR or the now infamous spin doctors.
But while technology has made it easier to get in touch with people , the story subjects are also getting much smarter on how to deal with difficult issues....except maybe some of the talent currently appearing at ICAC enquiries.... We see how the message in Politics is so tightly controlled and spun that we are all becoming more cynical of our political masters.
In my area of sport I saw the comments from the Media chief of the LA Dodgers Baseball team who were recent visitors to Sydney. The Media Director Joe Jareck made it clear they wanted to control every bit of information that came out of their club. The club like most American sporting teams has their own news website. Mr Jareck said “ I’m of the belief we should give everything to Dodgers.com, Gone are the days when the LA Times ruled the city. Very few media have that kind of influence anymore. So I’m of the view of giving to our own website which is double or triple what the readership of the LA Times is in print or online.
Not the news that traditional media wants to hear.
This of course is already happening in Australian sport. The AFL has a far bigger newsroom than many traditional media organisations. This is not necessarily a bad thing as many media jobs are being developed but we must ensure the media in whatever form can give the audience news and information without fear or favour. Perception can be everything when companies with a vested interest run their own media platforms.
While the challenge to adapt to new and constantly changing technology is ever present , the major Australian Media businesses must also find new ways to engage with a rapidly changing population. Sometimes when I watch or read News in Australia, I wonder if we are reflecting an Australia of 20 years ago. As you are no doubt aware ,around one in four Australians are now born overseas. While the United Kingdom and New Zealand are still our 2 most popular countries of origin, the numbers of people from China, India, Vietnam and the Phillipines is growing very quickly and probably will in time equal or overtake our traditional migrants . How many faces from these countries do you see on our News programs or names in bylines in Newspapers or websites from a variety of community groups. Currently there is such a small percentage of senior journalists or reporters who reflect a different culture to that of our traditional English roots. Maybe these communities have already fled mainstream media and are finding the news and information they want elsewhere.
Are traditional Media organisations doing enough to attract staff from non traditional communities. We had an interesting moment in time last year in the ABC. We have noted for many years that when we advertise for a journalists job at Ultimo we receive applications overwhelmingly from our traditional community groups which is generally of Anglo Saxon heritage.
However when we advertised for News journalist positions for our newly installed Parramatta News office, we received a totally different cross section of applicants across a huge range of communities. When we do work with schools in Western Sydney, the students from a variety of cultural backgrounds, who have aspirations to be a journalist, don’t feel there is much point applying for jobs with traditional media companies as they feel they wouldn’t fit in or be welcome or the platforms just don’t interest them. This perception ,I don’t think is always necessarily correct, but we all must do more to change this. Highly visible role models is obviously a significant start. We need to do more if we are to entice new audiences to our content.
I was fortunate enough to be sitting next to Jenny Brockie, the esteemed host of the SBS program Insight at a dinner recently. We were talking about this issue and she reflected on a new researcher who had joined her program team. He was born in Afghanistan but had lived in Australia for several years. Jenny commented that his input into Insight was significant as he brought a whole range of different viewpoints and talent to her program that they had never seen before. It had given the program a much broader view of stories. If the current Media businesses are to remain relevant to our communities in years to come they must do more to find a solution to engage far more strongly that they have in the past across all cultural groups. As I look out the audience here today I am very heartened by seeing faces from so many different cultures.
So the change in Media in both Australia and the world will not slow down. It probably will get even quicker. Rapidly changing technology and consumer habits will ensure that. How do companies find the business model that allows you to keep producing News content.
We need not be afraid of the change but we all must ensure that the Media, in whatever form, does the job it must always do. We all have a significant responsibility to try and ensure all Australians can rely on people like you to make sure Media in this country will be the town square where all people can come to speak and be heard, to listen and understand.
Best wishes for the future and enjoy the day with your family and friends.