CHARLES WOOLEY

On the future of journalism and his early days in the industry

L ast week I joined an earnest panel discussion on the future of journalism. Journalists were always a cynical and baleful bunch, even back in better times, so it might now have been tempting to snort: “Future of Journalism? There isn’t one.”

But looking around the theatre, among the 100 people who had ventured out to consider the Decline of the West on a cold Hobart night, I saw the fresh faces and shining eyes of media students.

I remembered at their age how much I wanted to be a journalist. I wanted to right wrongs, defend truth and justice and generally save the world – and maybe at the same time have an expense account.

Media wasn’t taught back then, so the only way to convince a prospective employer of your suitability was to prove it by actually doing it. Instead of concentrating on my postgraduate history course, I spent more time on the student newspaper and freelancing for ABC radio.

Cadetships were offered but even back then you could expect to be just one applicant among 500. The interviewers were old-school journalists who didn’t much rate university degrees, so the important thing was to demonstrate a glimmer of talent and some real-world experience. My advice to the kids is that is still the case.

The legendary Michael Courtney, a former editor of the Launceston Examiner, spotted my dubious talents eons ago on one boisterous Friday night at the old Travellers Rest Hotel at Sandy Bay. I’m not sure on what slender evidence he hired me. I was in the habit of jotting down longhand copy in the bar on beer-stained paper.

Was I possibly another Ernest Hemingway, Jack Kerouac or Hunter S. Thompson in the making? Or perhaps he’d simply had a few too many when he offered me the position of D Grade sub-editor with his newspaper.

Better than a copy boy or a cadet, I would start at the top and work down, which I soon did. I learnt early as a sub-editor that, sadly, I didn’t get to do any reporting. I corrected, punctuated, reduced and sometimes ruined other reporters’ copy. I composed what I thought were funny headlines while trying to make sure everything measured up to fit into the page.

It was boring work, except for early in the shift when the whole crew would go to the Court House Hotel where each consumed about 10 large beers. I was then a slim boy among big beer-bellied men. No wonder my pages were a mess. Before they could throw me out, I quit the paper for ABC radio.

Before the panel discussion, I dropped in to see my mate Dave at the Salamanca Newsagency. “The future of journalism?,” he laughed. “Look around the shop, this is the future of journalism.”

On the shelves were stationery, greeting cards, souvenirs, soap, candles, garden tools, aromatherapy kits, yoga mats, dolls, handbags, umbrellas and reading glasses for those who might still read the seven newspaper editions discreetly on offer.

Dave mainly sells Tattslotto tickets, gambling cards and almost everything but newspapers. He says the word in his industry is that by this time next year

The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald will be online weekdays and only weekend editions will be printed.

So what of the future of journalism for those hopeful kids in the audience? Our panel comprised a newspaper editor, an ABC radio manager, an expert on digital media and this bloke who has been around so long they call him a “veteran journalist”.

We all tried to put a positive spin on it. What else can you do? The editor, the ABC manager and the journo all talked up localism. ABC local radio rates strongly and the good old Mockery, as it was known in my youth, is travelling well despite reduced resources. The paper has beefed up its local content not necessarily to the delight of our local councils. Editor Matt Deighton would like a small Canberra bureau reporting the activities of our 12 senators (try to name three of them) and our five members of the Lower House (try naming two of them).

I doubt many of them would enjoy the scrutiny. I have long known hilarious untold stories about what some of our federal representatives got up to. Some stuff, you would almost report for nothing – which, kiddies, if you want to get into journalism, is what you need to do today.

The Yanks call it an “internship” and basically it’s an unpaid foot in the door to a career, which I must admit has given me a lifetime of much more fun than I ever deserved. I hope there’s some of it left for you.