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Upheaval: Disrupted lives in Journalism
‘Journalism was a trade you could go into and if you were any good at it you were a reasonably prosperous member of the community ... that’s just no longer the case.’ — David Marr
Journalists make a living out of telling other people's stories. Rarely are we shown a glimpse of their doubts and vulnerabilities, their hopes and fears for the future. It's time we hear this side of the story.
Newsrooms, the engine rooms of reporting, have shrunk. The great digital disruption of the twentieth century has shattered newspapers, radio and television. Journalism jobs, once considered safe for life, have simply disappeared.
Captivating yet devastating, Upheaval is an under-the-hood look at Australian journalism as it faces seismic changes. Sharing first-hand stories from Australia's top journalists — including David Marr, Amanda Meade, George Megalogenis and more — Upheaval reveals the highs and the lows of those who were there to see it all.
Journalists make a living out of telling other people's stories. Rarely are we shown a glimpse of their doubts and vulnerabilities, their hopes and fears for the future. It's time we hear this side of the story.
Newsrooms, the engine rooms of reporting, have shrunk. The great digital disruption of the twentieth century has shattered newspapers, radio and television. Journalism jobs, once considered safe for life, have simply disappeared.
Captivating yet devastating, Upheaval is an under-the-hood look at Australian journalism as it faces seismic changes. Sharing first-hand stories from Australia's top journalists — including David Marr, Amanda Meade, George Megalogenis and more — Upheaval reveals the highs and the lows of those who were there to see it all.
- GenresNonfiction
352 pages, Paperback
Published June 1, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 12, 2021
‘Upheaval: Disrupted Lives in Journalism’ is about what happened to the craft and industrialised processes of journalism in traditional media companies in the past 20 years under the blowtorch of the online revolution.
As one of those whose life was disrupted, although in a modest way, by those same forces, I was keen to read this review of what happened and what became of those on the receiving end of the change.
The book, edited by former journalists Andrew Dodd and Matthew Ricketson, originated in an academic project that was set up at the time of major redundancies by Fairfax Media, and later News Corp, in 2012.
The resulting volume includes the results of extensive interviews with 57 journalists who all lost their jobs in the four years from 2012 to 2016 - among them sub-editors, veteran writers, photographers and cartoonists.
Three of those interviewees are the subject of standalone profiles, while the rest of the material is built into themes such as how the subjects came to journalism, their early careers, big stories and how they exited the trade.
As a former broadcast/digital journalist, my problem with the book is that is really a cultural history of journalism at two specific publishers - Fairfax and News Corp - and is almost entirely confined to daily newspaper journalism.
Much of it is written in that nostalgic reverence for print that newspaper journalists invariably cling to. It also does sub-editors are disservice by differentiating them from ‘journalists’. Err, sub-editors ARE journalists.
But my biggest issue with the book is the lack of a wider analysis of how the traditional media got it so wrong when the internet came along and how the vast majority of those sacked journalists - so wedded to the industrial processes they worked within - were unable to reinvent themselves.
I know the authors will say that that writing that sort of book was never their intention anyway - that this was a human history of those cast aside. But the whole work is so backward-looking it feels like a museum piece in which readers are invited to look at the exhibits behind the glass.
The assumption throughout the book is that these events just ‘happened’ to Fairfax and News Corp and that no-one had any agency. But it is possible to both feel sympathy for those who were ‘disrupted’ and appalled that so many people did not see this coming at least 10 years before.
I got out in 2006, having been involved with new media ventures at Fairfax. And it had been clear since the day I arrived six years before that the company was living on borrowed time, as was much of the traditional media.
Yet, I recall being patronised by traditional print journalists about how digital could never replace the power of words on paper. Many of these people were, and remain, technologically illiterate. The editors were mostly the same, making noise about adapting but holding back innovation. The old story about the boiling frog came to mind at the time.
I recall how shocked they were to be asked to write running copy when the web came along and thought that this was so below them, when in fact wire service journalists had been doing this for more than a century.
The fact is that News Corp and, more emphatically, Fairfax, had grown fat and lazy. In the years when classifieds kept their profit margins fat and their executive bonuses even fatter. Their managers were mediocre and most of their senior journalists were disturbingly incurious about what their craft/trade/profession would equate to in a digital world.
'Upheaval' is a fine and worthwhile project. And the stories told by individual journalists are often poignant and redolent of a world now almost gone. The editors have done a service for the craft in capturing those memories. It's just a shame the frame wasn't set a little wider.
As one of those whose life was disrupted, although in a modest way, by those same forces, I was keen to read this review of what happened and what became of those on the receiving end of the change.
The book, edited by former journalists Andrew Dodd and Matthew Ricketson, originated in an academic project that was set up at the time of major redundancies by Fairfax Media, and later News Corp, in 2012.
The resulting volume includes the results of extensive interviews with 57 journalists who all lost their jobs in the four years from 2012 to 2016 - among them sub-editors, veteran writers, photographers and cartoonists.
Three of those interviewees are the subject of standalone profiles, while the rest of the material is built into themes such as how the subjects came to journalism, their early careers, big stories and how they exited the trade.
As a former broadcast/digital journalist, my problem with the book is that is really a cultural history of journalism at two specific publishers - Fairfax and News Corp - and is almost entirely confined to daily newspaper journalism.
Much of it is written in that nostalgic reverence for print that newspaper journalists invariably cling to. It also does sub-editors are disservice by differentiating them from ‘journalists’. Err, sub-editors ARE journalists.
But my biggest issue with the book is the lack of a wider analysis of how the traditional media got it so wrong when the internet came along and how the vast majority of those sacked journalists - so wedded to the industrial processes they worked within - were unable to reinvent themselves.
I know the authors will say that that writing that sort of book was never their intention anyway - that this was a human history of those cast aside. But the whole work is so backward-looking it feels like a museum piece in which readers are invited to look at the exhibits behind the glass.
The assumption throughout the book is that these events just ‘happened’ to Fairfax and News Corp and that no-one had any agency. But it is possible to both feel sympathy for those who were ‘disrupted’ and appalled that so many people did not see this coming at least 10 years before.
I got out in 2006, having been involved with new media ventures at Fairfax. And it had been clear since the day I arrived six years before that the company was living on borrowed time, as was much of the traditional media.
Yet, I recall being patronised by traditional print journalists about how digital could never replace the power of words on paper. Many of these people were, and remain, technologically illiterate. The editors were mostly the same, making noise about adapting but holding back innovation. The old story about the boiling frog came to mind at the time.
I recall how shocked they were to be asked to write running copy when the web came along and thought that this was so below them, when in fact wire service journalists had been doing this for more than a century.
The fact is that News Corp and, more emphatically, Fairfax, had grown fat and lazy. In the years when classifieds kept their profit margins fat and their executive bonuses even fatter. Their managers were mediocre and most of their senior journalists were disturbingly incurious about what their craft/trade/profession would equate to in a digital world.
'Upheaval' is a fine and worthwhile project. And the stories told by individual journalists are often poignant and redolent of a world now almost gone. The editors have done a service for the craft in capturing those memories. It's just a shame the frame wasn't set a little wider.
September 11, 2022
I absolutely adored this book, although I doubt anyone outside of the media industry will find it as captivating. As someone entering journalism and working at a newsroom many people in the book worked in, I found it fascinating to read about how the newsroom once was, compared to how it is now. It was actually extremely sad and made me nostalgic for something I have never experienced, and likely will never get to experience. A fantastic book.
July 6, 2022
Very interesting. The media have certainly gone through many upheavals in recent decades. This book focuses on the human impact by telling the stories of several of the media employees, mainly journalists, who lived through this period.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews