http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,1434392,00.html

Press needs greater scrutiny, says Guardian editor



Claire Cozens, press and publishing correspondent
Thursday March 10, 2005




 Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger has called on academics to play a greater 
role in scrutinising the role of the press as the industry faces up to 
unprecedented change.
He said there was a need for a new, independent forum in which to discuss 
the "big, challenging questions" facing newspaper editors and journalists.

Falling circulations, declining profits, unprecedented challenges from other 
media and a "widespread feeling that newspapers are failing in their duty of 
truly representing the complexity of some of the most important issues in 
society" were, he said, just some of the themes that could be examined by 
new academic centres dedicated to scrutinising the role of the press.

Mr Rusbridger said that "intelligent, liberal voices" had begun to question 
basic beliefs about freedom of speech. The response to criticism should not 
be more legislation. The industry did not want more regulation and a better 
way was to collaborate in research and debate, he said.

"There are useful examples abroad of centres which - instead of, or as well 
as, being concerned with the vital task of vocational training - engage in 
well-funded examination of [such] issues.

"A number of British universities are actually looking into setting up a 
centre - or centres - to do this sort of work," he said.

Mr Rusbridger told an audience of academics and journalists at Sheffield 
University as he delivered the inaugural Hugo Young lecture last night that 
for generations there had been a "quiet understanding" of what newspapers 
were for.

But the easy availability of news on rival media such as the internet meant 
newspapers had to work harder to engage readers.

"News is all around - the radio headlines in the morning, a 10-minute scan 
of Metro on the way to work, text alerts for breaking headlines, the 
internet, numerous 24-hour news TV channels. That's fine for more and more 
people, it seems. How much more do I honestly need to read to be informed 
enough?" he said.

"The apathetic voter is a clichË of modern politics. Perhaps we're now 
facing the apathetic reader?

"As with politics, the apathetic reader may not be apathetic about 
everything. They'll have their own passions, obsessions and causes. But it's 
just possible that the internet does passions, obsessions and causes better 
than newspapers. People can bury deeply into their own subjects, engage with 
communities of other equally engaged people. And, as for the rest, well, a 
10-minute skim will do."

Mr Rusbridger criticised the current trend for boosting sales by giving away 
"CDs, books, dream cottages and DVDs", saying the press had become "an 
industry of freebie junkies".

He conceded that the Guardian and Observer - along with virtually all other 
titles - were using the same techniques to boost circulation in an 
increasingly competitive market.

And he pointed to the "elision of news and marketing" evinced by a new style 
of newspaper front page designed more to entice readers than to report the 
main news of the day.

Mr Rusbridger said discussion of the issues facing newspapers was 
surprisingly muted in society at large, with public service broadcasters 
such as the BBC and Channel 4 seemingly reluctant to discuss the issues at 
stake.

But he said there were examples of centres abroad that engaged in 
"well-funded examination" of such issues, carrying out research, hosting 
debates and discussions, and administering an annual set of awards 
celebrating the best of British journalism, such as the Pulitzer prizes 
administered by the Columbia School of Journalism.

Subjects meriting further academic scrutiny could, he said, include the 
question of whether there is a breakdown in trust between the media and 
politicians and if so who is to blame and how can it be remedied; how the 
Reynolds defence of qualified privilege is working in practice; whether 
conditional fee arrangements are stifling investigative reporting; what are 
the early lessons of the Freedom of Information Act, and how well the Press 
Complaints Commission meets the needs of the public.

Mr Rusbridger acknowledged that there would be people in the media who would 
find such scrutiny threatening.

"But - if the centre worked as it should - it might help us think through 
some of the most challenging questions journalists in this country 
journalists have never been required to address."

He said the scrutiny or research shouldn't be the "finger-wagging" sort - 
but should seek to involve and engage newspaper editors and publishers.