Mi9 boss Mark Britt: Political agendas don’t work in online news
Mark Britt, the CEO of Mi9, which runs one of Australia’s largest online news portals Ninemsn, has taken aim at rival News Corp Australia for their political “agenda” and telling an audience that “propaganda” doesn’t work in online news.
CEO of Mi9 Mark Britt on stage at Mi9 Imagine yesterday
Just days after the federal election, in which News Corp Australia’s allegedly anti-Labor election coverage became a central issue, Britt told an audience of media buyers at Mi9’s Imagine event in Sydney: “We don’t have an agenda, we don’t speak to a niche audience and tell them what the news is and then tell them what to think about that news. We represent Australia.”
“Fundamentally we think about our role as not to tell Australians what to think – but to watch, to listen and to learn.”
Smart.
Well, as NineMSN basically just nick all its news content off wire feeds I think Britt’s comments are total nonsense. To even suggest the junk it serves up as news (which is mostly celebrity crap) is somehow “proper journalism” is utterly laughable. How many notable journalists/writers do Mi9 employ? Oh, that would be right – absolutely NONE. To even compare their dirge to the likes of Fairfax, News, The Guardian, Crikey etc is the funniest and most deluded thing I’ve heard all year. Mi9 has one single aim – ad dollars, no matter how they can get them. Decent content falls a distant 145th on its priorities. I doubt anybody would even go to a Mi9 site if not for Bigpond or its affiliations with Bauer magazines and Nine. Sorry, but Britt’s attempts to somehow suggest his company shapes the news agenda is total and utter rubbish. To even compare them, to say a Fairfax, is actually offensive.
JB – you’ve hit the nail on the head. The idea that its content represents serious journalism is misguided at best. There are some very smart people who work there, but be honest about your business model instead of posturing as if you’re the New York Times.
BS. How can you be free of an agenda if your revenue is based on advertising? Is making money an agenda? That’s all Newscorp are trying to do, albeit with less tact.
What exactly are “These are the toolsets that editors sit with every single day” = so they are not pushing a political agenda but how are they using these toolsets and what exactly are they? Some of you will me much better informed about this than I am so I am shamelessly picking your brains. Good to see you out interviewing and reporting on these sorts of events where people talk about what’s happening with media on the ground
Hi Wendy,
Thanks for the feedback. The toolsets Britt is referring to analytical screens that show how many people are their stories, for what time, etc. It is used to see what is popular/interesting to the readers and tailor the homepage accordingly.
Cheers
Nic – Mumbrella
I’m just finishing a second report on climate coverage by ten Australian publications. This all has great implications for coverage of some areas that don’t get so much traffic and if they are downgraded doesn’t that exacerbate. This sounds rather old fashioned i know. Anyway, I’ll watch for further developments.
By the way, I love this big font – more should use it. It’s not because I can’t see smaller ones but this is so comfortable.
Wendy; crystal balls
He is correct and for News to insult our intelligence by claiming their undemocratic campaign of negativity did not work insults our intelligence.
Otherwise News should also inform their advertisers that they are wasting their money by spending it in News Ltd publications.
However what has been demonstrated by this ugly campaign is that Old Media is on it’s last legs. The unparalled viciousness of the campaign should have wiped Labor out (possibly the desired result) but Labor still managed to form a credible Opposition.
On-line social media clearly aided Labor in re-buffing some of the madness of the printed media and the vacuousness of TV ‘news’.
The task is to work out how to really harness social media and 3 years in Net Time is a long time.
@ SamB… I’m guessing you have Labor sympathies? But maybe, just maybe you’re underestimating the intelligence of the Australian electorate. I’m sure we’re not all blind sheep swayed by the evil Murdoch empire, utterly unable to articulate the issues for ourselves. Have you considered that Labor lost on its own merits, incompetent in the eyes of the electorate who simply wanted change and better government? Or are we forever to blame the Murdoch presses?
Yeh sure Bruce.
So you agree then :
News Ltd is totally ineffective and my claim that advertisers are wasting their money is valid.
Either newspapers have influence or they don’t. If you are correct then the advertising bumph I regularly receive from News Ltd requesting I place adverts for my business is fraudulent.
The whole question of the impact of the mainstream media is a pretty interesting one. Noone could argue that the media has no political effects – on the other hand there are heaps of other factors at play.
There is not enough research on audience impact. This is partly because it is expensive needing focus groups, in depth interviews that are expensive and research funding is low for any area of the humanities. We have to assume as Sam says that there ARE impacts – these are not to be thought of as single message going out to user but as an interactive process from media to media to blogger to audience – I have just analysed an example for my climate science report that involved MTR, NT News, BIG media Blog, The Aus – news and opinion, Parliament, Crikey, hundreds of comments – non maintream blogs ( still there) – the message was like a meme. Mainstream media is more contestable now as Sam says than it was… we will never know what would have happened without News Corp campaign and without Get Up counter campaign and lot of other media discussion. You also have to consider what audiences are being targetted and just because something is contested on Crikey ( subscription) for example doesn’t mean it is available to DT target audience. The notion that everything gets down to freefloating individual choice is very naive but so is the idea that people passively receive messages.
If anyone has any useful research I would be glad ot hear about it.