Adventures in journalism
Change has defined the past 20 years in journalism, and The Walkley Magazine has been there through it all. And now it’s time for another big change.
Journalists are often accused of only writing for each other. For the Walkley Magazine, that’s not a bug. It’s a feature.
That was why we started the magazine in the first place: as a forum for journalists to talk about their work. How did they break a particular story? How did they get this person to talk or that person to give them some key document?
It was about more than techniques and tools. It was about deep thinking on the ethics and values of our craft. It was — and is — about creating a community forum for journalists, artists, photographers, producers, editors and more to talk to each other, in a profoundly journalistic way.
Of all the initiatives I’ve started at the Walkley Foundation, launching this magazine is one of the things I’m most proud of. There’s nothing really like it anywhere else in the world.
Journalists embraced the idea. Their eagerness to help the community by writing or contributing has long been the magazine’s most valuable resource.
We recognised early on that, in many ways, Australia and New Zealand form a common media space. With the support of the New Zealand journalists union, the ETU, we’ve been able to share experiences across the Tasman.
We also recognised that journalism is a global craft. We share challenges and have much to learn from each other whether we’re from Adelaide or Wollongong, Vietnam or Azerbaijan.
Along the way, we ran into something pretty big: the internet and everything it has brought — from smashing up our business models to creating opportunities for telling more stories in exciting new ways.
It would have been easy for us to whinge about the problems it caused journalism. And to be honest, we’ve had to do a fair bit of the hard analysis of what it’s meant for jobs, readers and revenues. We were doing it at a time when much of the media seemed to work on the basis that if we didn’t talk about the effect of the digital transformation, no-one would notice. We know how that turned out.
Instead, through our Future of Journalism project we went looking for stories on the digital shake-out of the industry and shared the very human impact it had on many of our friends and colleagues.
In my experience at least, journalists have been more focused on solutions that put journalism at the centre of the future. And the magazine has given many the opportunity to share their experiments. Both failures and successes have provided important lessons for thinking about what we need to do.
As a community forum, the magazine has tried to give journalists the space to be honest about what they’ve learnt and the mistakes they’ve made along the way. It’s meant that in Australia and New Zealand, experiences haven’t been lost. By sharing ideas through the magazine, we’ve been able to build a knowledge base that continues to feed our industry.
The platform of the magazine is a great place for photography and artwork. At a time when photographers and artists have had fewer opportunities — particularly for their more out-there work — the Walkley Magazine has been a welcoming home. Our photographic essays have provided a rare opportunity for photographers. And the artwork that has defined our covers is often as fantastical as it is just plain fantastic.
I love print. But … well, we all know the buts.
To manage these buts, we’ve reduced the number of issues each year from six to four. We’ve long produced an electronic readable version of the magazine, and earlier this year we launched the magazine in a fully digital version on Medium (medium.com/the-walkley-magazine). This gives us the benefits of digital (regular updates, new articles, better access, lower cost) while preserving print, for the time being at least.
We’ve also received funding from the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund to commission long form essays on a major journalism issue for each issue of the magazine. That will deepen the quality of the content, while also helping put some much needed money into the community.
I’ve learnt a lot as the founder and continuing editor of the Walkley Magazine — particularly about the generosity and enthusiasm of journalists. This issue is it for me. I’m leaving the Walkley Foundation at the end of this year.
I’m embarking on new adventures in these uncertain seas of journalism. We all know there are no maps for innovation in journalism, only the tall tales of travellers on their return. Like all of us, I’m not sure where I’m going, but I’ve got a few good ideas of how to get there.
Keep in touch!
Jacqui Park
Founding editor, The Walkley Magazine
CEO, Walkley Foundation
Jacqui.park21[at]gmail.com | Twitter: @jacquipark
