After a weeks break, chilling by the pool with my family, it wasn't exactly easy to stuck back into University life, but I think I've managed to successfully transition from holiday to student mode.
This was probably helped a lot by this weeks journalism lecture, which was about public media.
Having covered commercial media in the last lecture, it was really interesting to get the other side of the story.
Public media was defined as media whose mission is to serve and/or engage a public, and most importantly is "taxpayer associated" or, if it's private or hybrid owned (like SBS), is not primarily occupied with making profit.
I happen to really like the ABC and I think that Bruce described the style of the ABC really well. Maybe I'm just snobby at heart, but I love that the ABC isn't there to make money. Serious, "broadsheet" style reporting is definitely my thing.
A terrific quote I got was that public media is the 'last bastion of long-form investigative journalism.' I think this is really true and I'm very happy to continue to pay taxes to keep the ABC and SBS on TV and Triple J on air.
On the darker side of public media is it's potential to be propaganda. The ABC does a great job of not playing into the hands of the government, but the fact is that all the funds from the ABC are delivered by the Australian Government, which gives whoever is in Parliament a lot of power.
The ability of the Australian people to keep both the government and the media honest will, I believe, become increasingly more important as we go further into this new century. Twitter, Facebook and YouTube will be essential tools.
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