Here’s a little quiz for you: can you name 10 US politicians? What about the members of your state parliament? Which question is easier?
In 2020 we found out that state governments are more powerful than ever. At the same time we devoted ever more attention to US politics. Giving our precious democratic attention to elections in which we may not vote and lawmakers who make laws which don’t apply to us leaves us disenfranchised — and erodes the quality of our democracy.
Part of the reason for our fascination with the US is the slow motion car-crash appeal of watching Donald Trump destroy the world’s pre-eminent democracy. But his dramatic ascendancy and spectacular fall from grace (long may he tumble) are ever more available to us because of a pre-existing issue with the economics of the media.
Subscribe to that theory
The economics of media have always been weird. But they are getting weirder.
When a media company wins just one more subscriber, it costs them nothing, and gains them a lot. Let’s explain that, and then look at how it affects what news we see.
Consider Crikey. If Crikey gets another subscriber it’s all positive. Pay $199 for a year’s worth of words and that revenue all hits the bottom line. The extra cost to Crikey of having another subscriber on the books is small. The website will be there anyway.
This is very different economics to a business like a restaurant. The customers are going to eat a certain amount of food, occupy a lot of time from the chef and the waiters, and when the table is occupied, that means they can’t get more customers in. Each customer has distinct costs and there’s a limit to how many you can serve.
This issue with online media is what they call zero marginal costs. Each extra (“marginal”) customer costs zero to serve. Free-to-air TV has the same basic economics. If you pop up an antenna, it doesn’t affect my signal.
When the economics are like this, it makes sense to lower the prices paid by customers and try to win the biggest possible audience. It leaves the market with a natural monopoly. For example, in free-to-air TV, a winning business model is to show cheap content and make it free to win a huge audience (consider the shopping channels).
Recognising the risk of every channel showing infomercials and endless re-runs of Friends, in the television arena the government has made local content laws. In online news, we don’t have them. Yet.
The competitive equilibrium in most online media is to have paywalls set at zero. The top six websites in Australia are all free, and growing fast:
The only way round this is to have truly unique content (the model pursued by Crikey and the The Wall Street Journal) and even then it’s a tough game because big players with no paywalls will erode your audience.
Industries with zero marginal costs are a problem because they do not generate the kind of competition that stop markets from treating consumers really badly. (Competition is imperfect in this respect, but it does something at least!) Ultimately, either quality or variety will suffer.
Consolidation matters
The relentless consolidation of media into a few global titles is a very real phenomenon with very real effects in Australia.
The Rouse Hill Times is closing, along with 100 other community papers, as explained by Mumbrella, while The New York Times grew its subscriber numbers at a ridiculous pace this year, as this Google search revealed:
How does this consolidation look on the ground? There are now far fewer Aussie journos. The Age and the SMH are basically one newsroom now. A big share of the content on their sites is wire copy (Reuters, AFP, Getty and Bloomberg are the other big winners of global media consolidation). We get much less local content designed for us and relevant to us.
I have a New York Times subscription. I also have a Wall Street Journal subscription. They’re cheap and the quality of the coverage is extremely good. An example is the NYT coronavirus coverage — it’s probably doing more to collate and present US coronavirus data than the US government itself.
But while the quality of its content is a delight, its focus is global at best and rigidly American the rest of the time. There is little on Australia, despite the recent creation of a small Australian bureau of the NYT. That’s a dangerous cycle. The more American content we read, the more we want.
Of course I maintain subscriptions to a load of local publications too — and they provide that local coverage, mostly. But even the Nine papers and Crikey like to write about US politics, because it has wide appeal. The economics of catering to niches is not good. If you write a story about a state issue, it gets a fraction of the clicks of a story on a national issue. And, on a site that has no paywall, a story on a global issue can get even more traction, so that’s what editors want.
This relentless cycle where Aussie readers care about AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), Bernie Sanders, Nancy Pelosi and Josh Hawley and closely follow US senate races could be good if we had boundless attention. But we don’t. And state politicians can run riot absent the glare of the spotlight.
The solution is already in the federal government’s hands — the number one free news site in the country. They should make the ABC even more relentlessly local. This is a big chance to make the ABC even more indispensable, by funding much more state politics coverage but also more coverage at an even more local level. I’d love to see two reporters per council, covering what goes on in local government. The skulduggery and corruption in local councils is no doubt immense — and it almost all passes unnoticed.
The more local content we read, the more we will demand, it’s time we shifted our focus back home.
Do we pay too much attention to US politics? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication in Crikey’s Your Say column.
Undoubtedly the ABC news department should be expanded for local content but the Coalition would rather fritter money on indulgences such as flying Corman around the globe for job interviews than direct it to a valuable public service.
Agree with the comment about NYT’s coverage of Covid,
Reading US media comes with a cultural cost. It is not just the US self-absorption – it is also a view of how the world works (extreme individualism) and a style of describing what is happening.
The US is the home of ‘look at me’ journalism that is about big noting the author/presenter and making the story about themselves – “here I stand in the middle of the carnage, giving you my view of what I feel. Those lumps in the background are just dead locals. Where are we today by the way?”. It is a disease that is spreading here also.
There is also great journalism from the US. Some articles in The Atlantic for example are brilliant. However even there reading comments is a waste of time. Mostly it is just partisan abuse. Not unknown here of course. But at least here at Crikey (for example) most commenters are thoughtful and have someting to say. I am constantly surprised at how much I learn from comments compared to the articles. However in this case good informative article.
I occasionally read through comments on newspaper sites. They are all rubbish with just one or two insightful comments scattered among the trolls. At Crikey I usually learn as much or more from the comments than from the original article, although admittedly having to wade through some diatribes. It’s always revealing how quick you can spot a tinfoil hat brigade here when they bother, which isn’t often.
It’s also led me to read Crikey’s articles a day or two late. My comments might never get read by anyone, for that reason, what do I care.
The Guardians comments though can be fun, mainly the UK articles. They give an interesting insight into what the more well read populace are thinking.
I like your style DB. One thing I’ve learnt is that there is a definite readership clique here at Crikey, and heaven help you if you’re not a member of that club. I’m come to learn to slip your opinion into the mix, and don’t knee jerk response to the inevitable bashing that follows. I’m pretty sure I don’t share a single opinion with anybody on this news site. Not that I need that, but I wasn’t aware I was so incredibly unique in my thinking…
“ They should make the ABC even more relentlessly local.”
Ah, so we’re not parochial enough. I hadn’t noticed.
As a south east Queensland resident, I identify strongly with the lack of focus on state issues. The Courier Mail appears incapable of investigation, analysis and argument. Rather it makes a habit of shallow smear and gotcha tactics.
Coverage at a local government level would be invaluable. Incidences of poor governance and corruption in local government in Queensland are all too frequent. There were very few articles raising concerns about the corrupt Ipswich council. A sniffer dog at the Melbourne airport drew attention to $50,000 in a bag that led to an extensive investigation. Ipswich and Logan councils were put in the hands of an Administrator and their councillors sacked in recent years. In addition there were numerous adverse matters revealed in other councils.
Since the Murdoch regionals in Queensland have either closed or gone online, several local Independent newspapers have emerged in print. Printed papers are still very popular in regional Queensland. The content if refreshingly local. They write about the things that are of interest to locals e.g. vegetable market reports, cattle auction reports, local youth doing well in sport. Gone is the imported fillers used in the Murdoch publications.
The Queensland government takes full advantage of the lack of interest in matters that might require some journalistic effort, investigation and analysis. A prime example is the ongoing failure of the Queensland government to address its responsibilities for introduced invasive pests (weeds, ants, animals). There is ample material namely:
The above is just one small part of government business but no news organisation appears to be prepared to put in the work to publicise these lamentable governance failures.
The same principle applies in all states and territories. My wife from North West NSW taught me that NSW means “Newcastle Sydney Wollongong”.
Live anywhere else, and apart from Facebook, local media is poor.
Couldn’t agree more. The Australian vocabulary already reflects far too much American idiom / accent / cultural cancers eating away at Australian identity. Regretfully, ABC increasingly, a cooperative carriage?