Streets of Your Town: The Journo Project
Streets of Your Town
Kate McClymont on the need for high-quality media
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Kate McClymont on the need for high-quality media

In this latest Streets of Your Town—The Journo Project podcast, you will hear from seven time Walkley Award winner and renowned investigative journalist for The Sydney Morning Herald, Kate McClymont.

We did this interview at a cafe in Paddington, Sydney just as Coronavirus was starting to change the face of the city.

You can listen to her by clicking on the link above, or searching for “Streets of Your Town—The Journo Project” on your podcast provider of choice.

Or you can go to the Journo Project Press Freedom Facebook page and share it with your friends as a good starting point too. Are you getting those updates?

Kate McClymont

Fairfax investigative journalist and seven time Walkley Award winner Kate McClymont says never has the role of a free media been more important.

“Society is becoming so polarised—I think it's really worrying times,” Kate says.

“I just think at the moment the uncertainty about COVID-19…you don’t know what the social and financial ramifications are going to be, it’s major and very uncertain.

“The problem is that people are getting news and information from sources such as Facebook. I think in times like this it’s so important to have a quality media organisation.

“Forget the Facebook, forget the crazy fringe people peddling their ideas, stick with quality.”

Kate has been at the forefront of many of the pivotal investigations that have changed the face of New South Wales.

She now wonders whether the Australian media will be able to continue to expose corruption and keep the powerful to account, describing it as a chilling effect.

“People deserve to know. The public has a right to know these things, and if we turn away then justice isn’t being done,” she says.

"I think unfortunately for the media we are not as a profession held in great respect by members of the public. So in some ways, I think some areas of the public think it’s just journalists bleating.

“They look at trashy magazines that make things up on a regular basis and I think we all get lumped into the one boat. I think it’s that thing there is the quality media and the bottom end of the market but we as a profession have to do more to gain the trust of members of the public.

“I think that is incumbent upon us we have to behave better in order to earn the trust."

One of her greatest concerns is the demise of AAP, and the disappearance of many regional newspapers, some more than a century old.

“With the decline of local newspapers, the amount of corruption in local politics is extraordinary. That’s where the real corruption is. Giving the mayor a discount car and you get another five floors, or you get spot rezoning, or the council car park gets given to you, all those things are just not being covered adequately enough.

“And the demise of AAP: I just think people probably don’t realise how much of, not just The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, The Daily Telegraph, The Courier Mail is filled by AAP. And AAP provides the most incredible services, photographs, press conferences. They were there every single day for the Royal Commissions. When other journalists had to go off and do things, there was AAP providing coverage. I just think it’s a huge loss.

"AAP had a whole raft of correspondents supplying all the regional papers with copy for their papers. I think most of the regional papers consist of AAP court reports, political reports, sports reports, it’s going to have a chilling effect on journalism in general and people’s ability to know what’s going on."

Behind the Scenes

It’s incredible looking back on this interview with Kate and that we managed to just get it in before the closures of cafes and gathering places took hold.

All of those with kids getting through this lock down know how little down time there really is, in fact I’m busier than I’ve ever been.

But I’m so glad I’ve been able to get this really important episode of The Journo Project out to you, and highlight the important conversations we need to have about how crucial press freedom is at this time of the spread of Covid-19, to ensure that we get reliable information, and that governments are kept accountable for every civil liberty that is curtailed, and ensure they keep us informed of when they will be restored.

And thanks to Professor Mark Pearson for helping get the word out about my podcast on The Journo Project for the prestigious quarterly Griffith Review.

What I’m reading

So with all the worrying news around at the moment, here’s some good news!

For those of you who, like me, need to know you’re not alone on the home battlefield right now, this New York Times piece brought me immense comfort.

Families are scrambling to balance work and child care in a society where women still do most of the domestic tasks. Will a worldwide emergency change anything?

‘I Feel Like I Have Five Jobs’: Moms Navigate the Pandemic —New York Times

But this has got to be the best article I’ve seen for just letting it all go people! Don’t feel like you’re a pandemic failure if you haven’t done a complete reno on your house and finished the PhD!

“…as someone who has experience with crises around the world, what I see behind this scramble for productivity is a perilous assumption. The answer to the question everyone is asking—‘When will this be over?’—is simple and obvious, yet terribly hard to accept. The answer is never.”

Why You Should Ignore All That Coronavirus-Inspired Productivity Pressure —The Chronicle of Higher Education

And for a bit of light comic book style relief, I think this is so unbelievably cool:

There’s a new Aboriginal superhero in the DC Universe and she’s a deadly Ngarluma hunter from the Pilbara.

Codenamed Thylacine, she boasts night vision, heightened senses, lethal combat skills, Batman-like stealth, and a steely suffer-no-fools gaze.

New DC comic book superhero Thylacine is an Indigenous Australian from the Pilbara —ABC News

Upcoming

Exciting times for the rollout of the next two episodes of Streets of Your Town—The Journo Project! Coming up next are the amazing journalists Nas Campanella and Gerard Ryle.

In this time of isolation and social distancing, I hope you can help make the world a smaller place as part of The Wandering Journo tribe and share this email with your friends. You can send me suggestions or comments too just by hitting reply to this email.

And reach out to me guys—cabin fever is real and I would love to hear from you. All you have to do is hit reply to this email. Tell me what you’re enjoying about the two dozen journos we have in The Journo Project now and what more you’d like to hear from them. Suggestions always welcome!

Thanks for making this all possible!

Talk soon! Houseparty perhaps?

Nance

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Streets of Your Town: The Journo Project
Streets of Your Town
From the Wandering Journo at Stories that Matter Studios this is The Streets of Your Town. The podcast that takes you on an audio journey through theatre of the mind highlighting a different slice of Australian life each episode.