Australian Media Five Years On

Malcolm Farr from News Limited

Question three respected Australian journalists about the future of Australian media and you'd be surprised how similar their views are.

IABC Canberra recently hosted a discussion with News Limited's Malcolm Farr, Karen Middleton from SBS and ABC Political Editor Greg Jennet.   The three Canberra Press Gallery veterans shared predictions about the media in the next five years, with communicators at the National Press Club.

The media landscape may be changing but all agreed newspapers will remain important and be influencing opinion well into the medium term.  Viewers will have less appetite for traditionally scheduled news bulletins and will press TV networks to deliver a great variety of news formats via their digital channels. And new technologies will allow Australians to self select information and build their own news pipelines.

ABC TV's Greg Jennett and SBS' Karen Middleton

Which means fresh challenges for PR professionals.  How do we reach our audiences when the media landscape is so fragmented and how do we judge success?

Farr, Middleton and Jennet were unanimous that tomorrow's reporters may use different technologies, yet their journalistic instinct to seek out information and hold institutions accountable will be as strong as ever.  

Top UK Communicator Planning Canberra Visit

IABC is working to bring Russell Grossman to Canberra

 It's tough times ahead for content marketers in Australia's Public Sector

Four months into office and the Abbott Government is scrutinizing staffing levels across the public sector in a bid to cut government expenditure.  

That means bad news for government communicators of all persuasions as well as other staff.  Facing the Treasury scalpel Departmental leaders will be looking at ways to trim the ranks of employees, motivate the teams that survive and and exhorting bureaucrats to do more with less.

That's a tough task for executives at all levels.  In the coming months cool-headed, strategic management and internal communications will be at a premium across the Capital.

Top UK communicator Russell Grossman is someone familiar with engaging and motivating public sector staff in times of change. And he is certainly worth listening to.  A polished speaker, he currently leads a UK Government program to strengthen internal communications for the 440,000 staff who work in the UK Civil Service and Government bodies. He is also the Director of Communications at the UK’s Department for Business and a former Head of BBC Internal Communications.

Grossman is planning a visit to the National Capital in early March to share insights with his Canberra colleagues. 

He will most likely talk on ground breaking UK research on employee engagement and how the UK Civil Service is embedding an engagement mentality among its staff for competitive advantage.  He has also been asked to reveal UK Government efforts to improve the performance of Whitehall communications teams, strengthen communications as a profession within government and move bureaucratic thinking from ‘press release by default’ to ‘digital by default’.

The Canberra Chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators is finalising arrangements for Grossman's visit. 

Gold Quill Judging Looks At World's Best

This weekend I helped judge the 2013 Gold Quill award entries in Melbourne.

I always learn so much from the experience and it's the one of the highlights of my year as a communicator.

Gold Quill Judging 2013 from Bob Crawshaw

IABC Directions For 2013

I'm a member of the Canberra Chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC). A global reaching organisation, IABC helps communicators develop their careers and businesses.

Watch as President Kerbey Meyers and CEO Chris Sorek share IABC's plans for 2013.