Sharri Markson is worried. She’s written an article for the Australian, talking about how several universities in Sydney have been talking about the power News Corp has in Australia as a part of journalism and media courses. Shocking, journalism and media students learning about the power of a media company.
Markson’s issue is the way that she perceives News Corp is being talked about by lecturers. She is under the impression that lecturers at the University of Sydney and the University of Technology, Sydney are “indoctrinating” students into forming “a critical view of News Corp”.
How does she know this? Well,
The Australian obtained the first-year course material for media and communications at University of Technology Sydney and The University of Sydney to examine what students are being taught about the media industry.
Over a period of five weeks, The Australian attended some lectures on an undercover basis and obtained the audio recordings of other lectures from students.
You can see the resources she obtained here.
She didn’t check out Macquarie Uni (where I study), but I can tell you that the media subject I took at the start of this year mentioned News Corp, multiple times. It wasn’t “all hail News Corp” either – in fact, I’m pretty sure most tutorial discussions where News Corp was brought up were highly critical of the company. But we live in a free country, with free speech, where people can have their own opinions.
I do have a few bones to pick with Sharri Markson though.
First, she only went to lectures, where the lecturer talks for a while and students very rarely contribute. Had she gone to a tutorial, which I will admit may not have been possible, she may have discovered that the lecturers and students were not anti-News Corp. There may have been positive discussion on News Corp, and debate on things like the ABC, digital media and the fall of print journalism (accept it, newspaper sales have fallen in the last decade). While some discussions were negative in my tutorials, some of them were positive.
Second, the term “indoctrination” implies that the students, no matter how old they are or how long they’ve been at university, are stupid, know nothing about media and are hanging onto their lecturer’s every single word. From my experience, university students are not stupid and have probably done a bit of research into their industry of choice – in this case the media industry. They are probably very well aware of News Corp and what they write. Also, most university students are at an age where they have their own opinions and views. They listen to their lecturer, but they do not form all their opinions based on what the lecturer says. Again, we live in a free country, with free speech. Just because a lecturer says something does not necessarily make it so.
Third, most of what the lecturers are talking about is true, or has some credence. You may not like the academics and sources used in the lectures, but most of what is said is true. If News Corp is “one of the largest employers of journalists in Australia”, then the company is something people should be studying – as the biggest employer of journalists, it does have an impact on journalism, what that impact is depends on how you look at it. They also can’t just study the positives of one company – that kind of goes in the face of journalism and not having biases – they have to study other things too, and that includes people who speak critically of News Corp. You have to remember that News Corp is not immune to criticism, and neither are News Corp’s critics.
Finally, Markson has to bear in mind that she’s only looked at a few of the lectures. As far as I can tell, she hasn’t gone to all of the lectures for the whole semester. One of the first few lectures was about media ownership, as was one of the first of mine. Without going to all the lectures, Markson can’t fully criticise the course. If she’d gone to my media class in the first semester of this year for the full length of the course, including tutorials, she would have found that it is not all about News Corp, nor is it all negative. My course also covered transparency, and a few international students talked about media and journalism in their countries.
What has to be remembered is that with News Corp being so powerful, it is going to be studied by those who want to praise it, critique it and even those who don’t have an opinion. Students are also going to be asked to read texts by News Corp critics, not because the lecturer has an agenda, but because they’re probably interesting books with valid points.
It is agitating when News Corp gets indignant over people being critical of them, because they begin to create different rules for themselves. They can be critical of rivals, but their rivals cannot be critical of them. If News Corp likes being able to criticise its rivals, then it needs to respect the other media outlets’ (as well as academic institutions) ability to criticise them too.
Kara L 