Super-fast broadband will change the way we all produce and consume content. Join our high-level panel for some blue sky thinking.

• Laurie Oakes (chair), Nine Network

Laurie Oakes is the  Nine Network’s  political editor and chair of the Walkley Advisory Board. He has had a distinguished career in journalism over several decades.  In 1998 he won the Walkley Award for Journalistic Leadership and in 2010 was the Gold Walkley winner.

• Mark Scott, ABC

Mark Scott is the managing director of the ABC.

Before joining the ABC, he  held a number of senior executive appointments at Fairfax Media

• Greg Hywood, Fairfax Media

Greg Hywood is chief executive and managing director, Fairfax Media. A Walkley Award-winning journalist, he has held a number of senior management positions at Fairfax Media including publisher and editor-in-chief of each of The Australian Financial Review, The Sydney Morning, Herald/Sun Herald and The Age.

• Louise McElvogue, Macleod Media

Louise McElvogue is a principal of Macleod Media and a member of the Convergence Review Committee appointed by Senator Stephen Conroy to examine the changes to media regulation in the light of convergence.

• Andrew Sholl, NBN Co

Andrew Sholl is NBN Co’s general manager, communications, responsible for media relations, marcomms and social media at the company building Australia’s National Broadband Network.

Please leave your comments below.

How nationalism has shaped the news business in Asia. Our expert panel will analyse the big trends in our region.

• Anne Davies (chair), Sydney Morning Herald

Anne Davies is the investigations and series editor for The Sydney Morning Herald with responsibility for the Herald’s team of investigative journalists.  In 2002 she and Kate McClymont won the Gold Walkley for their coverage of the Bulldogs salary cap scandal.

• Bharat Bhushan, Mail Today India

Bharat Bhushan has been a journalist for more than 20 years. He is editor of the English language Mail Today newspaper in India which sells more than 250,000 copies each day. He was earlier the executive editor of the Hindustan Times, editor of The Telegraph in Delhi and an assistant editor with The Times of India.  http://epaper.mailtoday.in

• Bhimanto Suwastoyo, The Jakarta Globe

Bhimanto Suwastoyo was recently appointed to the position of editor-in-chief of The Jakarta Globe following three years as deputy chief editor. Prior to this he was Jakarta correspondent with Agence France Presse for more than two decades. Bhimanto’s visit is supported by the Commonwealth through the Australia – Indonesia Institute of the Department of Foreign Affairs. www.thejakartaglobe.com

• Nick Bryant, BBC

Nick Bryant served as aBBC correspondent in and South Asia before arriving in Sydney in 2006.  He reported from the sharp end of the Bush administration’s war on terror in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is
the author of Adventures  in Correspondentland.

Facebook and Twitter are powerful tools for journalists, but – as we’re finding out – social media platforms can be dangerous.

• David Higgins (chair), News Limited

David Higgins is News Limited’s innovations editor. He has edited two of Australia’s top three news websites, News Digital Media’s News.com.au and Fairfax’s SMH.com.au.  David holds an MBA from the University of Technology and is a member of the Walkley Advisory Board.
Twitter: @cowspanker

• John Birmingham, author

John Birmingham was born in England in 1964 andarrived in the Australia in 1970. He wrote for magazines for 10 years before publishing his first book, He Died with a Falafel in His Hand.

Leviathan, his “unauthorized biography” of Sydney won the National Award for non-fiction
in 2002. He still writes columns and feature articles for a wide range of newspapers and magazines, and blogs.

Twitter: @johnbirmingham

• Annabel Crabb, ABC online

Annabel Crabb is a political columnist and commentator who is currently the ABC’s chief online political writer. She joined the federal parliamentary press gallery in 1999 and has reported on federal politics ever since, with one absence during which she served in London as correspondent for Fairfax’s Sunday titles. Twitter: @annabelcrabb

• Jonathan Tasini

Jonathan Tasini is the publisher of the Working Life blog and president emeritus, National
Writers Union. He served as president of the National Writers Union, the freelancers union in the US, from 1990-2003 and is president of the Economic Future Group, a national labour strategy group.

Twitter: @jonathantasini

• Dr Axel Bruns

Dr Axel Bruns is an associate professor in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI). Axel is the author of Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life and Beyond: From Production to Produsage.

His current work focuses on the development of new research methodologies for the study of public communication in social media spaces.

Twitter:  @snurb_dot_info

Here’s our write-up of the panel discussion:

One of Facebook’s biggest gifts to journalists is that it’s effectively obviated the need for the death knock,
Annabel Crabb told the conference panel.

But is that a good thing? Continue reading →

Jonathan Tasini discussed the class action he has launched against the Huffington Post on behalf of unpaid bloggers. He believes that aside from charity and pro-bono work, no journalist should ever work for free.

Tasini is the publisher of the Working Life blog and president emeritus, National Writers Union.

He served as president of the National Writers Union, the freelancers union in the US, from 1990-2003 and is president of the Economic Future Group, a national labour strategy group.

What do you think of Jonathan’s speech? Tell us in the comments.

Here’s our write-up:

“It’s simple math. Huffington: $315 million. Creators: zero.”

Jonathan Tasini delivered a rousing speech, savaging what he characterised as corporate greed in the media industry, which he said has convinced content creators such as journalists that they should work for free.

Continue reading →

And we’re back with day three of the Walkley Media Conference.

First up this morning, an exciting address from game developer Morgan Jaffit, who will tell us about his video game Warco.

• Morgan Jaffit, game developer

One of Australia’s leading game developers, Morgan has developed a number of critically and commercially successful games over his decade in the industry. He led a team that developed Warco, a game that helps journalists anticipate the pressures and dangers of working in combat zones. http://defiantdev.com/warco/

Here’s our write-up of Jaffit’s address:

Can playing a game help young journalists learn how to report from war zones – and give the wider public an idea of what it’s like to gather the news in some of the world’s most dangerous hotspots?

That’s what Morgan Jaffit is hoping his Warco game can do, but he admits the idea has proved controversial for some. Continue reading →

Putting a comedy spin on a story can be a great way to bring news to a wider audience. What sort of space is there for satire in reporting?

• Jason Chatfield (chair), Cartoonist

Jason Chatfield is president of the Australian Cartoonists’ Association. He is a freelance cartoonist and stand-up comedian based in Melbourne and is the fifth cartoonist to write and draw the iconic Australian comic strip, “Ginger Meggs” which celebrated its 90th anniversary this year, as Australia’s longest-running
comic strip. http://www.jasonchatfield.com/

• Wendy Harmer, The Hoopla

Wendy Harmer is editor in chief, of The Hoopla blog. She had outstanding success
leading 2DayFM’s top rating Breakfast radio show team in Sydney for 11 years.
Wendy has written several successful books for adults and a bestselling series
of books for children. http://thehoopla.com.au/

• Benjamin Law, Author

Benjamin Law is a Brisbane-based writer and a regular contributor to frankie, The Monthly and Qweekend. His essays have twice been anthologised in The Best Australian Essays and his debut book The Family Law  was published in 2010.  He is currently working on his second book, a collection of nonfiction examining queer people and communities throughout Asia. www.benjamin-law.com

• Annabel Crabb ABC online

Annabel Crabb is a political columnist and commentator who is currently the ABC’s chief online political writer. She joined the federal parliamentary press gallery in 1999 and has reported on federal politics ever since, with one absence during which she served in London as correspondent for Fairfax’s Sunday titles. www.abc.net.au/news/thedrum/

Here’s our write-up of the panel:

Never write a joke about someone that you wouldn’t be prepared to tell with them in the same room as you – that’s Annabel Crabb’s rule of thumb when it comes to satire.

But even then, she admits, there can be embarrassment, revealing her slight nervousness at bumping into Bronwyn Bishop on the same day she’d described her as looking like a “small, malevolent armchair” in a particularly hideous cardigan.

Continue reading →

It’s a cliché, but true stories are often stranger and more compelling than anything a novelist could invent.

• Hedley Thomas (chair) The Australian

Hedley Thomas is The Australian’s national chief correspondent, specialising in investigative reports with a particular interest in legal issues, the judiciary, public administration, corruption and politics. Hedley has won five Walkley awards, including the Gold Walkley in 2007 for his investigations into the fiasco surrounding the Australian Federal Police investigations of DrMohamed Haneef.

 • Colleen Egan, The West Australian

Colleen Egan is a Perth based journalist and author. She has worked at The Australian, The Sunday Times and The West Australian, where she is currently an assistant editor. She is best known for her eight-year
campaign to prove the innocence of Perth man Andrew Mallard, who spent 12 years in jail for a
murder he did not commit. She received the 2006 Walkley Award for the Most Outstanding
Contribution to Journalism and the 2007 Sir Keith Murdoch Award for Excellence in Journalism.

• Susan Johnson, Qweekend Magazine

Susan Johnson lived in London for 10 years until she returned to Brisbane last year where she works as a feature writer on Qweekend magazine. She is the author of eight books, including a memoir of illness, writing and motherhood, A Better Woman. Her new novel My Hundred Lovers: the autobiography
of a body will be published by Allen and Unwin in June, 2012.

• Trent Dalton, The Courier Mail

Trent Dalton is an assistant editor of The Courier-Mail and a writer for award-winning colour magazine Qweekend. Trent was named 2011’s Queensland Journalist of the Year at the annual Clarion Awards for Queensland media. He is the author of a book, Detours, which was the culmination of three months
immersed in Brisbane’s homeless community.

• Russell Skelton, The Age

Russell Skelton is a contributing editor to The Age. He is a former deputy editor, foreign editor, op-ed editor, business editor and foreign correspondent. He wasdeputy editor of The National Times on Sunday. His first book, King Brown Country, the Betrayal of Papunya has been shortlisted for the 2011 Walkley Book Award.

Join the discussion in the comments. We’ll have a wrap-up for you at the conclusion of the panel.

How do you build and sustain a captive audience for your blog or website and what tools are at your disposal to engage with these newly created online communities?

• Jonathan Tasini (chair), National Writers Union (US)

Jonathan Tasini is the publisher  of Working Life and  president emeritus, National Writers Union. Tasini has written about the economy and labour for more than 25 years and is the author of four books. He is the publisher and editor of Working Life, a blog on the economy and labour. http://www.workinglife.org/

• Dr Mark Bahnisch, Centre for Policy Development

Dr Mark Bahnisch is a sociologist who has published on political communication and new media, political and social theory, Australian and international politics.  Mark has written regularly for New Matilda, Online Opinion and Crikey, and recently debuted as a travel writer, authoring the Insiders’ Guide to Brisbane for Ninemsn. He also founded the public affairs blog Larvatus Prodeo. http://larvatusprodeo.net/

• Annabel Candy, Web designer and blogger

Annabel Candy is a writer and teacher with an MA in Design for Interactive Media.

Her writing has been featured on Problogger, Copyblogger and Zen Habits. She created the ebook Successful Blogging in 12 Simple Steps to help other small business owners and writers tap into the power of blogging. Annabel shares her blogging tips at Successful Blogging and writes travel stories and personal writing at Get In the Hot Spot. http://www.successfulblogging.com/

• Tim Burrowes, mUmBRELLA

Tim Burrowes is the founding editor of mUmBRELLA, which launched in December 2008. Prior to that, he was group editor of Reed Business Information’s Media Group. Prior to that, he was editor of Media Week in the UK. He was twice named the British Society of Magazine Editors’ business editor of the year. http://mumbrella.com.au/

Here’s our write-up of the panel:

Can you make a living from blogging? Yes, but it takes time, effort and a good dose of luck, our panel said.

Jonathan Tasini has flown in from the US for the conference and is a labour activist whose Working Life blog focuses on the labour movement. He’s also behind the recent class action by bloggers who have not been paid by the Huffington Post.

The panel represented a diverse spectrum of the blogosphere. mUmBRELLA’s Tim Burrowes says he spotted a gap in the market for a online source of media news, but had to take a 50 per cent pay cut to start up his blog.

He recommended keeping things basic to begin with; don’t spent tens of thousands of dollars on web design (he started with a basic Wordpress blog) and says it’s all down to building an audience.

Burrowes started off with a weekly email update, which was sent out to contacts, then jumped on the Twitter train early and used that to build even more of a following.

mUmBRELLA’s key has been to make money from advertising. After a few false starts he took on a former colleague as a sales expert who helped them build their advertising revenue – though he admitted that the site’s focus on Kyle Sandilands this week may be causing Austereo, a major mUmBRELLA advertiser, a few sleepless nights.

Annabel Candy has a different approach; as a web designer she believes that the design of your blog is key, though she’s also a Wordpress fan for beginner bloggers.

Candy says it came as a surprise that her very personal blog, about travel and daily life began attracting more clients to her main business as a designer and copywriter because it had little or nothing to do with her core career.

What it did was raise her profile and widen her horizons; she’s since written a book, branched into travel feature writing and has two blogs that she updates once a week.

The blog has helped her career but is not her main means of income-  she simply sees it as an essential tool for anyone, including writers, who want to enhance their profile.

Her tips? Pithy headlines, personal anecdotes, persistence (she says it can take 6 -12 months before you’ll see success) regular postings and putting yourself out there – she finds guest-posting (writing for free on other, larger blogs) is a brilliant way of building her audience.

But that led to the most controversial aspect of this panel and some serious back and forth with the audience too; the rising concept of bloggers writing for free for bigger sites like HuffPo.

Tasini finds the idea an abomination: “It’s a notion that’s spreading and it’s an outrage.”

Mark Bahnsich agreed; he says blogs can give a voice and a space to people who otherwise wouldn’t or couldn’t be heard, and that the concept that these people should then be giving away their content for free was awful.

Some audience members, (particularly those from News Ltd papers, it has to be said), disagreed and said it was more like bartering – bloggers profit by seeing a huge increase in traffic to their sites so it was payment in kind.

And Candy sees it as free prime time advertising for her own blog – feel free to add your own comments below.

Bahnsich and Tasini have different models for their blogs. Bahnisch, after a foray into advertising, has now moved to community fundraising; he and his fellow bloggers have raised $8000 from donations from supporters who are committed to the blog’s campaigns and stance on subjects like coalmining, and are working on engaging readers even more in the direction of the blog as well as its financial future.
It’s about community engagement, he says.

Tasini approached organisations who he knew would be supportive of his blog – unions who liked the fact he was one of the few people writing about labour issues online in the US – and got funding from them. He also suggested potential bloggers look at sites like kickstart.com and indygogo, where people can ask for
donations for a range of projects.

So we know what makes a good blog – what makes a bad one? Not knowing your audience, not posting regularly, and, worst of all, according to our panel, 4,000 word posts that go on and on. Maybe that’s our cue to sign off.

Do you make money from your blog? If so, how? Share your ideas in the comments.

What does the future hold for the book? This highly influential panel will steer you through the latest trends in book publishing and will include valuable information on the most recent developments in e-publishing.

• Christopher Warren (chair)

• Kate Eltham, Queensland Writers Centre

Kate Eltham is the chief executive officer of Queensland Writers Centre and founder of if:book Australia, a think tank exploring digital futures for writers and readers. In 2009, Kate was named by The Weekend Australian as one of 10 emerging leaders of culture.

• John Hunter, University of Queensland Press

John Hunter is a publisher at UQP. Over the last 15 years he has worked in diverse roles at a number of Australian publishers, including Scribe and Pan Macmillan, as well as founding his own publishing imprint in 2008.

• Matthew Condon, Qweekend Magazine

Matthew Condon is the  editor of The Courier-Mail’s  Qweekend Magazine. He is the author of several novels, short story collections and works of non-fiction, including The Motorcycle Café, The Pillow Fight,
The Trout Opera and Brisbane, and is presently adjunct professor in creative arts at Queensland University of Technology.

• Alison Green, Pantera Press

Alison Green is chief executive officer and co-founder, Pantera Press. Founded in 2008, Pantera Press has published a best-seller, several books going in to reprint and one  shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book in our region.

• Margaret Kennedy, Agent

Margaret Kennedy has a 30-year career in publishing as a literary agent and former book editor. She established the Margaret Kennedy Agency in Brisbane in 1996, representing writers of fiction and non-fiction in specific categories.

Here’s our extended write-up of the panel:

A lively discussion of the future of the book became a debate about self-publishing and the role of the publisher, and the relationship between publishers and retailers, as well as what form the books of the future might take. Continue reading →

God may save the Queen, but who’s going to save the news industry? Our panel examines the options – will it be paywalls, freemium content, the news club?

• Colleen Egan (chair), The West Australian

Colleen Egan is a Perth based journalist and author. She has worked at The Australian, The Sunday Times and The West Australian, where she is currently an assistant editor. She is best known for her eight-year campaign to prove the innocence of Perth man Andrew Mallard, who spent 12 years in jail for a murder he did not commit. She received the 2006 Walkley Award for the Most Outstanding Contribution to Journalism and the 2007 Sir Keith Murdoch Award for Excellence in Journalism.

• Jane Huxley, Fairfax Media

JaneHuxley is currently chief executive and publisher for the Digital Division (Metropolitan) at Fairfax Media. Jane leads the product, mobile, video and online business strategies and oversees the technology, digital marketing and online editorial and creative services divisions.

• Bob Cronin, West Australian Newspapers

Since 2008 Bob Cronin has been group editor-in-chief, West Australian Newspapers. He has been a journalist for more than 50 years and this year was made a member of the Order of Australia (AM) for his services to the print media and the community.

• Jerry Harris, News Queensland

Jerry Harris is managing director, News Queensland. He joined News Corporation in 1981 and five years later moved to News International-Hachette’s joint venture publication, Elle (UK). In 1991, he moved to Sydney with Australian Consolidated Press but soon joined News Limited. In 2001 was appointed managing director, News Queensland.

• Peter Atkinson, Pagemasters

Peter Atkinson is group managing editor of Pagemasters, a provider of sub-editing and production services to newspaper publishers. His career started in Queensland regional newspapers and included two decades with News Limited where he held senior editorial positions.

Join the discussion in the comments below.

Here’s our write-up of the panel:

So what is journalism’s next top model? This panel could have run and run but if there wasn’t a general conclusion, the good news was that all our speakers felt positive about the future. Continue reading →