Journalists

+ Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney
31 Aug 2008

Last year when I was visiting a Catholic boys secondary college I asked the school captain what he hoped to do in the following year.  "Study journalism" he replied, then adding "You are a journalist too, aren't you?"

I was rather pleased that he knew of my weekly column, which I have been writing for more than seven years now.  Obviously I pleaded guilty to him, admitting to being a journalist, explaining that it wasn’t my main job!

I have been an assiduous reader of newspapers since before I was a teenager and my breakfast routine regularly avoids much conversation as I plough through the day’s three papers.  It is a daily ritual, which I thoroughly enjoy, especially on holidays when I have more time.

Therefore the news that the Fairfax organization, which produces the Sydney Morning Herald and the Melbourne Age, was about to sack 550 people across Australia including 180 journalists, was deeply disturbing.

It would be a pretence for me to pose as an enthusiastic supporter of Fairfax publications, although I have written occasionally for their major dailies.  For a long time I wondered whether the Age wanted Catholic readers and more recently I began to wonder whether this was true also in Sydney.  But that is another story.

Decent and thriving societies need a decent and thriving free press with different points of view.  Only newspapers can provide the regular flow of sufficient information, quickly followed by analysis of the news and quality opinion pieces to enable readers to keep up with situations that are changing, come to their own conclusions and move beyond the sophisticated "spin" put out by our political masters.

We all understand that newspapers have to run at a profit, especially when there is an economic downturn and when market conditions are changing, either through developments in the on-line world or in the public’s reading habits.  But when money has to be saved, the overriding priority must be to maintain the quality of the product.  With newspapers this should usually mean that sacking journalists is the last resort.

Australian papers compare well with English language papers overseas, with much more international news than you find in most U.S.A. newspapers, large sections devoted to general news, high quality sports coverage and extensive financial sections.

Short television "grabs" cannot inform us as comprehensively or with the same depth of quality news and views as a newspaper.

In our universities, faculties teaching the humanities such as history, philosophy, languages and literature have been reduced.  Even maths and science courses are under pressure.

This in itself is likely to result in a "dumbing down" of our public life and would be worsened if the financial restraints imposed on newspapers were misapplied, reducing their capacity to break the news, to shape and provoke public opinion. 

We need more and better journalists, not fewer.