Australia's newspapers will be irrelevant by 2022, claims media strategist

This article was migrated from an old version of our website in 2025. As a result, it might have some low-quality images or non-functioning links - if there's any issues you'd like to see fixed, get in touch with us at info@journalism.co.uk.

Newspapers will be "irrelevant" in Australia by 2022, as amateur journalism and social media transform the media economy, according to media strategist Ross Dawson.

In a preview of Dawson's argument, which he intends to make in a workshop at the Newspaper Publishers Association Future Forum tomorrow in Sydney , he predicts that the newspaper publishing industry in Australia as it exists today will cease to be relevant in just over a decade.

But there is hope for organisations which move with the shifting industry, he says.

"Media revenues will soar but will be unevenly distributed," he says in the post. "We are shifting to a "media economy" dominated by content and social connection. Yet established media organisations will need to reinvent themselves to participate in that growth."

His recommendations include exploiting the future of portable devices and being integral to the development of new technologies which suit the needs of news audiences.

"The successors to the iPad will be our primary news interfaces," he adds. "Australians will most commonly consume news on portable devices, of which the iPad will be recognised as the forerunner. Digital news readers will cost less than $10. By 2020 entry-level devices to read the news will cost less than $10 and often be given away. More sophisticated news readers will be foldable or rollable, gesture controlled and fully interactive."

He adds that journalists themselves will need to work on building professional reputations in the face of increasing crowdsourcing methods.

"Journalism will be increasingly crowdsourced," he says. "Substantial parts of investigative journalism, writing and news production will be 'crowdsourced' to hordes of amateurs overseen by professionals. The reputation of individual journalists will drive audiences. Many journalists, most leading experts in their fields, will still be employed in Australia, with public reputation measures guiding audiences on how much to trust their work." In a Q&A profile on Australia's NPA website , Dawson adds that the answer will be for traditional media to find a niche, rather than staying focused on mass audiences.

"The reality for those in the traditional media industry is that they have large substantial or established fixed costs – for example printing presses. It's a lot more challenging for them to adapt to a new media world. "There are many small scale media business models where you can get very focused audiences with high value, very focused paid content and focused advertising. Yet, if you have substantial fixed costs it's a lot harder because you are always looking to maintain revenue streams rather than to build many smaller revenue streams. And the easiest business model is to create multi-niche markets as opposed to mass media markets."

The future, he adds, will not be on paper.

"Newspapers are no longer about paper, they are about news and content and building relationships," he says. "The iPad is the first compelling alternative to paper in consuming news on the go. It is a turning point for the newspaper industry in being able to have a device which is an alternative to newspapers. From here we will see better versions of the iPad, lower mobile data costs and a profusion of other devices."