National Press Club address
Chairman and CEO of News Limited, and member of The Newspaper Works' Board of Directors, John Hartigan addresses the National Press Club about the robust role he sees for newspapers in the digital age.
In his speech to the National Press Club about the Future of Journalism, John Hartigan commented on the bright outlook of Australian newspapers, stating that it’s not suffering from the structural deficiencies plaguing our US and UK counterparts.
Refuting claims that printed newspapers are on the demise, Hartigan cited the strong performance of the Australian newspaper market, where advertising revenues in Australia had been growing over the past five years while circulation declines had been modest.
Hartigan did concede that newspapers, as any other traditional media channel in the digital age, would need to adapt their business models to continue reaching mass audiences. He said placing strong emphasis on producing quality journalism should be at the core of this adjustment.
The role and continuing relevance of newspapers in Australia can be seen in how Australians flocked to newspapers during the recent Victorian bushfires. For instance, the story of Sam the Koala broke in the Herald Sun and their online newspaper simultaneously. Photos of Sam drinking from a bottle of H20 spread across Australia and the world, resulting in over 16 million page impressions for the paper’s image library in a week. Hartigan also refers to how newspapers were instrumental in breaking stories of national importance stories such as the AWB scandal, the Mohamed Haneef case and Children Overboard.
View the full video of John Hartigan’s speech below, or download the transcript.