Conal Hanna
Managing Editor, brisbanetimes.com.au
Written by Mimi Adachi on 2009-10-09
Managing Queensland’s first standalone newspaper website, brisbanetimes.com.au, Conal Hanna brings great insight to the changing media landscape of Brisbane. Having worked for the newspapers industry in Queensland, as well as overseas, he shares his thoughts on the broadening range of news outlets for Queenslanders, how the newspaper industry has evolved through the adoption of the internet, and the future of journalism in times of increasing dissemination of information.
Why did you decide to pursue a career in the media and communications industry?
I was quite focused on maths and science at school and initially started an engineering degree at University. But after a year of that, I realised that there was more to life than maths and science. Growing up, I had always been a person who wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, and so I was just looking for a career that would be interesting, challenging, and where you’d be doing different things all the time. And I’ve found that the media industry certainly provides that. Increasingly, all varying types of media are merging into one, and today’s journalists are expected to have broader skills set then ever before. Our journalists are going out, writing stories, shooting videos on their phones, taking photos on their camera, and really are proficient at all these mediums. I think journalists need to increasingly to be so in the future.
What features, both positive and negative, differentiate Brisbane-based media organisations to other national and international media hubs?
I guess Brisbane’s agenda has been greatly set by the Courier Mail in the past. It has been a one-newspaper town for quite a long time now. And the Courier Mail is not necessarily bad, but I think Brisbane needs to broaden its scope a little bit. A lot of other media follow the Courier Mail’s agenda, and probably don’t break as many stories as they could themselves. And I guess that’s why I like working for brisbanetimes.com.au because we have an opportunity to go in there, tell different stories, and try and get them to a wider audience. I’d say the Brisbane media does a good job at covering the city, but I think that there are opportunities for more voices to be heard.
What are the biggest challenges you and your organisation face as a member of the Brisbane media community?
The growing trend in media in Queensland, and worldwide, is the use of PR and media officers, which can make it hard to get to the original source and bring the life out of stories. Sometimes you have to go through so many levels of bureaucracy to actually talk to someone. I guess there’s such a worry these days about negative publicity that people are very media savvy and media aware, but I think they almost go too far. It’s been increasingly challenging to build trust with those we report on and to get them to just be themselves.
How different has working for online news been compared to print news?
It’s extremely different. Online is a fantastic medium for telling stories, where you can include photos, videos, and external links for readers to refer to original sources, all in one neat package. But there’s also the removal of deadlines as such. It’s hard to describe – you almost have no deadlines or constant deadlines that need to be met. I guess what it’s most similar to is radio, because you’re trying to keep updating people on the news, and you’re trying to cater to your regular readers of the site, while also trying to cater for people who are accessing the site once or twice a day, and give them important information that they need to know. Another challenge is not to stay reactive and just be following the big stories of the day. We also want to be breaking news ourselves and have proactive content.
Being the first standalone newspaper website in Australia, how has brisbanetimes.com.au changed the Brisbane media landscape?
The launch of brisbanetimes.com.au was really good news for the Queensland media market. When we launched back in March 2007, I think Courier Mail had about 300, 000 unique browsers on their website a month. Now we have reach about 900, 000 unique browsers each month, and the Courier Mail has just over one million, so if you combine that audience that’s about two million people accessing their news online, compared to just 300, 000 two and a half years ago. So I think it has certainly opened up the online medium for the people of Brisbane and the people of Queensland to access.
What do you think about the relationship between traditional media and new media? And where do you think it is heading?
I don’t think anyone doubts that traditional media will start giving more and more of their resources to online. I think, in the past, newspaper publishers have been hesitant to adopt this new format because of fears of losing newspaper revenue. But the lesson that’s coming out of the US and the UK is that that’s going to happen anyway, and people are going to be using the internet more and more. And you need to be providing them with the service they’re going to come to expect more and more. I’m not a person who thinks that print newspapers will die, although I think their formats will very much have to change.
What changes do you see happening over the next five years in the newspaper industry?
I think we’re increasingly going to see more and more of the media being hosted online; and the biggest advantage of Fairfax for investing early with brisbanetimes.com.au is that hopefully we would’ve learnt some of the lessons before our competitors and be ahead of the pack. News rooms are probably going to become a lot smaller, and journalists are going to be asked to do a lot more. Obviously there’s a lot of debate on how to monetise the online space, but in terms of newspapers, I think they’ll have to come up with unique offerings that the audience can’t get elsewhere to deal with the challenges of a very well informed public.