The rise of the live media conference
A couple of months ago, Dr Margaret Simons, a freelance journalist and honorary principal fellow at the Centre for Advancing Journalism, University of Melbourne, wrote an opinion piece for the Age that explored the performance art culture that has emerged as a bi-product of live FB-broadcast media conferences.
Dr Simons seemed to put into words what I’d been thinking. I’d observed a trend both online and anecdotally - people watching the media conferences and feeling like they were peeking behind the curtain on a media process. That it was somehow a “gotcha” moment for catching out journalistic editorialising or asking loaded questions. These conferences have become events to be commentated on and part of the newscape. I’m all for transparency and for citizens seeking out different channels to inform their opinions, but media conferences are often not where investigative journalism takes place.
As journalists, we understand that while important, media conferences are constructs designed to give platform to the host. They form part of the research process to uncover the news, but are often not the actual news. And it’s the journalist’s job to ask hard questions and dig deeper behind the scenes. When you hear a journalist seemingly repeating or paraphrasing questions, this is usually because the interviewee didn’t first deliver a satisfying answer. Perhaps the interviewee was evasive. Perhaps they stumbled. Perhaps the answer was lacklustre. And just because they ask questions that make them sound like they’re playing devil’s advocate, doesn’t mean they are.
While print journalists have more leeway for longer quotes, for broadcast media, it’s important the journalist can capture a quality 7-15 second grab-worthy soundbite. In order to elicit this, that sometimes means they need to repeat their question. Certainly, in 2020, where the world has endured crises upon crises, these live media conferences are an effective tool to communicate public health messaging and demonstrate transparency. But, this is a relatively new technique. It invites audiences in “behind the scenes” into a process they don’t yet understand. In the age of over sharing, it means everyone gets to have an opinion. Even if that opinion is uninformed. There’s still so much about media and the way news becomes news that’s misunderstood.
These media conferences aren’t the same as “live” media interviews. Traditionally, as Dr Simons pointed out, they were “an insider’s game” where the rules are understood by both the politicians and the journalist. Live-streaming gives unedited airtime to the starring politician’s agenda. It’s not a journalist’s job to peddle an unchallenged political agenda. These media conferences play out more like reality TV than journalism. Journalism isn’t about running full speeches verbatim, it’s also about reporting facts, providing context, balance and succinctness.
The only way to give more airtime to political agendas is airing in full pre-recorded and edited videos where the orchestrators completely control the narrative, which of course, is what we’ve witnessed extensively in the US. This is propaganda, not journalism. I’m actually very heartened that American media networks have increasingly moved to deliver live fact checks or even cutaway from spokespeople who are using their platforms to spread lies.
In this era of widespread misinformation and disinformation the rise of the citizen journalist will only increase. The way news is made still remains mysterious for many. Perhaps in this age of transparency, those who work in media need to play a more active role in educating non-media or aspiring citizen journalists or commentators on how it works?