Like many a jobbing hack in recent times, I’ve been supplementing my income through brand journalism or, as it’s more commonly referred to in Australia, content marketing. Briefly, instead of renting space in a newspaper, radio program or TV show, organisations are increasingly generating their own content and putting it up on their website or channels such as Facebook or LinkedIn. The growing popularity of content marketing is no doubt another nail in the coffin for old media but, somewhat paradoxically, a much-needed shot in the arm for journalism and the growing ranks of underemployed media professionals.
My issue with content marketing is not so much the crumbling of the church-state separation between journalists and the corporations effectively paying their wages (that division has long been more honoured in the breach than the observance in the mainstream media) but simply the eye-glazingly unimaginative nature of the content commissioned. (A typical brief: widget manufacturer X wants three 500 word articles on: ‘Why widget manufacturer X makes the best widgets’, ‘Why your life is empty and meaningless without a widget’ and ‘Exciting new developments in the world of widgetry’.)
Excitingly, the good people at NRMA have launched a website – live4.com.au – that’s foregoes the hard sell and supplies “a broad range of celebrity blogs, features and interviews” as well as covering “sport, travel, entertainment, technology and car reviews”. It’s quality content that writers are paid for producing but which the reading public can access for free. I wrote a couple of things for it last year and they published a piece I had a lot of fun writing in the hours leading up to the recent non-challenge for the Labor Party leadership.
I encourage all three readers of this blog to check it out and, if they’re a struggling media worker, to enquire about contributing to it.
Seem to have found myself striding the corridors of power for the most unlikely of publications in recent times. Interviewed Clive Palmer, would-be PM and bankroller of the Palmer United Party, a while back for a superyacht mag and have now interviewed the Member for Grayndler (who just happens to be Deputy PM, Deputy Leader of the ALP, Leader of the House of Representatives, Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy and rumoured Rudd replacement come September 8) for an Inner West newspaper. Have to admit ‘Albo’ won me over, despite his politician’s propensity to launch into the same series of talking points regardless of what question was posed. I’ll be interested to see what becomes of him post-election.
epistlinginthedark 