AN Smith Lecture – Mr Mark Scott, Managing Director, ABC

AN Smith Lecture in Journalism
© The University of Melbourne, 2009. All rights reserved.
Live@Melbourne – AN Smith Lecture
Speaker: Mr Mark Scott, Managing Director, ABC
Wednesday, August 14, 2009
Start time: 6:30pm AEST
Duration: 51 min 27 sec

“For those now in media empires, those who want to survive, endure, be part of the future, there is little time to be wistful. Little time to be angry at how things have turned out. They were great days, but they are gone. Certainly there are things that can greatly concern us. Is there a business model for newspapers? How will Australian stories be told in a world awash with global content? What will we share as a community if there is no shared media experience? Where is our commons?
Certainly we see ourselves at the ABC playing an important role in meeting some of these needs. But we all know for sure, there is a greater thirst for knowledge, for insight, for entertainment, for engagement, for viewing and sharing media today than at any other time in history. Never has the audience been bigger. Never has news travelled faster, or been more accessible in more places more quickly. Never has a big news story reached larger audiences in more ways. Ways of telling stories, making them immediate and compelling and alive, have never been more vibrant.The opportunities to connect and engage have never been more exciting.”
– David Scott [3]

In relation to the Murdoch push for pay for view online content;

“You can almost hear the other proprietors urging Murdoch on, assuring him that they are right behind him and they are pushing him through that pay wall as they then scurry away to make as much as they can, for as long as they can, outside the pay wall, to be free to pick up the traffic that flees the sites that now want payment for access.“
– David Scott [4]

LINKS:
[1] AN Smith Lecture in Journalism (2009-Oct-15) [UniMelb Live@Melbourne]
[2] 2009-10-14_smith_lecture_journalism.mp4MP4, 354MB [via: feeds.unimelb]
[3] Media after Empire text of the speech (2009-Oct-14) [ABC Unleashed]
[4] ABC boss takes swipe at ‘emperor’ Murdoch (2009-Oct-15) [ABC News]
[5] The Fall of Rome: ABC Managing Director Mark Scott’s Lecture (2009-Oct-14)
[Crikey]