Big tech and news media: In Australia, what does a win look like?

A special briefing  with Australian publisher Eric Beecher and media expert Derek Wilding, moderated by IPI’s Jacqui Park and co-hosted by Presseclub Concordia’s Daniela Kraus.

News media have become intertwined with the big tech platforms. From search to news feeds, these platforms become the prime tool for distribution and discovery. The parallel disruption of the advertising industry has seen the platforms capture the cash flow that once supported media.

So, what’s the right relationship between news media and big tech?  How should big tech support news media? How do we work together to end disinformation?

Join us for this briefing on the Australian situation and a discussion about how news media, governments and platforms in Australia and many other countries are looking for solutions. What are they finding? And what happens next?

Speakers:

Eric Beecher, chairman of Private Media, publisher of Crikey, and chairman of Solstice Media and The Wheeler Centre, Australia
Derek Wilding, Co-Director of the Centre for Media Transition (CMT), Australia
(see their bios below ↓)

Moderator/Host:

Jacqui Park, Head of Network Strategy and Innovation, IPI
Daniela Kraus, Director, Presseclub Concordia, Austria

Registration:

Please sign up here via Google Forms or via email to

Speaker Bios:

Derek Wilding

Derek Wilding is based in the Faculty of Law at University of Technology Sydney where he is the Co-Director of the Centre for Media Transition (CMT).

He has worked in statutory and industry-based regulatory positions specialising in media and communications regulation, including as Executive Director of the Australian Press Council and manager of media ownership and control at the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

At CMT he led a research consultancy on the impact of digital platforms on news and journalism that was commissioned by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission as an input to its Digital Platforms Inquiry. He led research for the Australian Communications and Media Authority in its policy work on impartiality and commercialisation and diversity and localism. He is also part of a team of researchers working on a three-year Australian Research Council funded project on media pluralism.

Derek is the president of the Australian chapter of the International Institute of Communications.

Eric Beecher

Eric Beecher started his career in newspapers as a journalist on The Age newspaper in Melbourne.

He later worked at The Sunday Times and The Observer in London and The Washington Post in the US. In 1984, at age 33, he became the youngest-ever editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, and in 1987 was appointed editor-in-chief of the Herald and Weekly Times newspaper group. In 1990 he became a founder, CEO and major shareholder in The Text Media Group, a public company which produced newspapers, magazines and books, which was acquired by Fairfax Media in 2003. In 2003 he formed Private Media Partners, which acquired crikey.com.au in 2005. Since then he has been a founding shareholder and chairman of three further online media ventures: SmartCompany.com.au, EurekaReport.com.au and BusinessSpectator.com. In 2000 he delivered the annual Andrew Olle Media Lecture and in 2007 was awarded the Walkley Award for Journalistic Leadership.