Some of our best journalism can be consumed with your eyes closed
It wasn’t so long ago that you could find the entirety of The Age’s daily offering blotted between the front and back pages of a newspaper. Enormous teams spent hours working at breakneck speed towards immovable deadlines. Acrimonious debates would erupt over the placement of stories – page 28 or page 29?
The journalism contained in that paper was crafted in a certain way, designed to suit the written medium. Headline, pictures and words were the standard components and stories were written to precise word lengths to fit the corresponding “print hole”.
The Morning Edition host Samantha Selinger-Morris (centre) with Kate McClymont, Peter Hartcher, David Crowe and Jacqueline Maley.Credit: Jamie Brown
The stories contained in those print editions were then – and remain now – as meaningful and compelling as you would expect in such a medium where the art of journalistic storytelling has been honed and refined over centuries.
For all its strengths and its ability to capture and represent a news organisation’s values and priorities so succinctly, the printed format is in some respects limited in an era where subscribers are telling us they want to consume our journalism in different ways. Print remains an extremely important part of what we do at The Age, but is not the entirety of our offering.
With the assistance of direct conversations with subscribers and the array of audience measurement tools at our disposal, our digital storytelling techniques are becoming more sophisticated every day.
Visual storytelling, for example, has become a hugely important tool in our arsenal. Developers, graphic artists and data specialists work closely with reporters to bring stories to life with interactivity and illustrations to convey information to the reader in a way that was impossible in the printed newspaper.
Stories such as this one on the Victorian state election results and this one on the results of last year’s Aston by-election provide levels of detail and interactivity that are simply unattainable outside our online platform. Others including Eryk Bagshaw’s 2022 Blood Gold investigation and this Walkley Award-winning explanation of soccer’s offside trap demonstrate the extent to which modern visual techniques can enhance our journalism.
And at The Age, we have some of the best people in the visual storytelling trade. Their work can be time-consuming and complex, but the investment is obviously worthwhile when it results in journalism like this.
Podcasting, a medium that has exploded in popularity during the past decade, has also become a huge part of our journalistic offering. I am extremely proud of The Age’s podcast stable and I know that many of you are devoted listeners. If you’re one of the few subscribers who remain unfamiliar with our podcasts, I invite you to explore them here.
The Morning Edition, hosted by Samantha Selinger-Morris, is our flagship news podcast. Daily episodes explore the biggest stories in the country through conversations with the journalists driving the agenda from the newsroom of The Age and its sister publication, The Sydney Morning Herald.
For our many footy-mad subscribers, The Age’s Real Footy podcast, hosted by the best AFL journalists in the country – Caroline Wilson, Jake Niall and Michael Gleeson – is unmissable. For pop culture, entertainment and plenty of witty banter, try The Drop, hosted by Osman Faruqi. For an in-depth look at the week’s big features, Good Weekend Talks will do the trick. And if it’s immersion in Melbourne’s notorious criminal underworld that you’re after, you can’t go past Naked City, hosted by the inimitable John Silvester. There’s enough there to keep you informed and entertained on your commutes and road trips for years to come.
Your subscription also contributes to some of the amazing work our journalists are doing on pop-up podcasts such as the award-winning mental health podcast, Enough, hosted by Jewel Topsfield and Sophie Aubrey, and investigative podcasts such as Trial by Water, which covers a groundbreaking investigation by Michael Bachelard into the scientific evidence used to convict Robert Farquharson for the murder of his three young boys by driving his car with the children inside into a dam. This podcast, expertly produced by Ruby Schwartz, has reached the ears of thousands of listeners across the country in the past week, demonstrating the power of this platform to tell stories in a way that our subscribers increasingly value.
The second episode is slated for release tomorrow. You’ll find it here. The final few episodes of the series are under development at the moment and contain several unexpected twists and turns as our reporters undertake this difficult public interest investigation.
The Age’s latest podcast, The Missing Campers Trial, is the first podcast to follow a jury trial in real time in Victoria. It’s presented by Nine reporter Penelope Liersch and Age reporter Erin Pearson.
Behind these high-quality productions sits a team of devoted and hard-working producers, journalists and audio engineers. The studios, the equipment, the personnel to create great podcasts do not come cheaply, and their work does not happen quickly.
It is certainly a very different prospect to writing a precise 517 words to fit a print hole on page 29. They are, however, are an increasingly important plank of the value proposition we are building for our subscribers, and The Age will continue to use this medium to showcase the work of the best investigative journalists in the country, whose work you support through your subscription.
You’ve told us you have an appetite for podcasts – and we’ve listened. Under the stewardship of our extremely capable podcasting teams, that offering is only going to improve.
If you care more about what’s on page 29 in tomorrow’s paper then don’t worry, we’ve got you covered there, too.
Patrick Elligett sends an exclusive newsletter to subscribers each week. Sign up to receive his Note from the Editor.