Malcolm Turnbull lashes ‘Google journos’

MALCOLM Turnbull has criticised young journalists for relying on Google rather than forging their own contacts and wearing out shoe leather.

MALCOLM Turnbull has criticised young journalists for relying on Google rather than forging their own contacts and wearing out shoe leather.

In a speech to the Lowy Institute media dinner — attended by Andrew Greste, the brother of imprisoned journalist Peter Greste — Mr Turnbull stressed the importance of foreign reporting at a time when many journalists relied on social media and Google.

“There is an argument that, in a world where everyone has access to social media and Google, that foreign correspondents are no longer really needed, that it is a relic that no longer reflects the realities of how news is gathered or what the economics of media organisations will allow,” he said.

“This is an issue many, many journalists — particularly senior journalists — have raised with me and there is a tendency particularly among younger journalists to rely on Google rather than forging their own contacts and wearing out their shoe ­leather.”

Mr Turnbull, a former journalist, said that when he was first elected to parliament, he was surprised at the lack of interest most policy makers in Canberra had in other countries’ solutions to issues. He said he had been frustrated for three years at the lack of attention media paid to broadband policies overseas.

“No other country created a government-owned start-up to deliver the upgrades; no other country is spending as much per premise for the upgrades and most other countries are encouraging infrastructure-based competition rather than paying competitors with sunk costs to close down their fully functional networks,’’ he said. “Surely any level of journalistic curiosity would have caused an editor to send a reporter to interview BT or AT&T or Deutsche Telekom about their experience.”

A possible reason for the lack of interest in foreign policy, Mr Turnbull floated, was it was cheaper to fly to cover stories on a needs basis rather than have a foreign bureau. He lamented the declining number of foreign correspondents but said the ABC was the “standout” with bureaus in at least 10 locations.

“One senior journalist I spoke to said that it was routine for The Sydney Morning Herald to have at least one foreign story on the front page every day; now it is possible to go many weeks he said without a single foreign story on the front page,’’ he said.