Reid focused on future of journalism

News Corp Australia veteran Campbell Reid says the most critical time of his 40-year-plus media career is right now.

News Corp Australia veteran Campbell Reid. Picture: John Fotiadis

News Corp Australia veteran Campbell Reid says the most critical time of his 40-year-plus media career is right now, as the industry looks to emerge stronger from the technology assault.

Reid, who was one of the first journalists to edit both The Australian and The Daily Telegraph newspapers for Rupert Murdoch, said the global digital revolution had “greatly helped the media industry, which is now under attack by the same tools”.

“The incredible change has been in the last 10 or 15 years with the digital revolution, the change in both the ability for journalism to be created more quickly and more accurately, and distributed more widely than ever before.

“And at the same time, the very technologies that empowered that revolution in news gathering are also massively undermining its business model,” Reid told The Australian.

“I frankly think that the most important time and most challenging time and the best time of my career is right now, as we seek to reclaim the place of professional and commercial journalism as society sort of recalibrates its relationship with the tech platforms.”

Reid’s extensive work in the media industry has been recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours, receiving a Member of the Order of Australia for his significant service to the print media.

Reid has worked for Murdoch for most of his career and is currently responsible for corporate affairs, policy and government relations teams across News Corp Australia’s publishing and broadcast operations.

Previously, Reid was director of editorial management and group editorial director for more than 10 years, overseeing News’ editorial publications and development in Australia. He was also general manager of News Queensland, New York bureau chief and editor-in-charge of News’ 1996 Atlanta Olympics Games coverage.

Reid described his extensive career, which started as a cadet in New Zealand in 1976, as an “amazing, accidental adventure”. He also thanked the “crazy characters of editors and teachers and the executives and reporters” that he worked with over the years, and said he was “a little bit overwhelmed” by the award.

Despite the assault by tech giants, including Google and Facebook, Reid said the local news industry was top class, and needed to be protected.

“I firmly believe that Australia has an extraordinary, robust, indeed kind of irreverent, larrikin news reporting culture that we should treasure.

“We are disrespectful of people in authority and challenging, which is deep in our nation’s DNA, and I think that’s a trait that helps so many Australians excel in journalism internationally.

“I think in terms of challenging our role and our position in the face of the communications revolution, we are in a strong leadership position to do that.

“And, on a personal level, I want my contribution to be not the stories that we have published in the past, but the stories and the storytellers that we’re going to publish in the future.

“I think my generation of journalists, who have been around a while and have seen a lot of change, have a massive responsibility to secure our profession for the future for journalists to be able to have the same adventure and play the same role of telling truth and challenging authority that we were able to do. We have to play our role in securing that for the next generation.”