What have I to do this morning is talk to you soon about my experience with American journalism during the time. I spent with a WPI in the Twin Cities and then share with you some of my observations about working in the media in the US during the last four years at first as a foreign correspondent, and then is John mentioned is editor-in-chief of Muse Magazine and also is part owner of the company with Windmill and a sister publication sassy. Making that 1978-79 doing the will present statute program that I participated in. I had the opportunity to learn about three very interesting and very different aspects of Journalism and let me just quickly summarize what they were and I'll come back in and say a few words about each one firstly. I have the opportunity to learn about freedom of the press means in reality. I had the opportunity to study in Vista could have newspaper reporting as it was being conducted in the US during the late 1970s. And certainly I had the opportunity to learn how the federal government tries to limit press access to knowledge about what the administration is doing. In other words how the federal government manages news. First thing that we talked about freedom of the press one of the things that I hate you and I value to greatly in learning was how rare and not that's how precious the Free Press in this country florist imitations really is the majority of the colleagues on that program that I participated in some countries where there was massive government interference. If not that right control the media. Coming from Australia, which has a very similar pressed addition to the United States so that we don't have a constitutional guarantee of free speech the way you do it coming from Australia where we have a free press I found it very humbling to learn from my colleagues with WPI many of whom came from third world countries or country's where the government in one way or another sort to influence or control what was published. I found it very humbling to learn from them the difficulties and even the danger is very real personal dangers as a journalist under in such countries when I try and write the truth. One of the things that was very interesting during the program when we used to go around his fellows to visit corporations to interview political latest, but I was here in Minnesota and nationally as a journalist from these countries where information is circumscribe used to be amazed at the kinds of questions that I and a couple of other countries would they couldn't believe the disrespect as I turned it at the lack of deference to authority figures that were involved in our questions. And of course as that, you will not coming from traditions where the Press is supposed to be a watchdog and it supposed to at least to try and keep the government honest one of the ways that Jen was do this is by asking tough questions, but I found those sessions very Illuminating because they they brought him to me in a very fundamental way other sorts of difficulties that journalists from countries who can basically only write press releases. Has the government dictates them the sort of difficulties that they lie, but I'm The Illuminating about my time here with the WPI. We spend some time at the Chicago Sun-Times which was then enjoying a reputation for being one of the foremost investigative newspapers in the country of Investigations that they would doing. We're not the kind of the Washington Post had become very famous for throughout the seventies what they were doing was concentrating on local scandals and it was absolutely spectacular results at the time that I was there. They were two major investigations if I had just completed and which have been published around about the time of a visit and what really fascinated me about this with a length of this newspaper went to to get the story. I was filled with admiration for the links they went to and regret very much that this style of Journalism where to buy Additives in journalist really good incredible trouble to try and expose corruption or Injustice is really practiced in newspapers or magazines in America today. If I could just give you two examples of what they were doing then and which they were very generous and explaining on my living for the it was widely suspected in Chicago at the time that a lot of City officials were taking bribes from restaurants and bars. And in order to prove this stuff you set up an obviously through a blind company and they use Deportes to to work in the spiral installed cameras and everything and they don't cost a year and during that time they'll be able to document extensively and photograph the city officials who came in and demanded under-the-counter payments in order to get them to correct and so on and I thought it was a masterful exercise and actually documenting at first-hand this kind of petty corruption, which unfortunately is so common in big cities rather than going round and interviewing other restaurant has to whom does it happened? They decided to actually do it themselves and got a first-hand account and II Scandal Italy I uncovered which I would had to put strong personal interest in which they expose the records that we've been connected by number of City abortion clinics and they did this by then having reporters tech jobs there a lot of women reporters waiting there and I used to arrange for other days to go to these clinics and present samples of male urine for pregnancy testing and remarkably and I bet you they said samples pictures positive results. This was one man's by which these Germans were able to prove disconnect Swift performing unnecessary abortions are young women who went pregnant as well as that whole range of other medically unethical and illegal practices and this story with exposed of these corrupt clinics put out of business. Are you really go down and dirty and get your I get into the trenches to to get the story is something that I really admired and then the third thing that I thought I was here, which I found really extraordinarily interesting. There was a person who was actually at the University he had during the year that I was on the program who had been the state department spokesman during the final years of the Nixon Administration and he gave us a very interesting briefing in which he explained to us the mechanics of the daily briefing which the state department does for the porters and which I'm sure you've all seen on television explain to us the intricacies of the various X off the Record background background, not for attribution and Concepts which head at which a very well-known now between the currency at that time and we should become necessary during the Nixon years. It was quite amusing to tomatoes to watch some of my colleagues on the reserves from countries where the government control the media to try and get the kids some have these extraordinary times and to see the way in which the government would still try and control the Press been in a far more social and lesser Mana than they were used to in their countries that I'm here. The person who has a lot more subtle. The other thing he explained to us about the daily briefing is that each morning the officials in the state department would Mets tonight would could use a list of subjects that I thought would like that would likely to be questioned upon that day's briefing and then I would do what I like to call the sweet card trick. They were prepared 3 ounces to every question. The first was the idiots answer if somebody has two very bored and question that would just get a very broad Bland response. If if there's somebody it's a person asking the questions here. Nova little bit about the subject or what the administration was doing. Then there was a second more detail a little more forthcoming answer the question that really knew what was going on the card which it contained the not so which was mortis the truth and they were very very upfront. I left the WPI program to go back to camera which is the political capital of Australia to become the camera bureau chief Australia's leading Valley financial newspaper, which is like the equivalent to the Wall Street Journal here. And so I found this information extremely practical and the Australian government free things with them quite at that level of news management that they would certainly be getting there. And I learned the value of probing government officials to information. I learned how to bargain with breakfast for information and I let them City of really pushing them off and by pretending that I knew a lot more than I actually did because I knew that it had become standard operating procedure amongst government refers to only let out as much information as I thought they needed to in order to survive. I also have to confess to you that the information about how the state department did it separate things was also very useful to me when that five years later. I found myself on the other side of the fence where he is a chief advisor to the Australian prime minister and having myself to devise strategies for dealing with the media and I have to say having with both sides of the street. It is remarkably easy to mislead. The media is that is infected what he wants you to do and a reporter in order to get good information about what the government is doing really has to be very persistent and never take no for an answer. I might not like to leave the WPI how to fit my experience and move on to the last four years where I have since I've been living in New York City living and working in the media. I came here to live in 1996. And first of all as a foreign correspondent, and I don't know this is probably not a huge interest to you and you really want me to talk about Mason sassy, which we going to wait a minute, but I just like to make a couple of comments about what it was like for me being a foreign correspondent in New York for a couple of years during the Middle Ages. The role of a foreign correspondent today is changing very rapidly. I believe with the internationalisation of media ownership with the electronics indication of newspapers across the national barriers and with the technological advances in television, which put pictures of news events worldwide into people's living rooms at least a day before you can get them into newspapers. And those of you who watched the events of the Berlin Wall. Remember the events in Tiananmen Square in Beijing who know what I'm talkin about that the pictures are there in the living room at night and it's not until the day after next paper that you can get a really detailed report in print about those events. And this is something which is very very frustrating. If you are a song correspondent filing head back to your own country because you know that people have already had the highlights and ended the sexy bits of the story by virtue of the pictures and your challenges to try and Nutmeg Real in a way that some people are going to be bored with two days later. The other thing which is very difficult to tell me was the Heyday of being foreign correspondent. If you're in if you were saying Australian and you were based in London all your base in Washington or do you really have to do is sit get up each morning and to pick up the local paper be at the Washington Post of the New York Times and choose one of the stories from that and rewrite it and just send it back with your byline on it and the poor folks back home, but never know the difference will these days you can't do that one of the things that I found so frustrating about being a new york-based my edges back in Sydney would have the entire contents of the Wall Street Journal the New York Times The Washington Post in the Los Angeles Times at least six hours before they went on the street in this country a because I had it to electronically and I if I really want to know what the late store in the Wall Street Journal, what's the next? Around 6 at night New York time and I will be able to tell me I couldn't buy the Wall Street Journal in New York until at least 6 a.m. The next morning. So there was no way in the world you could just had to pay for it. So this again provided challenges and finally I think the increasing concentration of media ownership being a classic case, whereby he can consolidate tri-continental basis and makes the role of the foreign correspondent to a very difficult one today. I also think that the changes that have occurred in diplomacy the way in which governments now cannot connect with each other very rapidly by telefon spy facts and other forms of electronic transmission, that means that the roles that foreign correspondent used to play as intermediaries between governments is now no longer relevant. It's it's a subject which deserves for the expiration but I have to tell you that was a very frustrating and very difficult time for me. And I was very pleased when the opportunity came along to move over to Muse Magazine and become editor via. I spent the last two years being edits with Missy the challenge that I faced was to try and prevent the magazine in ways. That would make it more relevant to women in the late 1980s at without abandoning the basic feminist franchise of Miss. And without losing the loyal readers who stuck with a magazine for 15 years, and there was a lot of controversy about the issues that I put out. I'm talking because I was accused of making a magazine to sneak into glossy. I was accused of relying too much on celebrities on the cob has I'll have to tell you that. Did this this technique for increasing sales works for everybody? And it certainly worked for me is and I saw it as a way of introducing new readers to the magazine and it certainly did that because people who picked up the magazine because they wanted to read about Glenn Close. So Cheryl Oprah Winfrey within find inside the book all kinds of things that no other women's magazine offering them total said find a ton of voice and a way of talkin to the rate at which it didn't raise her like an idiot didn't patronize. It didn't tell her what was wrong with her, which is non-existent in women's magazines at beyond amazing sassy in America today, and they're for people who may have picked it up for other motives and found themselves engaging in the contents of the magazine and a circulation increased significantly as a result. You may have read in the press that both Miss and Sassy magazines with purchased by a new owner. The results of my patent I've been forced to sell a company which is called Matilda Publications, and I just like to spend a few minutes to talk to you about how that came about. we were basically forced out of business by an Advertiser boycott of sassy which in turn was created by pressure applied to advertisers by a number of religious fundamentalist groups who objected to the Frank approach to sexual medicine sassy was attempting to to to to cover and plus we discovered that there was a lot of reluctance on the part of advertisers to give me as the kind of support that it's demographic suggested. It was entitled to coming from Australia with the economics of the magazine industry a very different my partner and I would totally unprepared for number of things principally. We were unprepared for the enormous power of advertisers in magazine publishing in this country and that power arises from the fact that they pay for the product and the production custom magazines is such a competition between magazines is such that I'm sure you're all aware of the price was it go on you can buy any magazine in this country if it's three or four hundred pages long $4 a copy it cost a lot more than that to somebody has to make up the difference and that person is the advertiser but by giving up because we just paid such a small share of the cost of producing the magazine it made the effort. I have enormous power at which they sitting to use in order to be able to dictate content. They can ultimately determine whether or not a magazine survives and in the case of Miss. This was a constant problem and has been for 17 years in the last year it became even more so in countries like a stray Leah Britain and I believe Canada the cover price of magazines and subscription price is much higher. It means that readers pay a greater share of the cost of production and it means sit those magazines. I'm not so susceptible to the the wishes and whims that advertises it means that a magazine can survive if a major advertising pulls his schedule because he objects to something you've published. The second thing that we were unprepared for was the extraordinary influence on advertisers of Fringe religious groups and even Fringe religious individuals to affect Advertiser withdrawals and also every child outfit the listings. We found it remarkably small number of lettuce to our top six advertisers to have them cancel their entire advertising schedules for the year and this happened to us in July last year and it's only now 18 months later advertisers are starting to return to the magazine from the point of view of Sandy Gates. My partner myself too late. The other thing that these individuals were able to accomplish which also astonished me was that ingesting small groups of one or two or three that would go to their local Safeway or Walmart or what chain store and say the site of the manager that stole that if he continue to stalk sassy magazine as I would organized boycotts of that store and all the other good sold in that store. It's still a mystery to me why it still manages to come to this kind of pressure, but they do and we ended up being delisted by 53 chains and losing once said about retail circulation as a result of this campaign again, it took months and months for that circulation to be restored. These forces ultimately ensured we lost control of the company and were forced to sell it to a magazine. I think sassy and miss a controversial partly because I see is some deals with teenage girls and a Frank and adult Way Mays because it's a fabulous magazine but old magazines are affected by these precious. I'd like to just tell you about an incident that occurred a few weeks ago. The October issues of a large number of women's magazines in this country including glamour Mademoiselle. Nicole's read book and I believe the Ladies Home Journal Willow pulled from retail distribution because I can't I find an ad for Nivea creme. I'm sure you know what that it said buddy claim and the creative Nivea resign by German company and the creative for that ad was supplied from the the German advertising agency and it showed a naked woman just would have caused to their arms above head in a kind of very free spirit kind of way with long hair and it to me was a perfectly reasonable way. Portray and advertisers Cravens body creme and he was a beautiful female body the problem and the discourse and equips to complain to the retail outlets and as a result of which none of those magazines were distributed. Because the magazines that I'm talking about is so big and so powerful that would be listed for 1 month. Where is in our case? We went to listed until we could prove that sells good girls and get back in the cupboard L magazine. It was not distributed across many parts of the country because it contained a cup of short of a woman who is wearing a crisscross black and white black crochet. Tank top of some kind and she was not wearing a bra and if you looked very very carefully you could detect a tiny bit of nipple under that top and that was not distributed. I think the efforts of these groups to dictate the content of network TV programs has received extensive press coverage and to their credit at least tell Mary to television are resisting these precious. But what is happening in magazines is less well-known because it is rarely reported. And I think this is a very Sinister attempt to limit free speech. I believe it's a challenge to the industry to Publishers and editors and consumers alike to fight it. The new Iron with Ms. At says it means when a longer accept advertising bring the magazine from these precious I think will be very important but there is a cost of the Raiders going to have to pay for the magazine. It means I will pay at least double and probably more what they presently pay and that will still not today, but I stupid juice and a glossy product or to use color of expensive editorial that we've been used to doing. I think this that the decision to not accept as in Ms. Is a very brave gesture. It's an experiment. It's never been done before in the magazine industry that we have to wish you every success because if it works, it will be a Trailblazer as Miss always has been and helping reduce the power of advertisers on what we are free to write and print. Thank you. It's at the site doesn't happen. But I think it's less likely I think the advertising industry. I mean not so much the advertising agencies, but the client a very conservative, I mean that it is the institutional nature of these very large companies to be very conservative. And even where they were quite enlightened people working in those corporations. And even when the advertising agencies recommend that they going to put it in a magazine what the these advertisers tend to want to avoid more than anything specific subject though. Some of them do as you have a list of subjects that they will not allow you to publish in any YouTube advertising They bested we want to avoid controversy of any kind. They just want the world to be happy and glands and and without any major fights because their argument is this is why a lot of companies wine advertised in a magazine if that's going to be a lot of content on abortion is something which is controversial half of the other customers going to be on one side. And how's it going to be on the other to alienate half of their actual or potential customers? it is interesting though that I don't think this is quite what to what you were asking other right-wing example, but but just to show you how sensitive ever ties as you might recall the Time Magazine did a cover story on World War II and I had to hold the whole picture well was devoted to commemorating whatever anniversary it was if World War II German or Japanese manufacturer would advertising that it should very sensitive I think it is likely that the magazine will continue as a magazine but it will be very different because of the reasons I mentioned is rated at a pay for it entirely. Even on a set of scaled-down basis was very little coloring and all those kinds of economies. It's still very expensive to produce a magazine. It's a custom paper Printing and posted to the made major costing in magazine production. It will take a fairly large number of people hang a relatively large subscription price to make it work. And I guess that has yet to be tested in the country of the size, but there aren't enough people willing to pay the $30. What if it will be at your neighbor? Mr. Cigar by sincerely. Well, it does. This is my point that it is if you're always looking over your shoulder to see whether or not the advertisers going to be upset by what you publish that inevitably has a depressing and the blinding effect on on what you plan to put in a magazine. There's certainly time that has helped people. I mean magazines the pictures Tuesday in advance of of their appearing on the newsstand the ads are booked a couple of months ahead of that. And and what I think it is fairly standard practices wants the advertising director finds out what's in the issue is she feels this going to be a problem with with sitting advertisers. I mean, I think it's a matter of courtesy you just call him and say look and I miss his Readiness big article on X. We just want to make sure you're comfortable to appear in a t-shirt. I mean that gives them the opportunity so I know when to pull out and then you'll lose a lot of money but the point is the way in which these sort of how the other times is Heaven by anyway, and a page the number of smackwater the cold make go to heaven to give advertisers the free page because if they objected to the article that were opposite or that ejected what was on the cover of that ejected to arrange of things and refused to pay for the cost of the ad is really terrible. and there's nothing you can do it when you can take him to court and sue them for the money, but Not worth spending couple hundred thousand dollars on a suit to recover $16,000. But this is what I'm saying to you about the economics of the industry. I thought that the advertisers had hold all the cards because they pay the bills. And I think that ultimately the industry has to deal with it so that everybody complains about it all the Publishers complain about it, but the bottom line is that that you that I have to pay more when you cannot expect to pay a dollar a copy for a magazine. You're going to have to pay more. For $5, which is more realistic price and that way they advertise his power is going to be severely with cheers to that. I'd like something will they can run but they can't determine the editorial content of a magazine. But if you look at what's happened to magazines particular in the last 10 years and how I me know the best journalism has to be in magazines. You just don't find that anymore. Everything's going to be glad to be one of the things that really shocked me when I first went to me is and you'd get the rundown of advertisers for the next issue and they owe in addition to booking your page or two pages or quarter page or whatever, but also request positioning and everybody of course wants fast forward right hand page which is impossible to accommodate 30 advertises. So that was a constant battle but more than that. They all said to mind being adjacent happy edit. And therefore you have to create editorial tickets out of the book. Goodbye, happy to be beside a message. This is one reason why the front of my smashing things are the way they are. I mean that's not stuff that the editor is kind of stuff is there because you have the ties has requirement.