Club Bloggery: Once Were Barons

Abstract

Though we often give the print media a hard time here at Club Bloggery, we’re not so sanguine about the end of the iconic magazine, The Bulletin, last month. Despite its virulently racist origins, and its tendency under Kerry Packer to be used now and then as the mogul’s mouthpiece, its end is an alarming symptom of something wider and more serious. The worrying structural problem it reveals is the difficulty of sustaining any venues for the specialised task of investigative journalism in Australian and international media.

Investigative journalism is a notoriously protracted, expensive and difficult business. Complicated stories, stories that must get past deliberate obfuscation by powerful interests, or stories that take a long time to unfold, all require major investment.