Upheaval Disrupted lives in journalism

Newsrooms, the engine rooms of reporting, have shrunk. A generation of journalists has borne witness to seismic changes in the media. Sharing stories from more than 50 Australian journalists—including Amanda Meade, David Marr, and Flip Prior—Upheaval reveals the highs and the lows of those who were there to see it all. They show us life inside frenetic and vibrant newsrooms at the peak of their influence, and the difficulties of adapting to ever-accelerating news cycles with fewer resources. Some left journalism altogether while others stayed in the media—or sought to reinvent it. Normally the ones telling other people’s stories, in Upheaval journalists share the rawness of losing their own job or watching others lose theirs. They reveal their anxieties and hopes for the industry’s future and their commitment to reporting news that matters.

Andrew Dodd is the director of the Centre for Advancing Journalism and an Associate professor of journalism at the University of Melbourne. He was a broadcaster at ABC Radio National, where he presented several programs and launched the Media Report. He was a journalist at ABC TV’s 7.30 Report and The Australian newspaper, where he covered media and business. He is the founding editor of The Junction, which connects over 25 university journalism programs across Australia and the Pacific to produce collaborative journalism. He is the author of one book and the co-editor of another. Matthew Ricketson has worked as an academic and journalist for four decades. He has worked on staff at The Age, The Australian and Time Australia magazine, among others. He has run journalism programs in three universities – RMIT, University of Canberra and now Deakin University, where he is a professor of communications. He is a chief investigator on three Australian Research Council grants about the state of journalism in Australia.