The Koori Mail - New England's national indigenous newspaper

For a little while, an Aboriginal colleague at the office has been lending me copies of the Koori Mail to read. That colleague is leaving, so I am going to have to take out a subscription if I want to continue to keep in touch.

The Koori Mail is, I think, one of the few if not the only New England publication with truly national reach.

The paper was founded in in 1991 by Owen and Sue Carriage. In 1992, it was taken over by a company called Budsoar Pty Ltd, jointly owned by five Aboriginal organisations on the North Coast of New South Wales- Bundjalung Tribal Society (Lismore), Bunjum Aboriginal Co-operative (Cabbage Tree Island), Kurrachee Co-operative Society (Coraki), Nungera Co-operative (Maclean) and Buyinbin (Casino).

The Koori Mail remains an entirely self-funding, wholly Aboriginal owned company. The board of directors comprises one member from each of the five Aboriginal organisations that own it, with twenty percent interest from each.

The paper's mission is to report news and relay advertising of interest to indigenous Australians and people interested in indigenous affairs. It covers news from around the nation and accepts contributions in the form of stories, poetry, news, photographs and artwork.

For a long time the paper was the only national voice of the indigenous community. Today it has developed into a strong fortnightly voice with an audited circulation of 90,000.

Media Hunter - a new blog

In my browsing I was pleased to discover Media Hunter, a new blog started by Craig Wilson from Sticky Advertising.

I mention this because the blog already contains some interesting material about the Australian media with a particular focus on Newcastle and the Hunter.

Tamworth and the History of Country Music

Photo: Max Ellis and John Minson, "Mr Hoedown"

In a post I wrote on my personal blog about Australian Idol, I talked about the impact that Tamworth and Tamworth country music had had on the development of Jessica Mauboy.

At 14 Jessica's well-developed skills as a vocalist helped to secure first place in the Road to Tamworth competition, where Jess had the opportunity to meet local country legends: "Part of the prize was to go to the Tamworth Camerata Junior College, the music school. That was so fun. We got to meet Beccy Cole and Kasey Chambers. They just had a talk about how they developed through their music. I was really into that. It gave me confidence and made me love music more.”

The evolution of Tamworth as the national country music centre has played a significant role in developing Australian talent.

Tamworth Camerata (and here) is unique in Australia, and possibly the world, as the only recognised country music school for junior performers where they learn from the best in the business. It is widely acknowledged as a ‘feeder’ for the grown-up version - the CMAA Australian College of Country Music, as many Camerata graduates progress to college and further afield in the pursuit of their careers.

Following up this earlier story, I was pleased to find Max Ellis's site on the history of country music in Australia.

I will write fuller posts on the country music story later. For the moment, I simply wanted to note that Tamworth and country music sit at the intersection of several very different New England themes.

Max himself is the son of Ulrich Ellis, a significant figure in New England's history because of his role as Earle Page's political secretary, his political writing and his role with the New England New State Movement.

When Max began his country music development work, he was working for Tamworth radio station 2TM. Owned by Broadcast Amalgamated Ltd (BAL), 2TM was part of the New England Radio Network and played a key role in the early development of country music.

In doing so, it carried on a another theme in New England's history, the way in which the then locally owned media promoted the New England interest.

BAL itself is a very interesting story, one that I wrote up in part some years ago because my grandfather, David Drummond, was on the board and the board papers themselves form part of the Drummond holdings in the University of New England Archives.

Founded by the Higinbotham's, another of the pioneering New England media families, BAL grew from one radio station into a chain, then sponsored the formation of TV New England and East Coast TV. The board papers show very clearly the nature of the challenges faced in building and running a radio business in Regional Australia as compared to the metros because of the smaller populations involved. The also show the business acumen of Mr Higinbotham in defining solutions to meet those challenges.

Tamworth country music itself is an example of this. The launch of TV New England damaged 2TM's radio audience, leading Max Ellis (Max was then working for BAL) and the station to look for new promotional opportunities. Tamworth country music was one outcome.

This brings me to the final theme, one of great interest to me, the reasons why some communities develop, others do not. Here Tamworth has always been an interesting case study because of the way that community generated a series of new businesses. I explored this in another story on my personal blog, "A Town like Alice: development and creativity at community level."

Newcastle's Information Blackhole

Photo: Newcastle

Sometimes I feel that writing this blog is a little like a prisoner trying to escape, chipping away with a small blunt knife at a giant wall, finally getting through the first wall only to find another one. The point?

As part of my writing I wanted to find out information about Newcastle. Not the type of static information found on Council or visitor web sites, but information and views on current issues of concern to the City. While this blog covers a wide period from New England's pre-historic past to the present, I do like to keep current. I also want to identify linkages and commonalities in needs, interests and concerns across area.

Dear me this is hard to do with Newcastle, the place appears to be an information black hole. Let me share my frustrations with you by taking you along the search path.

The logical starting point is obviously the on-line edition of the main local paper, in this case the Newcastle Herald, a major Fairfax publication. This should be a treasure trove of information.

So click on the Herald web site. Now what do you find? A very small number of very short stories cross-linked to the story in the printed edition of the paper. Almost useless to someone trying to keep in touch with the city from outside.

Okay, the paper has a search facility. Drought has been a problem in the Lower Hunter, so lets type drought in the archive search box. Maybe this will help. The result takes you through to the Fairfax News Store where you can view an article at $2.20 per view. Now this is absolutely useless to me. I have no idea as the real relevance of the story and, in any case, there is no way I am prepared to pay this just to keep in touch.

I could, I suppose, take out a subscription to the physical paper. But again, I cannot really afford this.

Now compare this with the Northern Daily Leader, a Rural Press publication. Here you will find main current articles plus a good search facility. Not all things are on line, but it is a good base. I do fear for the future, however, now that Rural Press and Fairfax are in the process of merging.

So let's think about TV. Newcastle based NBN has a good TV news. Does its site help you find new items about the area served? No, it is I think one of the worst web sites I have seen.

Prime also carries regional news. Their site is better in a general sense, but still no way that I can find news.

So both newspapers and commercial TV are hopeless as sources of current news about Newcastle for those outside the area. Where to next? The ABC.

ABC does have a Newcastle site, a site with a working, free search facility. Now that's an advance! While not perfect, this does at least allow me to get some news, if very imperfectly.

Well, what about blogs?

Increasingly I use blogs as a major information source across a range of dimensions because they contain current information. Australia does lag behind the US in blog uptake, but on the national percentages at least 1,000 Newcastle people should blog. Many of these will be purely personal, others commercial, but there should still be something.

Now here Google blog search results follow. Here I got depressed because this blog kept on showing up! For obvious reasons, I have excluded my own comments!

A blog search on Newcastle NSW blog blogs brings up three pages of posts, but none really relevant. A similar search on Newcastle NSW politics brings up 44 posts. From here we have just one:

• Michael Osbourne's blog - Michael is a Green candidate for Newcastle City Council

A blog search on Newcastle NSW life drew 46 posts. However, while I did find two Newcastle based personal blogs, their focus did not meet my information needs.

A blog search on Newcastle NSW drought drew a smaller number of posts, again none really relevant. I then did a search on I Live in Newcastle.

At this point I gave up, still depressed both at Newcastle's information black hole and the fact that, in the blog world at least, my very limited comments on Newcastle have such apparent visibility.

Later - 4 November 2015

I have finally filled the Newcastle information gap through blogs. See my New England Australia blog list.