Five-time Walkley winner Monica Attard spoke to multimedia journalist Bill Code about the brand new Global Mail project. Entirely philanthropically funded by internet entrepreneur Graeme Wood, the site follows in the footsteps of similar public interest ventures such as ProPublica in the US and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in the UK.
With no charge and no advertising for in-depth, long-form journalism from experienced journalists, there could be a new player in the field of quality online journalism.
SBS: How's the first week going?
It's been extraordinarily busy but a fabulous reaction so far and people are coming to us, staying, and coming back again for more. We're very happy – I have to say that their responses online have been overwhelmingly positive.
There were a few teething problems on launch day – has everything been ironed out?
With these sorts of things you think you've ironed them out but something else pops up – it's the nature of the business. On the first day we did crash momentarily, largely because so many people were coming to the site all at once, but that was quickly rectified. There are some ongoing smaller issues to do with scrolling which on some computers and providers are proving to be a little challenging, but we're working through those.
A lot of the initial chatter on Twitter was a little unfair – did you cop much of that?
We did see all of it of course, we are completely across that. But I must say that when you stack up the figures of those who are a little bit narky compared to those who came to the site, they were miniscule.
More important is the journalism side of things – There's some really good long form content on there, some of it so long that I didn't get a chance to finish it. How do you expect content of that length to fare online?
We think they'll fare really well. Those that are writing in are reading them in their entirety – they are chunky, they're meant to be, that's the whole mission – to provide people with good reads that are exploratory and complete where we're not cutting corners, where we're explaining, contextualising in a very nuanced way. That's our brief and that's presumably why people come to us. It's probably the same reason people read Vanity Fair or read the New Yorker, they read because they want that context and they want that nuance.
Was there ever a consideration to publish a paper version with all that long form content?
No, not at this point anyway…It hasn't been discussed and I don't think there's much of an appetite for that here.
The site appears to have been designed with tablets in mind as it displays horizontally – but then when you use the mobile site it displays vertically – so what's the horizontal feature about?
We went horizontal because it's new and it's not used very much in this medium. Clearly we are expecting an app down the track, hopefully sooner rather than later and it is nice to get people used to this format.
You've been philanthropically-funded with $15m – how long does that buy you?
Hopefully about five years – that's what we'd like to think.
And how many full-time staff are on the payroll?
23.
Investigations are quite expensive and you have two pieces in that section at launch, how many of those do you expect to pump out?
We have an investigative unit made up of three people; they'll pump out when they have something to pump out. Investigations are long-haul enterprises and are not things you can get out every week, and we don't intend to, and we are unable to. Not only ProPublica in the United States which has 32 people doing investigative work can get one up every day. But that's just one small part of what we do; we can't be judged by that because 99 per cent of our work is feature work, not investigative.
And you've promised no celebrity stories?
That has to be a pretty bloody good story.
You only have to look at certain Australian newsites to see it is tempting though, no click bait for Twitter?
Not in any shape or form.
There's no advertising on the site – but is it really so bad?
I think it can be quite corruptive, and I think it can be annoying for readers online as well. So none at this point, and I can't see it changing.
Is there an iPad app in the works, and do you plan to charge for it?
There is an app in the works, and we haven't decided.
Paul Steiger (ProPublica) is on the advisory committee, what's he brought to the table?
What he will bring to the table is immense experience as one of the most venerable of journalists in the United States. He was the founding editor of ProPrublica, so he knows where all the I.T. bodies are buried, so to speak. And editorially, he has one of the finest editorial minds in the United States, so he can give us his view.
How will you measure success, in Walkleys?
Wouldn't that be nice to think?
