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From Information to Insight with Michael Short in THE ZONE

On a trip to Melbourne in 2008, the expansive Robyn Lucas convinced Michael Short at THE AGE to meet me for a drink close to his office to talk about Ruby TV and European correspondence.

Michael (who has also worked in Paris) was refreshingly genuine, generous and enthusiastic and has been supportive in various ways since. Best of all, I’ve discovered The Zone, his multi-media project about people, ideas and change. His belief in the worth of insightful journalism and delivery of it is an inspiration.

Ruby TV: What is The Zone?

Michael Short: Probably the best way I can describe The Zone is to give you the description we publish with it each week: “The zone is about activism and advocacy. It is collaborative. Its purpose is to ventilate arguments for moving an issue or situation from what is the case to what might be or ought to be the case. Across a broad range of areas including public policy, philanthropy, philosophy, culture, community, design and business, The Zone seeks to bring fresh thoughts into the free market for ideas.’’

The Zone is a multimedia package: a feature and portrait (which run in The Age every Monday and across Fairfax Media online sites and apps including The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, WA Today, The Brisbane Times and The National Times); a full transcript (online); a video or soundslide (online); and a chat session, which runs in full online and is then excerpted in The Age on The Zone’s page the following week.

What inspired you, and keeps inspiring you, to make this program?

I am interested in people, ideas and change. I am fascinated by the evolution of ideas, and so The Zone is as much about the thinkers as their thoughts.

I had been in executive editorial roles for years, and I was getting frustrated. I think media organisations are devoting too many of their scarce resources to telling people things they already know through real-time outlets and through broadcast media. There is still a need to report who, what, where and when, but I think there is an increasing need to provide differentiating journalism. That means looking more at why and how. Overall, it means moving from information to insight.

Tell me a bit about your background and work outside The Zone.

My professional background is this:

Michael Short created The Zone in April 2010. Published in The Age and across Fairfax Media’s digital platforms, The Zone is an interview-based, multimedia package that examines ideas and the people behind them. He launched The Zone after spending four years on the newspaper’s editorial board and after a year as editor of new media, as well as overseeing production and pictorial. Michael rejoined The Age as executive editor – business, in March 2005, having worked at the newspaper in various roles in the 1980s and early 1990s. Since late 2002, when he returned from 10 years in Paris, he had been in charge of the Melbourne operations of The Australian Financial Review.

In 2002, Michael was invited to write and deliver a post-graduate course on journalism and media at the Political Sciences Institute in Paris, one of France’s most prestigious universities. From 1999 until 2001, he was founding European chief executive of NewsAlert, a company that created real-time information channels of news and applications for websites. From 1997, he was multimedia director for Bloomberg News in Paris, as well as doing live daily television analyses and studio interviews. Prior to that, he was founding editor-in-chief of Bloomberg Television, France. During his 25-year career, he has worked in print, radio and television in Australia, the USA and Europe, including a scholarship with the Paris-based Journalists in Europe Foundation. He graduated from the University of Melbourne with majors in economics, philosophy and commercial law.

I also have been married for 21 years and we have three children. So, my time outside The Zone tends to involve a lot of family stuff. I also am involved in a number of not-for-profit and community-based organisations, which gives me much joy and from which I get so much more than I actually put in.

What are the goals you have for The Zone?

A venture capitalist recently came to me and offered me quite a lot of money to take The Zone private and set up a production company. That remains an option, but at this point I have a simple goal for The Zone: to keep it going across Fairfax Media, because I believe a lot of the ideas discussed by my guests are relevant to a wide audience. The feedback I get certainly is indicating that a lot of the arguments and ideas are resonating.

The Zone is something that we are looking to evolve towards some documentary filmmaking, group interviews, conferences and perhaps a book.

For the moment, though, I am totally focussed on building it in its current format. I have a pipeline of ideas and topics that could go for years.

How do you choose your guests and what have been a couple of highlights so far?

The Zone is collaborative. Twenty years ago, I was the chief political reporter in Victoria for The 7:30 Report. That was combative journalism. These days, I choose guests I want to support. The Zone is not there to present every side of an issue. It is there is present an argument for change. I have a wonderful and privileged job. I draw on a quarter of a century of experience that includes stints as an editor-in-chief, a commentator and a chief executive to think about and select positions I agree with. So, for example, I am not going to have a climate change denier in The Zone, because I do not agree with that position.

It is hard to select highlights, as there have been so many extraordinary and inspiring guests. I try to have a mix of people – some well-known, others who have not been part of public debate.

So, I am hesitant to name any, as they all impressed me in some profound way, but here are some that I particularly loved:

Paul Monk, writer, former spy – Why the new atheists are wrong, and the search for meaning
Kon Karapanagiotidis, founder and CEO of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre – Why our political leaders are disgracefully wrong on immigration
Simon McKeon, Melbourne chairman of Macquarie Bank, Chairman of CSIRO and, it turned out, the next Australian of the Year – On giving and meaning and climate change
Leyla Acaraglu, Founder and CEO of Eco Innovators – On adding sustainability as a pillar of design theory and practice

What have you learnt about filmed interviews and how to get your subject to open up?

Ruby, as you would know from your work, it is often the case that people’s nerves take over as soon as the lights, microphone and camera are turned on. The two most classic signs are that their voice will go up half an octave and their facial muscles will constrict.

This used to happen all the time when I was doing political journalism on television. But, as I have stressed, The Zone is collaborative, so it is not hard for me get people to understand that they are not going into a risky situation. I am not there to challenge them, but to help them communicate something about which they are knowledgeable and passionate.

I never just line up an interview, get the guest into the office and then record. I always try to at least meet for a coffee. I prefer to have lunch with my guests a few days before the interview, and just spend some human time, which is best done over a meal, I find, talking about the issues and about life. It means that we have generally developed some trust and even complicity before the interview. That way, people are confident, spontaneous, open and precise.

Who are your inspirations in the realm of journalism and for what qualities?

Again, a hard one to answer, as there are so many people I respect for so many different reasons.

An Australian journalist, Caroline Jones, used to do an interview-based radio programme called The Search for Meaning that I still feel is one of the great products of our media in the past quarter of a century. I think this because she recognised that many issues and emotions and situations are universal and that, even if we were not openly discussing it all the time, people are actually on a search for meaning. That search can be shackled by cosmic loneliness and existential angst, and I think she did a wonderful job helping people see that not only are they not alone, but that there is much joy and hope, even amid the shit that happens.

My friend and colleague John Spooner is the only cartoonist ever to have won Australian journalist of the year. I find his intellect and wit and creativity close to genius. He has guts and decency and will not merely bow to conventional thinking.

Likewise, Michael Leunig, who kindly did The Zone dinkus for me, is one of the most insightful, brilliant creators in Australia media. I often find his take on existence refreshing.

I think one of the best pieces of writing ever done by a journalist is George Orwell’s 1946 essay, Politics and the English Language. It contains great advice for writers.

I think Phillip Adams’ Late Night Live is eclectic and often interesting.

And, although I think he became a sad parody, Hunter Thompson wrote some excellent political stuff in his earlier days.

What issues/themes do you find yourself coming back to constantly in your journalism and why do they hold your passion?

The overarching theme is change. Where there is a gap between is and ought, we should fight for change. And, by the way, where there is no such gap, we should be radically conservative.

I guess it comes down to decency and fairness. A theme that keeps coming up in The Zone is the randomness of fortune. So, many of my guests have said they feel so lucky and privileged and that they realise things could have been different had they been born in another place. Another key idea that runs like a platinum thread through The Zone is that there is no `them’, as in ‘they should do something about X’. There is only us. Why the hell would we think a small number of elected representatives would be the repository of wisdom and change?

There are so many people out there doing wonderful things. Community is a powerful concept. There are those who feel that that which is not permitted is forbidden. I do not share that view. I like to be with people who believe that that which is not forbidden is permitted. There is a big difference in those two philosophies.

Who are your next guests?

Poet and slam champ Emilie Zoey Baker
Joan McCarthy, co-author of Sixty, Strong and Sexy; Women Share Their Secrets
Anthony Cheeseman, one of the founders of the Madcap Café, a series of three cafes that help provide employment and training and support for people with mental health issues
Ian Porter, head of the Alternative Technology Association

What is the future of the Zone? Other projects?

As I mentioned above, I’d like to keep building it in its current multimedia format. I’ll look again at the venture capital idea, and would talk to Fairfax about becoming a part-owner of any production company. There is much scope for such things as our industry moves towards multiplatform delivery of original journalism. There is so much creative scope right now, and media companies, newspaper publishers in particular, will miss a wonderful opportunity (and may not survive) unless they move from such a focus on telling people what they already know.

There is also much scope to slice and dice The Zone into books, DVDs and an app.

Most of all, I just want to keep interviewing people about ideas.