One way to improve the caliber of newspaper reportage would be to teach reporters better ways to obtain and analyze data. Computer-assisted reporting is becoming recognized as one way to do that in the United States.

What is happening in Australia? CAR has not evolved in Australia to the extent it has in America. In an article in Australian Studies in Journalism in 1994, journalism lecturer Kerry Green predicted that the Australian news media would eventually adopt CAR. The adoption would occur "probably sooner than later," he said.

Three years later, he was still optimistic but he accepted that CAR had not developed as quickly as he expected. Costs, management attitudes and time for training were the major reasons for the delay, he said. "Someone in control of the purse strings at a publication must support CAR developments."

Given these difficulties, have working journalists in Australia ventured their CAR onto the information highway? Key journalists at Melbourne's two dailies (the Sun Herald and The Age), the Brisbane Courier Mail, the Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian (based in Sydney) were interviewed.

Selection of newspapers was based on the theory that news organisations can be divided into "A" and "B" categories. "A" level organizations are willing to devote resources to reporting complex issues in the community, nation and the world. In Australia, the most likely candidates are the papers at the quality end of the spectrum among the major capital city dailies, and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Starting CAR

In June and July, I conducted a national study of Australia's 49 dailies to discover journalists' use of the Internet for newsgathering. Two of the 27 questions covered the issue of deep CAR training, that is the use of databases and spreadsheets for investigative journalism. Only one paper, The Age in Melbourne, said it had offered any CAR training.

An inquiry to the CARR-L mailing list in August this year asking for the names of any Australian journalists actively involved in using CAR methods received no replies. An inquiry to the same list last year produced one reply, from Thom Cookes. Cookes, a senior reporter at The Age, is one of a handful of reporters in the country who employ CAR methods. He has been producing stories based on deep CAR since February last year. CAR was "mostly virgin territory in Australia," he said. It could easily be sold to news executives because it produced exclusives. "News executives love exclusives because by their very nature they are not on the news agenda, they come out of the blue. It's a major selling point for CAR." Cookes said journalists must learn how to apply technology to the reporting process. "The organizations and people that we are reporting on are now more often than not keeping their records electronically. Sometimes there is no paper document to be FOI'd [obtained via Freedom of Information legislation] or leaked. Government is scrutinizing itself - and is being scrutinized by others - with the aid of computers and we should be learning how to do the same."

Beginning training

The Herald Sun, also in Melbourne, has begun some training of journalists, but at a basic level. As of the end of last year, 12 journalists had attended a one-day introduction to computers and a further two-hour session on the Internet.

Keith Moor, editor of the paper's investigative section, "Insight," said some of the paper's reporters were using basic CAR to arrange interviews via e-mail and conduct research via the Internet. "CAR is another tool for journalists, like the phone book."

The paper has one Internet connection but only a handful of journalists know how to use it. Moor maintains that journalism courses must introduce students to the online world. "It's a vital tool that journalism students need to know how to use."

Rodney Chester, computer and technology writer for the Courier-Mail in Brisbane, said his paper employs CAR methods. Since 1995, the Courier-Mail had taken examination results from schools around Brisbane, dropped them into Excel and analyzed them to produce stories. Chester said his paper had not provided CAR training but one staff member, who used spreadsheets prior to joining the paper, had conducted informal sessions. Jon Casimir, editor of the Sydney Morning Herald's online edition, said journalists at the Herald were beginning to use the Internet for newsgathering. But no-one was doing any deep CAR work. "I would argue that there isn't a media outlet in Australia committed to investigative journalism. They've all been stripped back too much. This is just my opinion, of course." No Herald journalists had ever been sent to any of the CAR training organizations in America, he said. Malcolm Schmidtke, editor of The Australian until July this year, said his paper hoped to send one or two people to such a course in the next couple of years. Schmidtke said CAR would be adopted in Australia much more slowly than had been the case in the U.S. "Sophisticated research-based journalism has not been part of the culture in Australia in the way it has in the United States. Editors have not had the resources - nor probably the inclination - to pursue long-term and complicated projects that may in the end produce very little.

"Apart from a brief flirt with [UK] Sunday Times style investigative journalism, Australian papers have tended to rely on the dump of documents or the whistleblower to provide the impetus for investigation. However, times are changing and editors - certainly this one - are becoming more aware of the rich pickings in databases."

A few television journalists use online journalism methods. Peter McEvoy, a former researcher with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's flagship current affairs program Four Corners, said he had used the Internet "a bit" for research.

"It just seems sensible to have a look around on the Internet to see what groups are active in one particular story or issue. A lot of scientific information, for example, is now posted on the Internet."

A handful of enthusiasts on the nation's major dailies are using CAR in their work. Some newspaper owners are realising the opportunities that the Internet offers for newsgathering.

For example, all journalists at the Fairfax organization (one of the three main newspaper groups in Australia, and owners of the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Financial Review and The Age) will have e-mail and Internet access from their desks by the end of the year.

I plan to conduct a similar study next year to the inquiry I conducted this year. The results could be fascinating. Stephen Quinn can be reached by e-mail at squinn@deakin.edu.au