Photographs: Don Fuchs

It is a great pleasure for me to welcome you all here in this wonderful setting provided by our friends of the Department of State and Regional Development represented here by Warwick Glenn. This certainly is a milestone in the history of the FCA. This is one of the most important single agreements our organization has signed in the last 20 years.

Our co-operation with Telstra will enable us to do what we do best: news. The resurrection of our extremely popular luncheons under the title of "FCA-Telstra Newsmaker Luncheon" will allow us to invite people that have something to say to the world. This is what the FCA is all about. We report to the world. If we would combine the number of readers, viewers and listeners our members work for around the globe - from China to the US, from Switzerland to Kenya - it surely would be in the hundreds of millions.

It is a fantastic that a major company like Telstra has recognized the potential that lies in these numbers. I would like to thank Andrew Maiden who has negotiated the details with us in record time. And of course our appreciation goes to our Executive Secretary April Pressler, who so skillfully started the initial discussions.

I know that some of the members in this room have certain concerns that our independence as reporters could be compromised by this agreement. These concerns are not warranted.

It is one of our principles that whenever the FCA signs such an agreement we make it quite clear that the independence of our members as journalists cannot be compromised. They will, as I do, write about Telstra or any other sponsor exactly the way we have always done it: in a professional, balanced and if necessary also critical manner. By the way, I would make it clear that neither Telstra nor any other organization we have as sponsors have ever asked for any favourable treatment.

My view is that it is exactly our independence and the unique diversity of media our membership represents, that makes the FCA attractive to our partners. Because independence is something that you hardly find anymore in the Australian media, where an increasing number of outlets at certain times look more like propaganda instruments of the government, rather than critical, independent observers. It would not surprise me if more and more people in Australia are sourcing their information about this country from overseas media - media, many of you colleagues here work for.

But now I would like to invite Sol Truijllo to the microphone, the CEO of Telstra. I do not think I have to introduce Mr Truijllo. He is certainly one of the most well known Executives in the country - nearly as well known as Phil Burgess who we all know from his colorful statements on TV that have proven to be so popular in Canberra.

After Sols' speech we do not open for questions, as this is a celebration, not a media conference. But he is happy to talk on one-to-one basis and answer your questions when we all have our glass of wine.

Sol, it is a great pleasure to have you here. Thank you.


Sol Trujillo, chief executive of Telstra, seemed to take a risk getting together with a room full of so-called reptiles of the media on Thursday night. He was the guest of honour at a sponsorship launch with members of the Foreign Correspondents Association (FCA). Telstra's FCA sponsorship means the Association can afford high-profile speakers of international importance as guest speakers at Telstra/FCA Newsmaker luncheons. Mr Trujillo emphasised that the sponsorship had no strings attached and journalists were completely independent, while President of the Association Urs Walterlin echoed the same sentiments. Among the Telstra party was Andrew Maiden, director of Telstra News Services, who indicated that he had taken in a suggestion that the company should let clients know when the net goes down and why it happened. He believes that the NextGtn mobile will go a long way further than the present CDMA which is mostly used in the country and is scheduled to be withdrawn next January. But country subscribers need a handset with an external aerial to get a better performance. Telstra has come in for some criticism lately on saying nothing about problems when users can't even make contact with the operators of Australia's biggest telecommunications group. The chief executive was a little more cautious, saying that sometimes nobody really knows what happens on the net and a sudden rush of users might be a factor.

Spreading a communications system across the nation is still in the hands of the Government and they have given foreign-owned Optus a billion dollars to do the job. Mr Trujillo said he was more interested in the happenings of Google and Microsoft because they are the greatest challenge. Separately Telstra's $4 billion fibre broadband network also faces an inquiry and is also delayed and awaiting decisions by the Government. On Wednesday the Australian Financial Review reported that the Federal Government said it was considering overhauling the laws requiring Telstra to provide a phone service to every Australian regardless where they live. Communications Minister Helen Coonan said the review would focus on the total cost of providing basic phone services and how that would be shared among Telstra and its rivals. As an FCA member and owner of RWE Australian Business News based in the country, Ralph Wragg said the feedback from other country people is that they desperately want basic communications everywhere and now. If communications are speeded up so much the better, but it is no good if there is no system on which to work. The thrust of Mr Trujillo's remarks was all about change. He said in 1985 there was no web, there was no email , there was no online content. Look what has happened in 22 years. In January 2007, there were over a billion users of the Internet across the world. In North America 70 per cent of P2P traffic is video. The Telstra boss described the industry to FCA journalists by way of the old world and the new world. It was an old world of passive consumers of media; the new world has interactive participants with online identities. Fifty five per cent of online teens have profiles online and 79 per cent have included photos of themselves. Old world had only experts on the ground; the new world is competing with online commentators, bloggers etc. Trujillo, in passing, said nine blogs are created every minute and 2.3 content updates are posted every second. The number of US blog readers was estimated at 57 million adults (39 per cent of the US online population) although few of those people read widely or read often. In the world of media, old world is hard copy mastheads; new world is online news portals fed by predefined user preferences for news alerts.

He said the old world of journalists and and business leaders are now a new world of public relations and communications consultants. Old world news cycles, dependent upon frequency of hardcopy publications, have been replaced by new world news cycles in real time. When asked where they get most of their news and information about science, 20 per cent of all Americans say they turn to the Internet for most of their science news. That translates to 40 million adults. Forty nine per cent of Internet users said they had gotten information on climate change through the web via email. For the 87 per cent of Internet users who have gotten science news and information online, when they need the latest science news *61 per cent say they first go online. * 34 per cent cite another source, with those sources being fairly evenly spread among magazines, books the library, TV, encyclopedias and news newspapers.

Trujillo said there were downsides of the Web 2.0 World:

• It is the wild, wild west
• There is no capacity to validate sources
• There is no authentication
• There is no authority
• Wikipedia - anything goes versus Encyclopedia Britannica - comprehensive well searched facts
• Plagiarism is rife

Sol Trujillo concluded that Telstra is part of the transformation for the "new world". It understands the world is changing and is mindful that Telstra must also change to meet the new world. The transformation is from a plain old telco with just pipes to an integrated media-comms company.