Media Watch

[Gozu]

This is probably one of the most shocking articles I've ever read in regards to the media in this country.

"The Australian announces that it wants to "destroy" the Greens":

Until today, I’d never seen a national broadsheet with pretensions to fair and balanced reporting actually admit that it wasn’t just biased against a party supported by 14% of the country, it wanted to “destroy” it. But that’s just what The Australian did in its editorial today:

Greens leader Bob Brown has accused The Australian of trying to wreck the alliance between the Greens and Labor. We wear Senator Brown’s criticism with pride. We believe he and his Green colleagues are hypocrites; that they are bad for the nation; and that they should be destroyed at the ballot box. The Greens voted against Mr Rudd’s emissions trading scheme because they wanted a tougher regime, then used the lack of action on climate change to damage Labor at the election. Their flakey economics should have no place in the national debate.

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/purepoison/2 ... he-greens/

What a national disgrace.

[Media Park]

One paper I won't go out of my way to buy...

[Gozu]

Not many people do The Australian only has about 135,000 readers nationwide and that includes all the freebies.

[Media Park]

Not many people do The Australian only has about 135,000 readers nationwide and that includes all the freebies.

I prefer my local to subtly bag the people they don't like... Not openly...

[Gozu]

A scan of Laura Tingle's article in todays Australian Financial Review about News Ltd's continued war against the Labor Party:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kathleenjo ... otostream/

[Gozu]

Oh dear, "Handbag-gate":

Continuing its slide into a national joke – a right-wing, better financed version of Green Left Weekly* – the Australian finished off its frankly embarrassing Thursday by publishing a humiliatingly stupid attack on Julia Gillard, suggesting that the Prime Minister is somehow an elitist because she doesn’t carry a handbag into events:

Julia enjoys the high life free of old bags

JULIA Gillard may have chosen a dress for her first visit to the Governor-General as the newly elected Prime Minister of Australia, instead of her traditionally efficient power pants suit.

But she continues to show her superwoman characteristics by walking into events sans handbag.

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/purepoison/2 ... dbag-gate/

[Gozu]

"New Paradigm Politics may not change a thing":

The fragmentation drives a circle — vicious or virtuous, depending on your perspective — in which the media tailors its product to appeal to these niches. There are sound reasons why The Australian, for example, has moved from being a conservative paper, with a diversity of opinion from the Right, to being a rigidly pro-Coalition outlet — because that better reflects the views of a readership that heavily skews old, white and male.

http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/09/10/new ... e-a-thing/

[redandblack]

The Australian doesn't even pretend to be even-handed anymore.

They know they're a joke now.

When Chris Schacht stated the obvious fact of their bias to Matt abraham on 891 last week, Abraham denied it vehemenly

Abraham was`forced to admit he's on News Ltd's payroll, of course and volunteered that he had worked for the Australian previously.

You get far more factual analysis reading political blogs than newspaper outlets now, anyway.

[Squawk]

The Australian doesn't even pretend to be even-handed anymore.

They know they're a joke now.

When Chris Schacht stated the obvious fact of their bias to Matt abraham on 891 last week, Abraham denied it vehemenly

Abraham was`forced to admit he's on News Ltd's payroll, of course and volunteered that he had worked for the Australian previously.

You get far more factual analysis reading political blogs than newspaper outlets now, anyway.

Hey R&B - how about a sticky called the "Red Tribute" ? Then find someone to write opposing views - eg the "Green Triangle" and "The Blue Crier". And one for Gozu - "Crikey Mate". Hey, if we get 10% of the readership of the Australian, it'll be great!

[redandblack]

Great idea, squawk

I might start it on here.

Soon.

Very soon

[redandblack]

Just for squawk.


"It’s been a tough couple of weeks.

I suppose the high point was on election night when I triumphantly warned the faithful it wasn’t a time for triumphalism. Of course, it was obvious we’d won.

I’d been confident. Our policies were devastating. Stop the boats! Stop the waste! It had resonated. It was unstoppable. All three word slogans. Brilliant!

I liked it so much, I decided to let 3 boats in a year. (Fortunately, that didn’t get much publicity, so I think I got away with it.)

There were a few hiccups, but Joe told me not to worry about a few noughts and a decimal point or two. I left some policy announcements in the good hands of my ministers (oops, shadow ministers) if there were problems, but the costings luckily didn’t get looked at much and the broadband thingy seemed to go OK. Stop the boats – good, eh?

So election night was wonderful. We’d won a hundred seats in Queensland, so that was that. We’d won, except for a few minor details about seats, but that would correct itself soon enough.

More about the campaign later, but for now we had to work out some tactics to persuade those fine independents to back us, not that it was remotely feasible that they wouldn’t. After all, they’re each one of us. All good conservatives.

Anyway, to tactics. Barnaby suggested we just tell them to pull their heads in and do the right thing. Sounded good to me, so we organised a few of the backbench boys to make a phone call or two to them. That should do the trick, besides, we hadn’t heard a peep out of Julia, who still stupidly insisted the independents were actually independent. Silly woman.

Don’t mention Wilkie. He asked for a billion dollars and I said “no worries, 11 billion or 12 billion, who cares”. Then he double-crossed us. Just as well leaders of other countries wouldn’t stoop to that sort of deception. Bastard.

Don’t mention Treasury. That Ken Henry was OK until recently, but now he insists on using a calculator and things adding up properly. Bastard.

Don’t mention those independents. Bob did the right thing, of course. He’s the sensible one, the other two are mad. And they insist on being independents. If that’s what they wanted , why didn’t they run as independents, instead of Nationals, errr conservatives. Bastards.

So we got cheated out of our rightful entitlement. We won more seats (if you count that crook bastard, err I mean that bastard Crook and don’t count that Green (I must have a word to Rupert about those Greens – bastards) or Windsor and Oakeshott (oh, and don’t count Wilkie, either).

We won the 2 party preferred vote (if you take it as per last Wednesday between 2 and 4 o’clock in the afternoon, but no other time before or after – which seems reasonable to me and besides, all the reporters and newspapers agree - except for that pedantic bastard Antony Green).

We won the primary vote, if you accept that the ALP and the Greens are a coalition for all purposes except for primary vote counting purposes, which also seems fair to me.

It’s not all bad. Everyone is calling me a hero. I’ve achieved the best result by an Opposition Leader against a first term government ever, according to everyone (except for that pedantic bastard Antony Green, who insists Beazley did much better the last time there was a first term government).

Never mind. I’m a man of action, so I called the troops in and set some ‘man of action’’ tactics, which they put into effect with devastating force.

“Ït’s not fair”. Take that!.

“We was robbed”. Kapow!

”The Government is illegitimate” Devastating!

“We’re the only legitimate government.”

Stop the boats!

I’m gradually coming to the conclusion that although we clearly won, I’ll have to wait a while for proper process and Rupert to install me as PM. Meanwhile, I have to appoint a shadow cabinet.

That’s for the next episode.

Can’t wait to tell you about Christopher and Bronwyn and Sophie and Joe and Barnaby and Robbo and all the gang"

[Squawk]

Ah, well done R&B. You'll sleep much better tonight mate Have you sent out invitations to anyone else to be guest editors of your rival publications? Instead of calling the complete suite of publications "The Drum", perhaps simply calling it "The Rum" might suffice? (especially as it might fall just a little short in its embyonic stages).

Just one question - should this be *moved* to the SA Footy Journal?

I guess the next little while will be politically interesting, even if it is likely to be governmentally boring. The Queen of the Prom has even mentioned a desire to see Tony more often! This could end up being a serialised romantic comedy with guests bearing a striking familiarity with the saga of the Montagues and the Capulets. It will certainly make my trips along National Circuit a little more interesting as I pass by the National Press Club and wonder what else might be taking place there that day, that night, even that week, month or year!

[wycbloods]

Thanks for that R&B that was a good read.

[redden whites]

Brilliant R&B........ can we have an editorial from Michelle Chantellios in the near future?

p.s. How is Michelle travelling lately?After Rann denied it 1 tiny piece of evidence and he was dead in the water.An SMS,A voice message,a love note,a motel manager or staff member,a flowers delivery boy,any restraunt employee ,a scribbled note.Still nothing...................................?????

[Psyber]

Brilliant R&B........ can we have an editorial from Michelle Chantellios in the near future?

p.s. How is Michelle travelling lately?After Rann denied it 1 tiny piece of evidence and he was dead in the water.An SMS,A voice message,a love note,a motel manager or staff member,a flowers delivery boy,any restraunt employee ,a scribbled note.Still nothing...................................?????

I assume she has been paid off post-election.
Mike's getting cocky again. Apparently he has told the party he now intends to stay on and contest the next state election.
[My informant in the SA ALP is not impressed by that decision.]

[redden whites]

I assume she has been paid off post-election.

oh dear ...please elaborate on that one ?

[fisho mcspaz]

Just for squawk.


"It’s been a tough couple of weeks.

I suppose the high point was on election night when I triumphantly warned the faithful it wasn’t a time for triumphalism. Of course, it was obvious we’d won.

I’d been confident. Our policies were devastating. Stop the boats! Stop the waste! It had resonated. It was unstoppable. All three word slogans. Brilliant!

I liked it so much, I decided to let 3 boats in a year. (Fortunately, that didn’t get much publicity, so I think I got away with it.)

There were a few hiccups, but Joe told me not to worry about a few noughts and a decimal point or two. I left some policy announcements in the good hands of my ministers (oops, shadow ministers) if there were problems, but the costings luckily didn’t get looked at much and the broadband thingy seemed to go OK. Stop the boats – good, eh?

So election night was wonderful. We’d won a hundred seats in Queensland, so that was that. We’d won, except for a few minor details about seats, but that would correct itself soon enough.

More about the campaign later, but for now we had to work out some tactics to persuade those fine independents to back us, not that it was remotely feasible that they wouldn’t. After all, they’re each one of us. All good conservatives.

Anyway, to tactics. Barnaby suggested we just tell them to pull their heads in and do the right thing. Sounded good to me, so we organised a few of the backbench boys to make a phone call or two to them. That should do the trick, besides, we hadn’t heard a peep out of Julia, who still stupidly insisted the independents were actually independent. Silly woman.

Don’t mention Wilkie. He asked for a billion dollars and I said “no worries, 11 billion or 12 billion, who cares”. Then he double-crossed us. Just as well leaders of other countries wouldn’t stoop to that sort of deception. Bastard.

Don’t mention Treasury. That Ken Henry was OK until recently, but now he insists on using a calculator and things adding up properly. Bastard.

Don’t mention those independents. Bob did the right thing, of course. He’s the sensible one, the other two are mad. And they insist on being independents. If that’s what they wanted , why didn’t they run as independents, instead of Nationals, errr conservatives. Bastards.

So we got cheated out of our rightful entitlement. We won more seats (if you count that crook bastard, err I mean that bastard Crook and don’t count that Green (I must have a word to Rupert about those Greens – bastards) or Windsor and Oakeshott (oh, and don’t count Wilkie, either).

We won the 2 party preferred vote (if you take it as per last Wednesday between 2 and 4 o’clock in the afternoon, but no other time before or after – which seems reasonable to me and besides, all the reporters and newspapers agree - except for that pedantic bastard Antony Green).

We won the primary vote, if you accept that the ALP and the Greens are a coalition for all purposes except for primary vote counting purposes, which also seems fair to me.

It’s not all bad. Everyone is calling me a hero. I’ve achieved the best result by an Opposition Leader against a first term government ever, according to everyone (except for that pedantic bastard Antony Green, who insists Beazley did much better the last time there was a first term government).

Never mind. I’m a man of action, so I called the troops in and set some ‘man of action’’ tactics, which they put into effect with devastating force.

“Ït’s not fair”. Take that!.

“We was robbed”. Kapow!

”The Government is illegitimate” Devastating!

“We’re the only legitimate government.”

Stop the boats!

I’m gradually coming to the conclusion that although we clearly won, I’ll have to wait a while for proper process and Rupert to install me as PM. Meanwhile, I have to appoint a shadow cabinet.

That’s for the next episode.

Can’t wait to tell you about Christopher and Bronwyn and Sophie and Joe and Barnaby and Robbo and all the gang"

I liked this so much I read the whole thing out to Mr McSpaz. Top work!

[Psyber]

I assume she has been paid off post-election.

oh dear ...please elaborate on that one ?

I have nothing to elaborate on - my view expressed was based only on the idea that money seems to be what makes things go away in most cases.
You could subscribe to an alternative and more complex theory that it was all a political set up, I suppose, if you like conspiracy theories.
I just figured the simplest explanation was the most likely - the Occam's Razor principle.

[Gozu]

This article was in Thursday's Crikey email and I thought some might find it informative.

"How the media fails us: John Menadue"

by the Centre for Policy Development's John Menadue

Under-resourced mainstream media is not in a healthy state. It is failing significantly, with a few notable exceptions, in the health field as in most other fields. It is much more than just the shrillness of the Murdoch media. With so little news to break or analyse, it is not surprising that journalists spend such an inordinate amount of time sharing opinions with each other.

Can online media fill the vacuum? Crikey/Croaky, Centre for Policy Development and others are in the field, but they will take time to grow. The important issue for online media to recognise is that technology is the easy part. The hard part is content — information and analysis.

In pay television, for example, we have excellent new technology that has given us more channels and better pictures, but the improvement in content is marginal. We have more choices, but little increase in value. Online media is much cheaper to produce and deliver, but the continuing problem will be access to good content at reasonable cost. Bloggers give us worthwhile and diverse opinions, but are not particularly strong on the dissemination of factual information.

The Australian polity and the media are in a downward spiral, almost a death wish. Disappointment and disillusionment with politics and the media is widespread and growing.

Trivia and personalities prevailed in the media in the last election campaign. The best example of trivia that I can recall was the Australian Financial Review’s portrayal of Julia Gillard saying “Nauru” instead of “East Timor”. As the AFR put it “Gillard’s Nauru gaff rocks asylum seekers’ stance”. Really? I have been getting my four children’s names confused for the past 50 years! Even Kerry O’Brien mis-speaks the ABC for the ALP.

Politicians are clearly running away from the big ticket issues — particularly climate change and the two or three-track economy that the mining boom is foisting on Australia. Politicians listen closely to lobbyists on these big-ticket issues — 900 full-time of them, or 34 for every Cabinet minister. Journalists are under-resourced to examine policy issues and in many cases have become the mouthpiece of special interests with their well-funded public relations activities. The Australian Centre for Independent Journalism at UTS found in a survey of the 10 major metropolitan newspapers published in Crikey in March this year that 55% of content was PR-driven, and 24% of content had little or no significant journalist input. In the specific field of health/science and medicine, the survey found that 52% of content was PR-driven, with 23% of content having little or no significant journalist input.

Before I come specifically to health, let me mention the problem in the wider media context.

The Rudd government introduced timid climate change proposals and then over-compensated the polluters. Frightened by a “big new tax”, the government ran away. The result of the power of special interests and the failure of the media to explain has resulted in what Ross Garnaut has described as a “diabolical problem”.

For a $7 million advertising campaign, the three wealthy foreign-owned miners saved themselves $7 billion in taxes. There were some media commentators, Ross Gittins and Ian Verrender, who wrote cogently on the issues, but much of the media, which was the beneficiary of the miners’ advertising money, either diverted public attention from what was at stake or clambered in political support of the foreign miners. I wonder how those same journalists will react when Chinese state-owned enterprises follow BHP, Rio Tinto and Xstrata in running future political campaigns against the Australian government. The media was missing in action on this big-ticket item.

On asylum seekers, the government and the media, and particularly the ABC, failed to frame the debate with facts. Television news and current affairs obviously worked on the assumption that if there were no pictures, there was no news. It was easy to get pictures of asylum seekers’ boats floundering in the Arafura Sea, but it is hard to get worthwhile pictures of asylum seekers’ coming by air, despite the fact that more than 90% of asylum seekers come by air and not by boat. Tony Abbott said that Australia was being “invaded” by asylum seekers, yet neither the government nor the media took the trouble to point out that asylum seekers represented only 1% of our migration intake.

*These are the speaking notes for John Menadue’s presentation at the New News conference in Melbourne last Friday. He is on the board of the Centre for Policy Development and writes widely on health policy.

[Sojourner]

I remember well the day of the referendum on the Monarchy, on the front page of the Australian and on their advertising broadsheet it said simply "VOTE YES".

Irrespective of whether you voted yes or no, for a media outlet to take that position and not make some attempt to remain neutral suggested to me that I would not really ever need to read their paper and to this day I don't.

Think its important for media to try and take a balanced view, when an outlet begins to support either party, its a good thing to simply move on to someone else!