Media Watch has always been at its weakest attempting to hold people not doing anything resembling journalism to journalistic standards. Stuart Littlemore complaining, as he once did, about the propensity of Cleo to feature endless “juvenilia” about sex was akin to moaning that Two Wheels magazine has far too many motorcycles in it. Recently, Monica Attard seems to be devoting more and more of the current incarnation of Media Watch to that contemporary den of juvenilia, the Internet. And, frankly, some of her efforts show about as much understanding of the medium as Littlemore did of women’s mags.
On one hand, there was this effort, about unfortunate juxtapositions of advertising and articles on the Fairfax website. As anybody who’s been using the internet for more than five minutes knows, human intervention in what advertisements one happens to see when viewing a particular story is minimal. If you deal enough poker hands, sometimes you’ll draw a pair of aces. What’s the big deal?
But, much more seriously, Attard seems to think that the Internet is a den of iniquity which needs the big, firm hand of media regulators to make everyone play nice. Take this admittedly nasty piece of Internet radio. To make her point, Attard has indeed located some of the dregs of Internet media. They are rude, crude, racist, and quite possibly vulnerable to being sued for defamation, as ACMA pointed out in response to Attard’s queries. But Attard’s suggested solution of imposing ACMA oversight of “Internet broadcasts” is over the top. ACMA’s regulatory model for broadcasting is designed around the idea that a tiny number of professional operators have the ability to, well, broadcast their work to a very large audience. As we all know, the Internet is not like that, with “broadcasters” ranging from Grandma putting pictures of her cats that her children only look at when forced to up, with “community standards” so varied as to make any governmental policing of such impractical.
As internet sites (including blogs like LP, for that matter) begin to take their place in Australia’s media (and particularly political) landscape, clearly there’s room for intelligent comment on their role. But Attard seems like another one of those grumpy journalists complaining that those naughty Internet people aren’t behaving like the professional media such as herself and need to be brought to heel, and doesn’t care about the collateral damage her approach would do.
I thought the response from the station’s programming director was pretty good, along the lines of “Yeah, and?…”
Honestly, that mob may be popular within a certain demographic, but who’s heard of them? You might as well waste you time blasting marginal dross like Western Heart.
MW shouldn’t bother getting its knickers in a twist about this stuff. In fact it has been pretty lame this year. If it needs to look at teh intertoobs then some intelligent analysis on the interaction with MSM wouldn’t go astray.
PJK last night. Merkel now.
Robert. This may well arouse more snarky feedback than Keating did last night
Robert, I agree with you 100% on this. Attard reveals herself as an inveterate regulator of free speech and does not seem to be able to distinguish between the airwaves – which are a limited public resource – and the internet.
uh, yeah. What FX said.
What, making fun of cat pictures?
If that’s your concern, I’m sorry, but I’m firmly in the dog person camp.
Mmmmmyeah. How about a NSFW ticket for your innuendo, big boy?
No, no. Ailurophiles are above this kind of pettiness.
As for Attard, that’s an astonishing blind spot (or, worse, bit of bad faith) about unfortunate juxtapositions. Newspapers and magazines have been doing that for evah; you can pick up any day’s tabloid in any city and find at least one example to make you wince. Anyone who’s ever done layout, before or after computers, will know that you bung the ads in wherever there’s a correctly shaped space for them on whatever page was paid for.
Hmm. Checking her Wikipedia biography, it seems that all her work has either been in radio or television. So it’s possible that she might not have realised that this kind of thing happens in the print media all the time.
But surely the Media Watch production team includes people who’ve worked extensively in print.
There’s leftie moral panic and there’s rightie moral panic.
Leftie moral panic revolves around folks saying naughty things about each other.
Rightie moral panic revolves around the disturbing proposition that other folk are having more fun than you are.
The one constant is the existence of moral panic.
And doesn’t the internet provide enough scary stuff to fuel the most gargantuan moral panics?
Up until now in Australia the right has done most of the running vis-a-vis nailing down the Dreaded Toobs of Filth. I guess the right can feel slightly gratified that filth can find no home on Aussie ISPs. Has anyone noticed the difference?
I’m more concerned about the dirigiste left in relation to this issue. The dead hand of statist regulation of actual content could end up being a really annoying inconvenience.
The difference between “the media” and people publishing/broadcasting stuff over the internet is increasingly arbitrary, rather than based on any fundamental differences. I think Media Watch has a valid point when it points out that authorities like ACMA are stuck policing an arbitrary subset of publishing and broadcasting, an inconsistency that serves no good purpose. It’s clearly ridiculous that radio-via-radio-waves is subject to different rules than radio-via-internet, and credit should go to Media Watch for trying to bring more people’s attention to this.
At some point law makers and regulators are going to have to have a long hard think about what, if any, significant difference there is between News Corporation publishing a newspaper and selling it on the streets, and some person publishing stuff to a blog.
Nah, I think the on-air media luvvies (oops) are shitting themselves as they are kind of looking over their shoulder as the punter empire strikes back. Yo! LINK
Robert Merckel
You make a very valid point about spaces that do not profess to being “in the same ‘journalism’ business” as MSM. But then again, neither does talkback radio, and nobody seems upset at Media Watch “watching” talkback radio. Of course, excpetions to this include things like ‘cash for comments’ (arguably Media’s Watch finest moment.).
While it might be necessary to do so, I am bored to tears with Monica’s TT and ACA obsession. Who watches those programs expecting Pulitzer Prize winners?
Thank god for Desperate Housewives!
Yeah, mediawatch has sucked since David Marr left. He was always hilarious, and actually pointed things out. His longrunning feud with Alan Jones was always amusing as well.
The current mediawatch has turned into little more than a high school English essay. It is so boring.
Also begs the question as to where is Attard’s & associates’ concern for jailed Chinese journalists, unable to access print, TV or radio media, utilising blogs who have then been turned over to authorities by Yahoo & now languish in Chinese jails.
There is quite a bit of chat about at present as to the future of journalism, & I wonder if Attard’s position springs as much from concern as to erosion of journalistic freedoms, the maintenance of professional standards, and the ever shifting fingers of control.
& frankly, some of the on-air callers on Jones, Laws etc etc fare hardly better than her worst of….
And Iranian bloggers:
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/120614.html
Media Watch is yet another example, if any more were needed, of the new, emasculated ABC.
Unable to attack anyone or anything of substance, that may cause shock!! horror!! controversy, they are left with the small fry, the inconsequential.
Worst of all though, it is mind numbingly boring.
Start using Firefox and the adblocker plugin. Problem solved!
I’m not upset about Media Watch critically examining new media. I’m just suggesting they are doing a poor job at it, thus far. For that matter, there’s nothing wrong with a critical examination of Cleo by MW, either – if it’s done with an appreciation of the medium and its readers.
Andrew, interesting point, but not one that Attard has actually made.
Dear people, this has been a long time coming. As technology leaps forward, the law governing “broadcasting” is going to be increasingly irrelevant. Already, every day, through my headphones, as i sit at my workstation, I listen to KJAZZ 88.1 in… Long Beach, California.
How long do you think it will be before electronics manufacturers are going offer “mantel web radios” that will look every bit as retro as a bakelite Astor/AWA/Kriesler, with your fav radio presets fron anywhere, not just within the range of a 1934 model transmitter in Homebush or Richmond so that instead of Alan Jones you will be able to listen to the real thing, Rush Limbaugh?
Anyone with a wireless network modem and router can do this already. Now, Hardly Normal is offering wireless connection as do a number of mobile phone telcos. Like it’s happenin? Now? Okay?
I think Monica has inadvertantly touched on something that will increasingly irritate John Singleton and co: real c-o-m-p-e-t-i-t-i-o-n. No licence rrequired, it is a walk up start, fellow media moguls. I for one am rarin’ to go and champin at the bit!!!!
I mean, the barriers to entry are pretty minimal. Anyone who has a web presence can have one. And if you have the talent, like the wonderful Mr Angry, you will be a star, big time.
BTW. It is not Media Watch’s brief, really, to monitor the outrages perpetrated on journalists. I mean there’s Putinstan writ large.
Having said that, MW is a tired old thing now and it should be taken behind the barn and…etc etc.
Plagiarism, very hilarious misspellings, and so on. I mean, purleeeze. Yawn.
Come on now, if Media Watch doesn’t monitor the Tootgarook Courier and the Illawarra Trading Post, who will?
In twenty years time we’ll be talking about the good ol’ days on the Wild Wild Nets. I’d assume that eventually most Governments will regulate the nets, or at least attempt to in some way.
Likely, the nasty stuff will always be available, from somewhere (rogue ISP’s, ISP’s of Evil.. ), folks will decide whether or not they wish to access it and run the risk of punishment.
We’ve already had a few cases where existing laws have crept in to the online world.
The beauty of computers for the totalitarian types is that you can track down those who are accessing the information.
None of what Attard said was remotely like moral panic and she is the host of media watch not human rights watch so no of course she has not done pieces on chinese journalists or iranian bloggers. Don’t see what the issue is. It may not have been a strong piece but maybe it was a slow week.
The Tootgarook Courier anyday to the Media Watch programme.The old under-age stamping ground of Aussie Rules and beating anyone on their Football Oval required at least one over-age player .Wherever Brian S is today Tootgarook remains a favourite place.Even if Portsea is down the road and us ..in memory were from the other side.Three Cheers for Revolutionary….what did you say your name was? But please as a type of self-censorship,do not mention the word baby-boomer.I didnt grow up anywhere near Alan Jones the radio person who has wented.AngryAussie has some talent perhaps he doesnt need to swear,and well neither do I,but,………………………
It reminded me of the whole bonsai kitten email fiasco.
I suggested on the message board that what Monica was suggesting was against the principle of freedom of speech. The moderator replied:
This is a snafu probably reminiscent of the Rudd “yes I support 300 extra troops for Afghanistan because one of my staffers saw an old feed on Sky News”.
The Age website has this UP TO THE MOMENT story:
I think the French presidential election is over.
It’s under the “breaking news” section btw.