Comments on: Newspoll Monday: Labor 58-42

By: hannah's dad

hannah's dad — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 13:38:17 +0000

Buggered up the water usage rates for drought years ’04 & ’05 .
Adelaide 440 GL

By: hannah's dad

hannah's dad — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 13:33:48 +0000

Its a good article, tends to knock the drought myth a bit, but has some serious deficiences precisely in those areas I mentioned above.
There is one , maybe two, brief references to over irrigating and more space is taken by infintessimally minor causes such as urban [mis] use.
Several lines about urban consumption, an overestimate of Adelaide’s use of Murray water, even in drought years when Adelaide increases its reliance on the Murray, less than one third of the water used from the Murray in SA is for urban purposes [and that is for a population of over 1 million counting some regional urban use], the vast majority goes to irrigation [drought years '04 and '05 IIRC Adelaide 440 gl per year]
The simple answer, reducing irrigation, is barely hinted at.
Thats the situation scientists faced for years, they could only hint
The political consequences are too ‘radical’.

And its a feature article, not the front page or a news item.
Its not ‘news’.
Its the drip drip drip [sorry about that] of poor irrigators and their lack of water on the front page, the centre spread etc that creates the general impression.
Most people don’t know that water costs irrigators nothing [essentially[, and have no idea of the volumes used.
This article wouldn't impact on that [one brief references to % usage].

Nevertheless its far better than the usual stuff but I question your statement that it is not exceptional.

By: wbb

wbb — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 13:04:09 +0000

Articles such as Water dreaming, inspired by the work of Peter Cullen, are not exceptional.

By: hannah's dad

hannah's dad — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 11:07:30 +0000

wbb
You would be wrong to presume that the material that is effectively silenced by the media is necessarily radical.
In the reporting of DV/CSA in the media that which is usually, not always but mostly, presented is far from the accepted theory and practice of leaders in the field: academics, practioners, government depts, even parliamentary reports [well sort of, there will be a change for the better there soon], NGOs, major churches [how less 'radical' can you get?].
In short that which is neglected is a long way from radical, much closer to orthodoxy, both nationally and internationally.

Let me give you another example.
For at least 15 years to my knowledge the causes of the demise of the Murray Darling Basin have been well known and exhaustively documented and fully available to journos and pollies and the like.
A pile of reports, often commissioned by the government that rejected them, THIS high.
Yet reporting of such has been almost entirely deficient.
People still believe, including this current lot of pollies, that urban use and ‘the drought’ [imagine photo of poor irrigator knee deep in dust] are to blame at least significantly.
Not so.
Its over use of our water by irrigators that is near totally the cause.
Overwhelmingly so.
Just before his death peter Cullen made a gentle but direct statement to that effect on ABC TV and I hoped that a breakthrough was imminent.
Again not so unfortunately. We still get the line that we need good rains.
Because this line is pursued we get public and political perception that is ill informed and poor policy resulting.
The cause of the demise of the river that is being silenced is not radical. It is solid science and heavily documented.
Despite what the IPA says.
But the lack of policy resulting from silencing that is radical.
And its not unrelated to the political agenda of two of our parties.

You are right, I don’t expect real reporting from the MSM.
I just hope.

By: adrian

adrian — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 10:16:59 +0000

According to Pilger, he’s been blacklisted by the Australian print media for being too outspoken. The others to whom you refer are marginal presences at best.

The ‘quality’ newspaper that I have access to, the SMH, finds weekly space for the likes of Henderson, Devine, Sheehan, and Duffy with their predictable and partisan blatherings, but has no space for those with differing, controversial or unusual views. Surely the boredom inherent in the writing of the mob above is hardly conducive to booming circulation, so your argument regarding commercial impreretives doesn’t make much sense.

Combine the state of the print media, with the neutering of the ABC and to a lesser extent SBS, and you have a pedestrian media landscape, with apparently no room for thought provoking or controversial content.

By: wbb

wbb — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 09:33:27 +0000

I really don’t understand why you would expect that a mainstream newspaper would publish radical or paradigm bending material. But maybe you don’t.

Who is the audience is for these newspapers?

The only paradigm these newspapers operate by is to publish material that will pique the interest of the widest number of their readership.

Each section caters for different broad categories of interest. But within each section they have to hit the most readers they possibly can.

How is anybody to make money publishing the views of Foucault on sex for example?

That said, radical writers who write very well for the audience or have public profiles do in fact get their paradigm challenging views published. eg Pilger, Greer, Monbiot, Flannery, Dodson etc etc.

By: hannah's dad

hannah's dad — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 07:43:24 +0000

Thanks adrian that what I was trying to say.

By: adrian

adrian — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 07:37:01 +0000

I think that the problem is also that we get a limited range of views that generally fit into a bland and restrictive template. That the template tends to favour conservative opinion is part of the problem, but it’s also the media’s inability to give voice to anything even remotely radical or non mainstream that renders it so predictable, bland and boring.

By: hannah's dad

hannah's dad — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 07:30:28 +0000

Nope, thats not the problems.
Take the issues of DV and CSA for example.
The problems are that generally the view of domestic violence, CSA and allied issues are presented unrealistically and without regard to information that is readily available from credible authoritive sources and in the place of that we get a right wing patriarchal religious dominated point of view which severely distorts policy and perception.
Many times, I repeat many, authorities in the field, academics, professionals of long standing, noted heads of NGOs including the churches, even the ex-Chief Justice of Family Court, have tried to correct myths and fallacies promulgated by the media and have frequently been simply ignored, quoted out of context, relegated to back pages days after the initial issue, or ‘balanced’ by crackpots who are regularly trotted out to espouse their crackpottery.
Most of what the general public know from the media about these topics is myth or fallacy despite journalists being given authoritive reports etc.
Give you an example, a typical one.
A major event was held in a capital city with thousand or more people attending from many community groups, churches, govt dept, academics, poets and published authors, politicians state and federal the whole range. Widespread publicity, media events, all media invited.
None came.
Zero publicity.
But certain, unfortunately well known, ‘activists’, one of whom Nicola Roxon had to release from a board she was advised to appoint them to, are regularly andconsistently invited to pass comments by all sectors of the media despite their lack of credentials.
Paradigm building.
Sure there are plenty of specialised magazines and journals where these matters are explored and journos are pointed and referred to them constantly.
But they don’t fit their paradigm.

By: wbb

wbb — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 05:58:40 +0000

“the treatment of that topic and related issues in Oz MSM, including ABC, is generally abyssmal.”

This would be true from the perspective of professionals in almost any field that isn’t of universal interest and widespread study, like say, football.

Inexpert and shallow discussion is not only the fault of the media practitioners but also of the readership. You get the media you deserve which is the media you actually choose to read. People have the choice of reading a decent newspaper like The Age or a low-grade product like MX. They choose MX in large numbers.

There is plenty of serious discussion in small journals. They are small precisely because their content is in depth and complex. A specialist readership is specialist.