No government this morning. For the first time since I have been preparing the breakfast media wrap for Crikey I could not find a story to list this morning that quoted a Federal Government Minister. The whole attention of the news media is now concentrated just where Kevin Rudd and his team want it to be — on the Opposition. The press gallery really does have itself in a feeding frenzy as it stirs the leadership challenge pot. The only observation I can add is that surely Joe Hockey is not so silly as to succumb to entreaties from his colleagues to take over. He has no more chance of unifying what is now a rabble than does Malcolm Turnbull.
… and that’s the same press gallery which will pontificate, at the drop of a hat, about the noble role of the fourth estate in ensuring government accountability.
Let’s combine Farmer’s take with some other recent commentary.
Consider climate change, which Rudd says is the greatest moral challenge of our time. I could count on one hand the number of journalists who are across the detail of the government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. (I am not one of them.) This is not for want of trying on the government’s part; it needs the public aroused so it can intimidate the opposition into passing the scheme through the Senate.
But the media can’t hold this policy conversation long enough for the community to have any sense of how their lives would change and how the economy would function. I can’t think of a bigger reform that has generated so little public demand for scrutiny.
With the exception of the claim about “public demand for scrutiny”, which wrongly elides the expression of public opinion with what is refracted or created by the press (and that’s the big problem), Megalogenis is right (and he himself is often a notable and praiseworthy exception to the rule).
Greg Craven, ACU’s Vice-Chancellor, writing in the Fin Review the other day, observed that governments, at some time in the 1980s, decided to use all the resources at their command to destroy oppositions through the media. Whether or not there was some sort of golden age of political journalism in Australia prior to that, I’m too young to say (though I doubt it). But these sorts of diagnoses, while close to the mark, beg the question of the complicity of the media in all this – as do frenzied attacks on Rudd spin.
The foolishness of the federal opposition in destroying itself through the pages of The Australian (and surely Joe Hockey would be just next in line to be torn down by the punditariat, as a moderate) also points to the “inside the beltway” phenomenon – as does some of the weird jargon and the general outlook of Paul Kelly’s The March of Patriots, which entirely identifies his perspective with that of the “political class”. The public are walk on extras, represented only by proxy through that poll News Limited owns. Live by the media, die by the media.
Is it any wonder, as Bernard Keane remarked fairly wryly the other day, that no one much outside the self-same political class listens to this stuff anymore?
The big unanswered question is whether something else will come along to fill the gaping hole in serious discussion of public affairs. For all the best will in the world, various ‘spheres’ and ‘verses’ (blogosphere, twitterverse, and so on) just aren’t resourced well enough to do it.
Someone has Mark, or rather someone’s has, hence the rise of political blogs of all stripes and colours. Mostly just opinion sure, but for example, I feel very strongly that LP regularly makes substantial (in content, sadly, not result) contributions to Australian public policy in a few areas, particularly around environmental policies. And you could argue the same for Troppo, Cattalaxy, and many others in one form or another.
This raises two points: 1. No one reads blogs (compared to MSM numbers, especially across the spectrum)
2. People who do read, only read stuff they tend to agree with.
I would argue both of those cases are largely true for MSM, anyway. When people don’t agree, they don’t read that section of the paper, tune out to the news etc. etc.
Whether this atomisation is a net good or net ill is certainly up for debate, but I can’t remember the last time I read something as in-depth as one of dk.au’s post in the paper, for example.
I pretty much agree with that, patrickg. There certainly are some excellent contributions made around particular policy areas (and that’s what I was thinking of in regard to Megalogenis’ claims about the CPRS), but they probably don’t reach the number of people who would actually be interested, and both the nature of the audience and the writers really means it isn’t quite the same thing as communication directed at a broad public. The other key question, as you rightly highlight, I think, is whether that broad public is (a) a myth; (b) something that used to exist but is now atomising.
That’s why you don’t bother with the political journalists if you want to know what the government is up to. George Megalogenis, Ross Gittens and Tim Colebatch do a much better job of covering the important issues coming out of Canberra than Karen Middleton or Dennis Shanahan could ever hope to.
Rudd is playing a very long game here. Due to the incredible concentration of newspaper ownership in Australia, combined with the endemic game-playing culture at The Australian and its influence over the ABC as well as the other Murdoch papers, he has faced an unusually hostile commentariat. His government gets far more adverse reporting relative to overall community perceptions of its performance than any government I can think of.
But if they are returned to office, in a climate where newspapers in particular are going to have to lay off some of their highest-paid staff, there would have to be a serious look at whether the contracts are going to continue for a lot of these people. The Australian is the obvious case in point, but I think Piers Akerman has a lot to thank the Rees Govt. in NSW for the fact that he still has a column.
I think Rudd has a ten-year game plan here, akin to that developed by the conservatives in the early 90s when the pressuring on the ABC and Fairfax began in earnest.
Possibly the public is atomizing, Mark. My father’s generation,(Great Depression, WW2) which theoretically wasn’t particularly cultured, yet they sawt as perfectly ordinary to read a whole host of writers that may or may not be ignored today. Nor can I think of many major political thinkers of the quality of Fanon, Marcuse etc today (from my generation, or at least they came to prominence then) but I’m sure they’re out there. (And, unless you’re a historian who remeber the political journalisats of the 30s to 50s. Thank God there weren’t a lot of them.
Yes yes yes! This is driving me absolutely batty.
However, I actually disagree with Megalogenis on one point. I think he’s wrong to say that the Government wants the media to understand the CPRS. In fact, it suits them to a tee that so few have decided to really get their heads around it. It means there is essentially close to zero critical analysis of the CPRS happening. The Government is getting away with presenting their policy is ideal because the Opposition has vacated the field and nobody is interested in what the Greens (full disclosure – that’ll be me) have to say about the issue coz we can’t deliver the Senate votes.
So the MM happily sits back and ensures that nobody holds the Government to account. Shocking and frustrating state of affairs…
It’s all relative. I’m sure I have memories of important stories being handled seriously by commercial television.
@4 – Terry, I’m sure Rudd is not acting without purpose.
There’s an interesting subtext in Megalogenis’ piece. He refers to the fact that the government can now get policy out there – via the web, etc – very quickly and without intermediaries. It would be vastly overstating the degree to which the whole gov 2.0 thing will take off to suggest that this will disseminate policy to a mass audience, but it does effectively cut out the middle person with smaller (and expert) audiences and publics. That’s one less reason for anyone to spend their money on broadsheet newspapers.
In general, I think Rudd loves provoking all the howling dogs of the commentariat.
As I’ve been suggesting, it has political benefits for the government given their obsession with the Liberal leadership (that I hazard a guess few people I just walked past in the Queen Street Mall actually give much of a toss about at the moment), reinforcing the perception that Labor calmly gets on with governing, while disunited ranting lunatics throw stones – now largely at each other. The noise machine, in other words, is far too noisy, and pointed in the wrong direction for Australian tastes at the moment, I think.
Even as a commercial proposition, I doubt that there’s much future in crazed ranting. It wouldn’t be an exact proxy, but as Paul Kelly would say, “consider” the fact that Barnaby Joyce only managed about 6% of the primary vote in his election to the Senate. I reckon the wingnut base – such as it is – might be about half that if you were lucky.
Fox News type strategies ignore the fact that Australia isn’t America.
And Liberal political tactics do too.
I think when George M said “…But the media can’t hold this policy conversation long enough for the community to have any sense of how their lives would change and how the economy would function…” he was spot on.
If there is all this debate about ETS vs CPRS with assertions flying left and right it is hard for people to connect with the policy options. What the average punter wants to know before making a decision is “How does this affect ME?
There are three real dangers that George M’s piece above implies for anyone who is aiming for a low carbon future: one is that if people are unable to connect because they have not got a clue what it really means for them – ie real costs per week (or benefits), real issues about what exactly they might have to forgo in terms of the car or the overseas trip or the imported cheeses etc, how do you expect the press to make a case one way or the other for voters? The next danger is that if people do not have a clear understanding of what they are going to have to do if a particular policy is passed, then it has NO (nil, nix, zip, zero) chance of lasting past the next election. It’s Workchoices all over again. Finally if there is no official interpretation of what it all means for Ms and Mr Average, there is a great big opening for Tim Blair et al to trundle through. eg, They can say it would mean most people have to give up their cars, have smaller houses, never fly overseas, never have new gear, have fewer kids etc etc while others (you know, the ‘elites’, politicians and rich ba***ds) will, of course get exemptions.
There are those who think the debate on AGW is over. While I am dubious about the reality of that, it would be useful for those who think that way and really believe in a low carbon future, to actually start to nut out what it would mean for the average voter and in terms that they can understand.
Read politics? Who does that besides the people who comment here and on similar blogs? I suppose some people still get the newspaper in print form and read a bit that way but surely most people get the opinions nicely packaged for them from more convenient media outlets like the radio or TV. Trivialisation of politics has been going on for a long time, should we now complain the the public is completely bored with it? As for politics on the web, for most people the web begins with MSN and ends with google.
I don’t think the media is entirely to blame for the libs problems but they are asleep at the wheel of their supposed fourth estate vehicle if they can’t do more than feast on the obvious. What are these people doing? Waiting for the PM’s press sec to give them a call? Are the newspapers just a platform for boring self serving opinion pieces written by a variety of lobbyists, rentseekers or politicians? As they sink into distant memory who will stand on the bridge of the ship hand on their heart and say we did the best we could to inform the public and hold power to account?
“Even as a commercial proposition, I doubt that there’s much future in crazed ranting. It wouldn’t be an exact proxy, but as Paul Kelly would say, “consider” the fact that Barnaby Joyce only managed about 6% of the primary vote in his election to the Senate. I reckon the wingnut base – such as it is – might be about half that if you were lucky.”
I agree with this. From where I am sitting the Libs are going through a civil war with elements of the conservative media a lot more than bit players. Problem is, the side that seems to be winning that war also happens to be the side with a tiny supporter base in the broader electorate.
To me, it looks a lot like what the Tories went through after Blair won in 1997. They went though Hague, Duncan-Smith, and Howard before finally realising that someone more centrist like Cameron was their only path to redemption. And even still, with the Tories way ahead in the polls, the wing-nut base is dying to tear Cameron down as well.
Cameron’s ratings are significantly higher than the Tories’, LO.
That doesn’t stoop the loons trying to undermine him….
Yep. My point also being that Labour’s only real angle of attack lies in the Tories doing so.
David @ 10,
“for most people the web begins with MSN and ends with google”
I’d like to quickly reverse (if ok?) as it makes no sense me to that most people’s web experience ends with the front page of a search engine.
“for most people the web ends with MSN and begins with google”
Seriuos question, out of interest, how many people do you know, or know of, who’s web experience ends (.) with MSN? I don’t know more than zero, and would have said the same in ’95.
Seriuosly mkaes no sense me to!
“Live by the media, die by the media.”
I keep wondering if Cory Benardi had sat in his green room tonight, and, even for a moment, contemplated Belinda Neal (Belinda Neal!!1!one) would leave him for dead on QANDA tonight.
What he did was walk out with a minute fistful of party lines, all of which the party’s media have been employed to previously talk up, and argue *on his behalf*.
Cory’s job was to rinse and repeat, and to be some kind of faux-authentic representative of, the *party’s media* headline stances.
And he was – to the very best of his ability.
Watching him sit beside Janet – and her do the arguing for him – before he, in turn, offered his bland already-saids (Janet, herself, for her own special reasons tonight, more often than not, preempted into agreement with the Left/Labor), I thought was a vivid example.
Nick, David is right, if you have a look at the stats. Try googling up any of the Pew Internet surveys. Social networking sites are now part of the mix, but most people don’t go much beyond email, search engines and Facebook or whatever.
My friend and colleague Robyn Hollander had an article published in the Australian Journal of Political Science in November 2006 which argued that the reporting of environmental issues varies greatly depending on whether the issue is being reported by an outlet’s specialist environment or science reporters (who will usually know what the issue is about and who will be primarily interested in reporting on the policy substance of the issue) or whether it is being reported by the outlet’s political journalists (who will, particular at politically fraight times, report the issue primarily within the “game frame” of the political contest between parties (and who, I would argue, aren’t intellectually equipped to understand and communicate the policy substance of environmental issues). However, Robyn made the additional, and important, point that in the context of the 2004 Federal election the reporting of the Tasmanian forests issue within the “game frame” was to a considerable extent the consequence of the major parties’ political manoeuvering on the issue (which the ALP, and not only Mark Latham, mishandled tactically and in terms of timing).
I think a similar argument can be made in relation to the reportage and commentary on the CPRS debate.
Let’s see if this link works for Robyn Hollander’s article.
Indeed, Paul.
One of the ironies about the CPRS debate is that even the rent seeking demands of major polluters rarely get a look in. It’s now almost solely reported in terms of the Liberal leadership, and whether or not there’ll be a double dissolution, as far as I can see.
“Nick, David is right”
Yes, but…
Yes, but…I know. I wasn’t really disagreeing with David, just interested in my own and others’ reflections.
Thanks for the link! Very much what I’m wanting to read up on atm.
Couldn’t agree more. This week has seen an exercise in groupthink from Canberra even worse than usual, and it must be really hard for one commercial media outlet to differentiate itself from others when it carries the same analysis on the same
nicheirrelevant subject matter as every other outlet.The disconnect between the political-media complex and political issues as they affect the community is similar to that between academic historians and amateur historians.