Stop the press! Media narrative wrong!
March 18th, 2010 by Mark Bahnisch | Published in Media, Politics, Polls | 26 Comments
Ben Eltham has a neat piece in New Matilda today comprehensively detailing the reasons why the ‘Rudd quaking in his boots’ story is tosh. He makes a very good point about the relative inattention given to the Essential Research poll compared to that other poll which always makes the News:
The Essential survey polled more respondents and had a lower margin of error than Newspoll, making it a more reliable gauge of current voting intentions. But the Essential poll didn’t fit the current media narrative that Kevin Rudd is losing his shine, so most outlets ignored it.
There’s another astute observation in Eltham’s piece:
It would help if the Coalition had spent the last two years developing viable new policies. But they haven’t. So Abbott is almost required to make policy on the run in the run-up to the election. This leaves Labor all sorts of opportunities for counter-attack.
While, as I suggested the other day, the polls are reflecting both a return to partisan normality in the absence of Liberal dissension and the continued inability of the Coalition to make inroads into the centre ground, the years of Liberal leadership wars are still having an effect. The Libs could have learnt something from the oft-repeated story of state conservative oppositions, one would have thought; leadership is not the magic bullet. Changing the leader, in the absence of anyone doing the hard slog of policy work, just leaves the latest bunny in the headlights holding the magic pudding.
That’s where Abbott is now.
This is what I like about LP – the refreshingly different ‘take’ on news and current affairs. Thanks for bringing to attention an interesting point!
Yep, good stuff Mark – 2 point swing *to* the ALP on the latest Essential Research poll did indeed go unnoticed by the MSM.
No worries at all, Rx!
@2 – most bizarre, Lefty E, was the blah from the ABC tv newsreader attributing the alleged setback to the foil insulation thing. That’s a statement for which absolutely no evidence can be adduced.
Having said that, I don’t think this coverage harms Rudd in the slightest. It encourages over-reach from the cocky Coalition, and represses the protest vote against Labor. But, considered from the point of view of the responsibility of the journosphere, it’s stupid, lazy and untrue.
They’ve also got a bunch of personnel renewal to do.
How many has-beens and never-weres do they have inhabiting safe seats? The Tories are always going to be inflicted with more of these than Labor because of the country backbencher factor, but there’s still a hell of a lot of dead wood (Bronnie? Ruddock?) who should be tapped on the shoulder.
The very same dead wood Abbott brought back onto the front bench!
Precisely Mark, and it means they’re effectively wasting an election cycle where they could get in a bunch of new MP’s, solidify them in their electorates, etc. etc.
Having said that, Rob, a number of their newer, younger frontbenchers are pretty scary – ie Cory Bernardi and Matthias Cormann. You could also make a case for Sophie Mirabella as a rising young star!
Further to Mark’s point #8, there is Alex Hawke, and the next wave of talent after Alex are the people responsible for this crap.
Thank heaven for some common sense and analysis on these poll results. It seems to me the media are running an agenda that is deeply worrying, as de-facto campaign organisers for the tories. And the ABC are is this up to their necks.But if the MSM choose to ignore a contrary poll, what hope is their for the quite large proportion of the population that actually believe that the news rags tell the truth?
Surely Ruddock is undead wood :-)
No Martin
He’s more like one of those trees where you can see rotting portions everywhere and a few leaves still clustered in parts but which are bound to die within a season or two.
“the latest bunny in the headlights holding the magic pudding”
I will savour this image for some time.
My perception from the surrounds of the coffee machine is that interest in federal politics is at an all time low. A brief flicker of interest when Abbott took over. Another one over insulation. Other than that, nothing. Which probably means people think we’re going OK and are unlikely to vote for a change of government.
Paul @9: that next wave of talent after Alex Hawke produced comedy gold at the public hearings (I’ve still got the transcripts on my hard drive). And somewhere I’ve got a clipping from The Age about how one of the (Young Liberal) witnesses at the Melbourne hearing got told off by his employer, SenatorHelen Kroger, after he disgraced himself by being arrested on a D & D charge at a student conference.
“the latest bunny in the headlights holding the magic pudding”
But whether or not it’s a pudd’n he’s got, can only be proven by lift’n his top… :)
It’s not Rudd that should be concerned about Tony Abbott’s rise.
It’s this country.
Before I went to my dental appointment today (costing me a mint) I managed to get in the health debate in parliament between Rudd & Abbott. Rudd responded to Abbott’s bellowing w/ dignity & calmness.
Regardless of the many children seated in the gallery Tony Abott gave one of the most venomous and “fire & brimstone” speeches I’ve heard.
The man is so full of anger. At one point he had the audacity to state that a cancer centre should be named after him, one already named after a popular physician in Darwin. And this coming off the back of his delay after delay to fund such by him as Health Minister…until the last moments of the 07 election.
What an arrogant & egotistical sod Tony Abbott is.
Not to mention a “serial bully”.
As evidenced by him yelling at the Prime Minister:
DON’T STARE AT YER NOTES!!!
He then went on to arrogantly state that he was
HAPPY TO TALK OUT QUESTION TIME
Yes, it seems the Liberal leader does think the world is his oyster, parliament runs for him…and the sun does shine outa his spoilt butt.
We have a man in Tony Abbott that is so angry underneath, so much of a zealot…so much of a bully, hidden beneath snake-like charm…that we can be certain that if he does become PM…he will single-handedly cause more industrial mayhem & workplace suffering than any leader before him.
Today, once again, we saw the kind of venom we can expect from the JEKYL & HYDE that is Tony Abbott.
I reckon the kids in the gallery won’t forget his performance…and attitude. Nightmare stuff.
N’
See what kind of trouble those role-playing games can get you into?!
Nasking @17: “We have a man in Tony Abbott that is so angry underneath…”
Perhaps that is why he chose boxing as a sport?
Perhaps Abbott sees politics as just verbal boxing?
@15 Cheers Gummo, reading that transcript is like revisiting the witch-burning scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Senator Mason and his Young Liberal friends repeatedly claiming there’s a witch and mysteriously getting better.
Oh – I forgot to mention that Helen Kroger was a member of the Senate Committee what done the inquiry. Really must track down that Age clipping. Favourite moments from the transcripts later (maybe). Some things should not be forgotten.
Elise, when I heard the following about Abbott on the recent 4 Corners episode:
“The local paper headlined his debut fight ‘Action Man Abbo blasts his way to victory’, and reported him as saying of one of his later wins ‘I just made believe my opponent was Bob Hawke, the leader of the Labor Party’…”
it told me alot I’d suspected about this venomous character for a long time. Alot of anger underneath. Not unlike Latham. He seems to use intense cycling & parliamentary bellowing to get much of it out these days.
Tony Abbott referring to Rudd as a bully is the kind of tactic you’d expect from the type of right-wing Howard & Karl Rove & Alex Hawke mindset you get in the Liberal party today.
Yep, attempt to manipulate public perception by labelling yer opposition as exactly what you in fact are…erode the public’s suspicions about yerself. By repeating generally baseless accusations in a Goebbel’s style, over & over again, until it enters the public consciouness & grapevine circuit…as we’ve seen done by the likes of radio cock jocks & Murdoch media empire types from here to America in the past 15 years.
NO LONGER EYES WIDE SHUT
N’
I’m just glad to find an analysis that would equate with mine.
You raise a good point nasking in that Abbott has for a long time now used the tactic of labelling opponents of being what he is or accusing them of doing what he does.
If you get old episodes of Abbott in debates on ABC Lateline you will see him use this tactic all the time. I think he does it instinctively and actually believes his opponents are as flawed as he asserts in his attacks without realising he is really projecting his flaws onto his opponents.
Vidar
Good tactic – the idea being if you say it enough some of it will stick.
Don’t forget the ‘who do you trust’ campaign mounted by the most untrustworthy of liars.
Indeed Vidar. It’s not unlike Fox News commentors & others from News Corp/News Ltd. referring to all competition as “the elite”.
Quite hilarious when you consider the fact that they are arms of a media empire that spans the globe and their prime owner Rupert Murdoch comes from one of the most “privileged” families in Australia…now America.
N’