Lindsay Tanner speaks some typically good sense in an opinion piece today on the topic of the leaks and the media. Read the whole thing here.
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Vacuous media lacks credibility, well, yes Kim.
But when vacuos politicians & parties piss on incumbency, mandates and throw leadership out the back door you get this…
http://www.pipingshrike.com/2010/08/self-absorbed-and-deluded-%e2%80%93-an-update.html
And who could argue with that.
Throw in incompetency, faceless, focus groups, kkkoal not as etc etc…mix well light blue touche paper and stand well clear.
You can’t blame the media for this fiasco. home built home brand I’m afraid.
If you don’t like the media, then don’t consume it. It is that simple. Politicians won’t stop their silly slogans if the media don’t print it, and the media won’t print it if you don’t read it.
This alludes to something I’ve been thinking. The explosion of leaks might be all to do with reporters changing their standards on going with second- and third-hand sources. Tanner’s reference to Godwin Grech having sounded like an authoritive source to the gallery’s ears is very interesting. There’s no reason the recent leaks couldn’t all have originally come from the Godwin-level—anyone who doesn’t even entertain that possibility, who doesn’t think it’s just as likely as KRudd`n’Alistair being the ones responsible, then, well, they’ve got their hand on it.
Sad to see that Tanner won’t or can’t speak explicitly in defence of Rudd, but from the tone of the article I gather that’s because the outgoing member for Melbourne just doesn’t want to go out on a limb in favor of another pol—he merely wants to cast a sceptical eye over the gallery’s obsessions.
Yeah J but it’s getting so predictable I’ve even started writing columns in my head without thinking of it.
For instance I saw a poster of Julia Gillard today with the slogan of moving Australia forward : Labor and I immediately thought to myself “Have a look at this poster dear readers and see what’s missing. Sure, for once they mention Labor. A bit of a surprise.
But look what they’ve dropped! It’s not surprising that such a bunch of zealots would drop party, they wouldn’t know how to have one much less organise one!
But they also dropped Australian. Much more sinister. Why have they dropped that? Are they ashamed of being Australian? Do they see themselves as being somewhat above being Australian? Are they post Australian? Over to you readers. (whistles)”
See! I could get a job with the tabloids easy.
Back on topic Tanner says at the end
I wish I was as optimistic.
Back to the wine for me!
Thanks for this Kim. Sounds mostly sensible about an issue which has become somewhat ‘psychotic.’ But if the leaks are driving people crazy it’s because they have become/ are so important.
An alternative history including no leaks would have had Labor looking very much like the leading party, a party with a purpose, knowing exactly where it was going and what it wanted. Instead we have [apparently] something approaching the opposite.
Has anyone else noticed what Greg Hunt got away with on Lateline: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2010/s2976305.htm
And it’s just the latest Liberal statement bordering on a downright lie, which the media has waved through. I mean, this isn’t just a wonky opinion. What happens the next time when there’s an economic emergency– the government won’t be able to use fiscal stimulus to keep the economy going? Madness indeed.
Nickws @ 3, the whole tone of the article suggests that the leaks probably came from the wider circle of staffers and public servants, who, he says, often know stuff that is not their direct responsibility.
This typical good sense by Tanner (the only “leaks” I’ve heard from public servants under him is how lucky they felt to have a really competent and proactive ministter) highlights the real lack of talent these days for forensic analysis, good policy development and administration. I don’t think you’d need two hands to count those, across both major parties, with the kind of talent and attitude Tanner and Faulkner had. Talent these days seems little but showmanship… little more than political versions of Paris Hilton.
No wonder much the mainstream media has descended to “entertainment weekly” standards. The politicians aren’t exactly encouraging substantial analysis on substantial issues.
Which politicians actually deserve better reporting?
Brian @6,
yes, but there is something sinister about the way these leaks emerged. Of course I can imagine a series of coincidences leading to the leaks occurring, I can even think up how the leaks had been collected over time– but the way in which they were released– after the first week of an eerily silent Lib campaign.
I’m not saying that there has to be an invisible hand, but there is something strange about how this all came together. This needs more explaination.
How can you take the media seriously when they hire Mark Latham for the job of campaigb circus clown? The more I see of Latham, the more guilty I feel for having voted Labor in 2004. The man is not at all there.
On the leaks, it is now clear that they came from a secondary source. That is why Oakes asked Gillard about the leadership deal that day at the press club. He couldn’t be confident enough it was true to just declaim the story on the news. When Gillard didn’t deny it, Oakes knew his source was good and he’s dribbled it out since.
CHannel 9 might have apologised about Latham’s behaviour to the PM but I bet they run the story regardless on 60 minutes tonight.
Whether the Latham story is harmful depends on whether the viewers interpret it as Labor being a rabble or as Gillard looking good by comparison. (Mind you, Homer Simpson would look good by comparison.)
Sam, Latham is ALP (or was) so any idiocy he was part of just further damages the ALP brand.
Stark contrast to the Abbott launch. Abbott already looks and acts like he is running the country.
Brian @ 6, yes, I certainly got that impression as well from Tanner’s article. His invocation of the Gretch affair brilliantly illustrates this, and in fact raises the possibilty that the leaking is from non-ALP public servants (something that people here are only willing to consider RE the NSC leaks—apparently the only conservative career bureacrats at Canberra work in national security & defence.)
Yet I do think he’s weighed this against the slight possibility that either Rudd or Jordan are the leakers, and he’s decided, “Bugger this for a joke. I don’t owe those two jokers anything, not enough to defend them in the face of, say, a 20% chance they actually have briefed journos against the government.”
but I bet they run the story regardless on 60 minutes tonight.
I sat through 60 minutes in the hope is seeing Latham towel up that pretender Brown. Alas and alack, I’ll have to sit through it all again nex week – when it is actually scheduled to run.
Weren’t Latham and Brown list sighted together sharing a hug in the Tarkine Forest in October 2004.
Tanner demonstrated a distinct lack of political judgement by trying to play possum instead of straight out denying being the leaker.