I might be inadvertently posting this on Pile On The Drum Day, if this snippet is any indicator. Let me just note that I don’t agree that the ABC shouldn’t be running an opinion site, because it encroaches on commercial media’s turf. You’d expect Eric Beecher to be able to come up with a better media analysis himself than parroting the Murdochs’ lines…
Where I do think The Drum has a problem is in the way it replicates some of the worst of the Australian mediasphere. To explain why, let me tell a story. A story about non-stories written and stories not written.
Last week, you see, was a slow news week. How do we know this? Because David Penberthy said so.
That explains why those of us who glimpsed at the so-called political journalism during the week saw so much opining about Tony Abbott’s jet lag, and Julia Gillard’s alleged disinterest in foreign affairs. The former story, of course, carries into this week in “he said, she said” mode, even though it appears clear from the journos who broke the jet lag yarn that the backgrounding didn’t come from the PM’s office. But never let facts, etc. Oh, and you may have also noticed that old stand by – “leadership rumblings!” – as far as I can tell, a one man attempt by Peter Van Onselen to get a “Hockey may just, possibly, perhaps, sort of, be positioning himself for a leadership run” story going. For all I know, that spilled over into the various journo interviewing journo fests on the box. I don’t know. I don’t watch them outside election time.
Ok, so if even “Pembo” describes the stuff he’s writing about – at some length – as “confected”, perhaps there was nothing for political journalists to write about last week.
Really?
We could start with the frames applied to reporting.
Kevin Rudd gave a speech to the UN General Assembly a while back. At the time, its content was almost completely ignored, with press coverage focusing on the Rudd/Gillard angle. Even if you credit that non-story’s potential significance (because Rudd hasn’t done anything other than conduct himself in a completely proper way as a senior minister and in his portfolio), you’d think that the press gallery, while otherwise gainfully unemployed in the absence of what they deem “news” last week, might have used the extra hours to analyse Rudd’s thoughts on UN reform, examine the Millennium Goals from a number of angles, and so on. That’s just a few of the angles that occur to me. I’m not a journalist, of course, and not an expert in international politics or international aid and development, but I think if I had a few days to spare, I could find some people who are, and as an interested observer, put together something meaningful.
But, nope.
I’d do it myself, but I have a full time job. Not in the media.
Kevin Rudd’s speech is online. There’s a lot to talk about in it. Potentially.
Or, to continue with the KRudd theme, the Foreign Minister was one of several Ministers presenting bills on just one day – the last day of the sitting – in the House of Representatives. Nineteen bills were introduced, in fact. Do any of us know what matters they treated? Were any reported in the newspapers the next day? As Andrew Elder says, this stuff – actual legislative business, the actual government of the country, actual policy which will impact on us as citizens, is apparently not thought newsworthy.
Again, maybe our esteemed press gallery could have spent last week ringing around to try to see if they could write informative and analytical stories about the business of the nation. (Perhaps the representatives of the “heart of the nation” were too busy ringing up the employers of people who said nasty stuff about James Massola on Twitter, as Julie Posetti reports, but hey, The Australian isn’t the only employer of journos.)
Anyway, you see where I’m going with this – there’s no excuse for saying there’s no news.
So how about opinion?
While all this was going on, and not being reported, The Drum was running outright pap like this rubbish. One would almost assume that it was a poorly written parody of Miranda Devine‘s almost contemporaneous column. But I guess we have to assume that this “climate skeptic” effort is serious.
Ok, so maybe that’s one particularly egregious example only.
Perhaps it’s just the ABC’s perennial quest to be “fair and balanced” by publishing poor quality right wing ramblings.
But, meantime, the ABC’s in-house writers were pontificating on the political non-story of the day – cf. Fran Kelly.
And what about the rest of the content? There’s too much opinion, and not enough analysis. Too many wannabe Annabel Crabbs and Glenn Milnes crowding around the real ones, hoping to climb the greasy pole.
Let me make a small suggestion to Messrs Jonathan Green and Mark Scott.
Rather than filling up so much of the intertubes with so much samey stuff, why doesn’t the ABC publish less on its headline opinion and analysis website? Instead of throwing around $200 a pop to all the opinionistas out there, why not save some dosh and pay some serious people to write about some serious issues seriously. At greater length, with more leisure, and with much more research. Forget about the insta-commentary. Perhaps it’s true that we can’t expect high quality analysis at the same speed as the daily media cycle. But maybe that’s the problem. Having endured a week when even some of the political journos admit they’ve got nothing to talk about, I’d argue that this is the gap the ABC should be filling.
There’s already enough opinion floating around. How about getting serious about the analysis side of the brief?
Elsewhere: Jason Wilson.
I literally couldn’t agree more. Pathetic state of journalism – the inevitable result of dividing hits by time spent on development.
The worst thing is the ever closing gap between the Drum and ABC’s “real” news. Ugh, depressing beyond words. I wish we had a paper like the Guardian here.
Well said – it was called a slow news week because the light, easy-to-analyse political gossip (as opposed to actual political content, of which there was plenty) was thin on the ground. Maybe they should fill in their time writing some more opinion pieces about how the electorate is too stupid to care about the issues?
I can’t help feeling that if they just opened up a “submit your opinion piece here” area, used Slashdot or Stack Overflow as the back end to rank articles, then paid the best five or six each day $100 they’d get a better result. The other half could go to pay a decent editor or two.
Also, do they really only pay those monkeys $200 for an article? That might go some way to explaining the quality… you make a decent salary you’d need at least one of those a day on average through the year. Wholly sheet!
That is exactly why I go to JeffRense.com,AlexJones in some form or KeeleyNet.com for environmental news.I ended up in a mental hospital because of them.. THE ABC.I have seen some of my research,which meant sometimes hours of reading,just chewed up and spat out for someone asserting the confidence and like they live to express the end result of breathing in,Depleted Uranium.Mark Colvin could of copped a dose,and, I cannot feel sorry for him ,often spending 5 hours in a hospital for diabetes treatment.As the glacier of news and Current Affairs presents its longevity as Radio AM AND PM.I have felt for nearly twenty years,I have been feed the “I know nothings” of Hogan Heroes,which was used by the ALP until they bored everyone silly by it.Curiously though,I cannot understand why giving some prominence to Rudd’s Speech at the UN. represents a form of news.The speech wont change voting patterns there at all.So the craziness of believing the UN. is a font of information that is reliable is easily shamed regularly ,if anyone is prepared to look.Rudd’s attitude to the Iranian Leader,never has seemed to me based on anything remotely factual,and where it maybe, is not really of any use to Australians,and Iranians of any political view.Suggesting Rudd’s speechs as news,then to me relegates and delegates speech over usefulness.On that score,I just think, it is plainly necessary to have an Iranian opinion from within Australia that reflects the government of that country’s thinking.Even if Australia pays that person ourselves,and is selected or accepted as by the Iranian Authority.Why the bias through Israeli and U.S.A. eyes, when DU floats around the planet!?
It is full of personal opinions, mainly from the Left
Wherein I suspect lies Beecher’s real problem with the Drum, i.e. it’s not biased in the direction he’d prefer it to be biased in.
Its ironic that in this “slow news week” a major report into the Murray Darling Basin, and a major report into energy efficiency came out on the same day!
You’re kidding!
Beecher said that?
Illogical, anal guff..
journalists are too stupid to do analysis or commission analysis.
Julia Gillard’s alleged disinterest in foreign affairs
Nobody said that Gillard is disinterested in foreign affairs. Some people did however accuse her of being uninterested.
The ABC is really starting to look like News Ltd’s poor relation. patrick@1 is correct, it really is so bloody depressing.And the worst is that we really are left in the dark as to just what these people running this country are up to. Reading Hansard with slow dial-up is not to be recommended.
@7: Sam there you go using the right words in their right context. Elitist!
Elsewhere: Jason Wilson.
Kim,
the ABC Drum publishes shallow, colourful, contentious opinion pieces because those are what most people like to read.
Why should it produce lengthy, dry, analytical pieces that no-one reads? That’s what blogs are for.
It provides balance by publishing poor quality right-wing ramblings alongside poor quality left-wing ramblings. This is its unique offering. No other MSM outlet does both.
Readers then have the choice of reading their “own side” and feeling the warm glow of confirmation, or reading the “other side” and having the adrenalin rush of violent disagreement.
A perfect site for everyone. And at $200 a pop, value for money too.
Hey Kim,
That link you put to Jason Wilson opens the link to that horrific Fran Kelly article on The Drum? Is that right?
This is the first … errr, sentence? Maybe you just add any old verb you like. Maybe she thought intent is a verb? Who knows… and at all times. Very quantum mechanics.
She’s one of the top journalists in Oz– no, really? You f*cking laugh! She doesn’t even understand her own language, you say…?
I still think that Bob Dylan and I got it right, here at LP in Saturday Salon @ 3. Tony is just a prawn in Julia’s game.
What sort of mental world does Abbot inhabit? That he could be so foolish as to continue trying to spin this whole episode his way is beyond belief. Or is he simply thinking out loud, talking to himself and continuously rationalising away his own folly?
Is Jason Wilson Fran Kelly in drag or vice versa?
Oopsy.
Here’s the correct link to Jason Wilson:
http://restlesscapital.net/2010/10/beecher-vs-the-drum/
I&U @ 13 can you make a case for the state funding this equivalent of ‘Online Opinion’? Because I can’t.
What sort of mental world does Abbot inhabit?
He seems to have been caught unawares by the inappropriate questions about his trip to the troops. It’s clear that he was set up by Labor, but I actually think that Julia was not the instigator, although her mocking about the jet lag was silly stuff.
Someone on the Labor side is either A) so blinded by hate that they have lost their reason; or B) actually setting traps for Julia to fall in.
I quite like the drum, it is good to have it as a platform for opinion pieces, and they sometimes publish good ones. But I fully with the analysis above. Like the rest of the ABC, there is too much emphasis on horserace-style political commentary, and too much of the ‘ABC’s perennial quest to be “fair and balanced” by publishing poor quality right wing ramblings.’
Didn’t know that they paid $200 a pop – might have to write something for them
@ Ken Lovell at 19,
Imperfect though The Drum may be, it’s way better than On Line Opinion. The latter has become a cesspit of racist, homophobic, misogynist and generally lunar right invective approaching that of Bolt or Blair – at least in its ‘Forum’ section.
PeterTB @20: on the other hand Abbott is an admitted liar.
One could speculate that he’s just not very good at it.
zoot: My point is that is now obvious that Abbott had his trip to A locked in at the time that Julia was saying she knew about it not – so she looks either stupid or dishonest for leaking about the invitation, and then seemingly lying about knowing of the trip. I just don’t think she is that stupid – to put herself into that position, I mean.
Ken @ 19,
I think you could charitably make a case that the ABC Drum Unleashed is finding its way. It feels to me a bit like a Triple J Unearthed, trying to find some raw journalism talent. But it hasn’t really worked out the process for identifying and selecting the talent.
So, I suppose I would say that the strategy is supportable but the current execution is not.
But I&U that doesn’t explain why it should be done by a publicly-funded organisation. Surely there is enough ‘raw journalism talent’ emerging of its own volition, motivated by nothing more than the desire to be read, to obviate any need for public subsidies?
If we sincerely want to foster new talent, the last thing we ought to be doing is letting a dysfunctional bureaucracy like the ABC anywhere near it.
Oh really? And why is it obvious?
Apparently PeterTB, It wasn’t Julia or her office that leaked it anyway.
Perhaps some Liberal who doesn’t like TA leaked it, not that there’s anyone there who wants to get under his skin.
It’s a consequence of too much space and too little news and/or people to write it.
Opinion is cheap to produce and gives the illusion of breadth of “coverage”. In fact it’s talkback radio in print. Lots of people sounding off, but little new information or analysis.
That the ABC has got into this business just baffles me, particularly given they have a 24-hour news radio station that struggles to cover basic news in its own right, reduced instead to ripping and reading the wires.
But it’s not just the lack of quality analysis that’s so noticeable. It’s the almost complete absence these days of astute news judgement in taking a story forward, beyond ringing up the usual suspects for prefab opinion.
The piffle last week over Abbott’s alleged jetlag and the consequent and entirely predictable accusations about Gillard “politicising” Afghanistan was but the latest example of the Australian media’s pathetic lack of substance on any issue. It is simply easier to play ping pong with press releases. Control ‘c’ and control ‘v’ are the only functions most journalists use these days.
The plague of cheap opinionating is just but the latest example of spreading a very thin layer of pseudo substance over the infinite white spaces of the internet or filling the intellectual void of “cyberspace” with the same half dozen voices lazily echoing each other.
Too much of nothing and time to just turn it off.
I’ve enjoyed the Ian Dunlop articles on Unleashed, but I’m pretty sure I’ve had to endure at least two Institutionalised Polluting Advocates (IPA) articles on there. Maybe that makes it even.
The Drum appears to be borrowing the modus operandi of the Centre for Independent Studies and Institute of Public Affairs.
Tax-exempt potical lobbying from “public intellectuals”(?).
Asperger’s
Ken@26
OK. “Journalism” was the wrong word. I really meant “Op-ed” or “commentator” talent. And I agree that one would hope that the free market would deliver this.
Well, I read the SMH and I could count the decent columnists there on one hand. (I’m not sure that I would need one finger to cover News Ltd.) And by “decent” I don’t mean I necessarily agree with them, I mean they can string together a coherent, articulate and interesting argument.
That strikes me as odd, because there are innumerable interesting, talented writers in the blogosphere. But they rarely, if ever, reach the mainstream.
So, there does seem to be a market failure, probably because identified and promoted talent is very much a public good – unless you can lock writers into “recording contracts” . So, I think there is a case for this to be publicly funded and the ABC is the obvious organisation to do it.
So much for the theory. The practice, I agree, is disappointing.
I don’t think it’s completely off-topic for me to vent, on this thread, my nausea at ABC News Radio replaying Alan Jones’ interview of Mr. Rabbit this morning about his visit to Afghanistan. Who wants to listen to a taxpayer-funded rehash of a pair of reactionary rugger-buggers pissing in each others’ pockets?
Let’s face it, the ABC is a pretend public broadcaster. Sure, it runs off government funds, but these days it does very little that a commercial organisation aimed at a similar demographic would do.
PN @ 34,
Oh, is that where this latest re-run of Giullia La Conditiorra [?} is coming from? Sweet sensirive little soul our Anthony is. Not tough enough to be PM, that’s clear.
It was also on their pretend ‘flagship’ current affairs program, AM Paul.
adrian @ 37,
Noticed it in Google News, clearly different from the recent spin of ‘Julia, a disciple of one of the greatest political thinkers of all time, has done me over.’ Maybe some-one explained Macchiavelli to him.
Just re-read 35, which actually says the opposite of what I meant to say. Coffee time!
What really irritates is that the most important political story of the week ie Audit-gate has been completely knocked off the radar. Instead we get the ABC just parroting the latest Liberal slur against Gillard in story after story.
For example:
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/purepoison/2010/10/11/what-else-could-the-libs-get-the-abc-to-put-in-quotes-on-its-front-page/
I suspect this was the Liberal’s intended stategy by constantly throwing insults at Gillard through the media. Now no one is talking about Hockey’s deception and instead its Julia’s alleged “back-alley bitchiness” getting all the headlines.
Although I think The Drum is fine – even though they could do with leaning a bit more towards quality over quantity there is more stuff of value there than at The Punch – I still very much agree with the main thrust of your piece.
You touch on what is my pet hate about almost all political reporting – that almost no attention is paid to “the actual legislative business, the actual government of the country, actual policy which will impact on us as citizens”, as it “is apparently not thought newsworthy.”
I am surprised news organisations pay so much money to base reporters in Parliament House, when so little attention is paid to what actually happens in the Parliament (apart from the Question Time pantomime and a few other set pieces of vaudeville).
All the political theatre has almost zero direct impact on people’s lives, while the legislation often directly affects millions of people.
Perhaps the reappearance of New Matilda may help get some more pieces of substance (and Inside Story has some very good items from time to time).
Excellent article, I agree entirely. I wish the editors of The Drum (and more importantly the editors of our commercial media) would take a leaf out of the page of a far more excellent online opinion magazine, Slate published by The Washington Post (http://www.slate.com/), and see that long form journalism can actually create considerable web traffic.
For a very good analysis of how the Slate model works see: http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/07/smart-editorial-smart-readers-and-smart-ad-solutions-slate-makes-a-case-for-long-form-on-the-web/
Kaf @ 32, more like ADD than Asperger’s. People with Asperger’s Syndrome are generally very good at concentrating on the details (which is why we make such great engineers and computer programmers).
DI(nr) @ 42
I don’t think it is necessary or desirable to medicalise Tony Abbott’s obvious personality flaws. And it is insulting to those who have ADHD and live with the condition without behaving like tools every day of their lives. Like you it is a subject close to my heart
Mr Rabbitt needs this lesson.
How to Not Be a Dick.
step 1. Don’t be a dick.
The ABC News/Current Affairs lost me as a viewer/listener as it became obvious that it was being blatantly stacked with the likes of Fran Kelly and the News Ltd. crew sometime midway in the Conservative Coalition’s period in office. The shallow, tabloidisation has simply continued unabated since then. The horrible thing about it is that our taxes are paying for this cruddy pile.
The press even in totalitarian countries is less dangerous as in those places the readers/listeners work out how to deconstruct the propaganda. Here it is like a pestilence without check or balance.
I agree completely, bmitw. I just thought that if we were going to compare Abbott’s behaviour with that of people who are not neurotypical, Asperger’s is probably the worst choice.
@Kaf(32) Abbott is a Socially Adept Psychopath, imho. An Aspergic is designed as foil to inveterate liars and manipulators. The BS a SAP deploys on neurotypicals simply doesn’t work on an Aspergic.
By coincidence I wrote a piece about this yesterday having not read this piece on LP – you might be interested. I agree with the piece – too much rubbish, not enough editing.