Our weekly (mostly) look at media spin tactics: let’s dissect the PR and propaganda that aims to blow one’s own horn, bury one’s errors, resurrect the shambling zombie corpses of well-flogged deceased equines, and ooh look! A Big Distracting Thing!
Active threads here lately have been discussing education myths, earthquakes, uprisings against despots, race discourse in Australia, future food security and carbon prices/emissions abatement. If you have topical commentary to add to these discussions, best leave it on the appropriate thread – this one’s just for the media manoeuvres.
For other discussion, check out our latest roundtables and the 50 Most Recent Posts list in the sidebar on our general archive page to see what else has generated most interest recently, and what got overlooked. Perhaps an issue came up on the latest open thread which you feel deserves some more discussion.
Some of those stories are still in the headlines, others are getting hardly any attention. What other stories are being buried while more flashy stories are hogging the limelight?
On the subject of spin, see today’s The Failed Estate for some reflections on why we keep falling for it. Easy Meat
The Liberals are going to have to employ some powerful spin as they go all out to annihilate the government’s policy to price (and tax) carbon emissions.
First they have to convince us that it is a bad thing for the Australian economy and is not in the public interest. Then they have to explain why,when it was their policy, they back-flipped and dumped Malcolm Turnbull as their leader. Then they have to provide an alternative, viable, policy beyond ‘planting trees and some other things’and,if they get into office at the next election they have to commit to reversing the legislation.
On the weekend their ABC ran a report, on radio news, concerning the Northern Territory intervention.
I gather they slavishly ran with the original piece from The Australian that had Mal Brough claiming it was a “failure”, not through anything on his part, of course, but stuff ups by the government.
As is often the case, Aunty has no trace of it’s original one sided week end bash script on site; all that remains is this link.
In it, Rosalie Kunoth-Monks from Utopia agrees it is a mess. However she says “It was a violation to human rights right from the beginning,” she said.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/27/3150052.htm
As usual, this part of the story has not hit the airwaves or any response from the government in reply to mad Mal.
His word is gospel, apparently.
Abbott’s spin on the “big new tax” might not play the way he wants. One of my friends completely taken in by the “Julia lied” meme told me angrily on Sunday how he was changing his votes in the Fed and State elections…to the Greens!
Here’s my take on the most recent tactics of the media:
An open letter to the Australian Media – the sequel
Paddy Manning from SMH just found this one:
Linc Energy CEO to drive from QLD to Perth on “ultra clean diesel fuel created from the company’s own Underground Coal Gasification (UCG) and Gas to Liquid (GTL) technologies.
http://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20110228/pdf/41x3d2vs1qrx1l.pdf
And thanks Mr Denmore, I enjoyed your post.
Mr Denmore @ 1 – do you think we get the media that we’re willing to pay for? News is subsidised by other areas of the media business but its a lot harder to keep them connected now. And with the internet a lot of demand for fast and free news rather than high quality at cost news/analysis.
Chris,
We get the media that advertising is willing to pay for. Eighty percent of print revenues come from advertising. They are the clients, not the readers.
So the media will cover “the news” that attracts the greatest number and quality of eyeballs. Quality is judged by spending power.
Mass media as a business is relatively new (a little over a hundred years). It’s now going the way of the recorded music business, which also was disintermediated by new technology.
There is no cast iron rule that you can make money out of it.
Mr Denmore – well the alternative would be for readers to directly pay a lot more (and especially non zero amounts for online news) upfront so the producers are not dependent on advertisers. But the only cases I know of where that has worked have been for specialised technical publications.
Its pretty hard to compete against free, even if the quality is poor.
joe2 at #3
What an amazing coincidence.
In your comment you mentioned “Rosalie Kunoth-Monks from Utopia” and linked to an ABC article.
Let me take you on a digressive journey that will end up back at that article.
Many years ago, when I was a kid, I went to see a movie called “Jedda” directed by Charles Chauvel which was the first colour movie made in Australia.
Here is the wiki link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedda
I remember the movie [fairly] well and especially the final scene when the 2 ill-fated aboriginal lovers suicide by jumping off a cliff.
Some years ago I was on a boat in Katherine Gorge in the NT and the guide bloke pointed out ‘Jedda’s Leap” the cliff that was the scene for the leap.
That was a blast from the past for me. It brought the movie back.
Then last week Bob Gosford at his Crikey blog “the Northern Myth” had a post, well worth the read, about a truck that supplied the Wave Hill people with stuff when they were attempting to gain their rights- a major event in Australian history.
He included photos of the truck and in the photos was Robert Tudawali one of the fated lovers in the movie and later an activist who, unfortunately, had a sad end personally.
You can check him out via Google [as I did cos Bob's article was another blast from the past].
The other actor, who took the role was Jedda was Gnarla Kunoth [see, I'm getting to the ABC and Intervention stuff].
I checked her out also.
She changed her name to ….guess what?
And ended up as Chancellor of Batchelor Indigenous Tertiary College.
Here is their site:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batchelor_Institute_of_Indigenous_Tertiary_Education
{you can read her Chancellor’s report of a few years ago via a link in their site].
Now apart from my journey back in my history I’m writing this because the ABC article you linked gives no background to who this woman, Rosalie Kunoth-Ross, really is.
She is more than just ” …from Utopia, 230 kilometres from Alice Springs …” which the only description given, she is the former Chancellor of Batchelor Indigenous Tertiary College.
And, by the by, the star of “Jedda” and doubtless with a history of many other things.
Hope you found that interesting.
Great story hannah’s dad. I know the Gorge pretty well having pulled a canoe up it and, of course, the movie.
Rosalie sounds like someone very knowledgeable to hear more from, on the intervention. It is unlikely to happen in this media climate of adoration of all things tory.
At the moment there’s no way you can disengage the media from the commercial interests they serve – some are still clinging to a model whose time has passed, just as CDs are still being made (thank god!), but junk journalism will become the norm if it isn’t already.
Which is why the role of the public broadcaster is so important, and the ABC’s abrogration of that role is such a disaster.
The ABC is likely to go into spin-overdrive now the government has announced the proposed Carbon Tax.
Will they break all previous records for regurgitation of Liberal press releases?
Will they set up an OB unit in Liberal HQ to cover the talking points as they emerge?
Stay tuned ……or maybe not.
The latest spin is Abbott wanting to have the Australian government compensate Australian victims of terror.
You have to laugh at how stupid Abbott thinks potential LNP voters/rightwing ALP voters are.
Listening to the Insiders I noticed that there seems to be this odd framing around the Carbon Tax and compensation. There seems to be this odd disconnect where over compensating the poor so they can still afford to buy food and heat/cool their place is seen as some sort of moral hazard but talk about big business and the principle flips to not wanting to burden big business with paying for the resources they use.
Abbott ‘begged’ for PM’s job: Windsor
Drat! I’ve lost the article. Anyway, surprise surprise, business came out either late last night or this morning with a statement saying they didn’t support Gillard’s ‘carbon taz’. It wuz the usual Liberal Party shills + Heather Ridout, who isn’t always that bad, IMO.
PB, Ridout has been apparently measured lately (I guess to keep the govt sweet), but in the past she’s been pretty ideological.
I think the ABC must have a thirteen year old girl writing the headlines that scroll along the bottom of the screen on ABC24. A week or so ago it was “Gillard scores invite to royal wedding” and today it’s “Shorten promises carbon tax will not be scary”.
Hey, in that case the ABC must have a 16 year old boy choosing the guests and audience members for Q&A, though most teenagers couldn’t do a worse job than whoever does it at the moment.
So Gillard is now cast as Lady Macbeth, Rudd is Macbeth and the CPRS is Duncan (the Scottish King whom, in the Shakespeare play, Lady Macbeth persuades her husband to murder).
This must be the first version of the play where Lady Macbeth then goes on to kill her husband and to attempt to rescucitate Duncan.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/wilkie-tells-abbott-to-sack-senior-libs-for-peddling-racial-hatred-20110301-1bcw9.html
Go, Andrew!
Get it out there, but watch how this uncommon lucidity gets buried.
And make sure you vote on the CMMC link @23.
Should Tony Abbott sack Scott Morrison and Cory Bernardi?
70% think so.
See if we can’t get that up to 95%. After all, they are both complete dickheads. Tony should sack himself.
Not so fast on sacking Morrison and Bernardi.
Those are the biggest assets that Labor has at the moment.
True, that and his great big polluter grants.
Can I haz 2 votes pleez?
Vote early and vote often, Paul.
Help Rupert Murdoch lose money … and lose influence.
http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_rupert_murdoch_3/97.php?cl_tta_sign=76b0df5f0adcfd56dcac725d8c08f1fa
Bloody brilliant piece on the coverage of the Middle East by Anthony Loewenstein, has just appeared on the ABC website: http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/44618.html
Catch it before the trolls make them pull it down!
Emma, you really should try to distinguish between ignorant [sexist slur redacted ~moderator] like the Ant pandering to your anti American biases, and reality.
Joe2 @ 3 & 12, and Hannah’s Dad @ 11, gee your discussion about Ngarla Kunoth/Rosalie Kunoth-Monks, died in the arse, didn’t it ? I guess the skinny-soy-latte set have more important matters to think about that Blackfellows
Emma @ 30: Antony’s is a good piece, but a little thin on its descriptions of Chavez, Ortega, Castro and Mugabe being at least as good friends with Ghaddafi as Blair and Bush. Perhaps no more than, but not much less than ?
I can understand your hostility to Blair for selling out the people involved in the Lockerbie disaster for Libyan oil, but a little objectivity wouldn’t go astray
Old Yobbo, as they might say on Pharyngula, I have here a decaying porcupine which I invite you to apply forcefully to your delicate parts, because you above all others here fully deserve the multitude of strong sensations that would ensue.
Joe2 and Hannah’s Dad digressed briefly from the topic of the thread, which is media spin tactics, and then gracefully let it dwindle. Because they know the netiquette about topicality. You obviously either don’t know or don’t care, since you just couldn’t get your plainsong one-note score sheet (Title: “Lefties are Hypocrites”) out fast enough, could you? On your second and third paras you are vaguely on point, but bringing in their discussion to your first para was just vexatious dribble.
Your points are being ignored because you are tedious in the extreme with this accusatory attitude. People gave you answers about this stuff last week, yet you keep on making the same points over and over again, so what’s the point in them getting repetitious alongside you? It’s disrespectful to everybody else reading here.
I do NOT want you to respond to me in this thread and potentially derail this one as well. This thread is only about media spin tactics, and your grandstanding on your hobby-horse is not welcome unless you can keep it directly on topic.
Forgive me, Tigtog, for seeming to express any form of disrespect to any contributors to these threads. Clearly, they don’t deserve it and I apologise for any feelings which I have hurt.
But – on-topic – media spin takes many forms, including those about Indigenous affairs and the revolution in Libya. Surely the task is to distinguish spin from straight reporting ?
On Libya for example, one can tease out differences in the reporting between al-Jazeera and, say, The Independent. The Guardian and al-Jazeera both report much more straight down the line, the ‘facts’, while The Independent tends to be ever so slightly more ‘interpretive’.
And of course, the Murdoch papers present another story, and one must sometimes disregard some of their interpretations, while other times, their reports can be matched up against those of The Guardian and al-Jazeera. So surely we are adult enough to be able to take some reports on some subjects with liberal grains of salt, while concluding that others may be 90-95 % close to actual ‘truth’. Am I allowed to say that there is such a thing as truth ? God, sometimes I feel so un-post-modern.
Old Yobbo, you were doing so well until that last line, even though the effort it took you (what with that tongue in your cheek and all) was palpable, but you just had to get another little insinuating dig in.
So: another post from Old Yobbo, yet another sneering swipe at some imputed homogeneous leftist position that has not actually been expressed by anybody in this thread. Yawn.
I sincerely suspect that if you could just take your arsehat off, you might be worth engaging. But until you do, you’re not.
Thanks tigtog, but why do you think that ‘post-modern’ is in any way left-wing ? I was having a sneering swipe at relativist wankers, not the left, and certainly not anybody on LP
Surely not too many LP writers are relativist wankers ? Should I keep away from this topic altogether ? And others as well ?
Do you have an approved list of target topics for newcomers like me to sink the boot into ?
Last comment to you, oh derailer of threads. Do not respond to this comment please. Just reflect upon it.
How about you stick to what people actively engaging in a thread have actually said, here or elsewhere, and provide links to what has actually been said? Instead of continually insinuating that the alleged LP hivemind holds opinions that have not actually been mentioned by anybody but you?
If and when you do so, then you might get substantive responses. If you however keep serving up the same old bullshit, folks are likely to just ignore your crap.
I suggest you read the comments policy with closer attention, too.
I’m finding the NSW ALP posters around town telling. Not only have some of them subbed “Labor” for the ALP logo, but they’ve placed it in really small type in parts oif the poster where you are unlikely to notice it.
Linda Burnie in Canterbury has darjk cloting on and Labor is on her left shoulder. Thre’s someone called “Prue” out Erkine Park way who’s not so keen on outing herself either.
Verity Firth is running a camapign called “Keep Verity” and has the website to prove it. Apparently the irony was lost on her. What does her name mean again?
Carmel Tebbutt, whose photo is reminiscent of Jana Vendt, is aparently “caring and committed” but not all that Labor.
I’ve no idea who Con Tsirekis in Drummoyne is, but apparently he is, rather creepily: One of Us. Since he’s not a Liberal (John Sidoti is apparently) and not an Indie or Green (based on the poster, I assume he is Labor.
One speaks figuratively of the damage to the “Labor” brand, and now it seems the damage is literal.
Tigtog,
You wrong me – I’ve never written about the LP hivemind, nor called anyone – nor would i ever call anyone – (cf. @ 31) “an ignorant t**t”.
My point about Rosalie Kunoth-Monks was – surely obviously – that the media are often either ignorant of detail, or deliberately conceal the long history of contributions of people like Ms Kunoth-Monks, and the implications of a former Chancellor of a tertiary institution being opposed to government policy. The results are that her opinions are devalued – if you like, by media spin.
As it happens, I don’t agree with her on this issue, but I certainly respect her right to voice her opinion, and the depth of the experience with which she supports her arguments.
I also respect that she does not sink to ad hominem attacks (usually the sign of lost arguments) nor insults nor veiled threats. I look forward to the day when LP can rise to her level
Old Yobbo, did you just castigate PeterTB? He’s not a leftist at all – he’s here mainly to find fault just the same as you – are you sure that’s who you want to fling some poo at? Makes a pleasant change from your continual leftie-baiting if so. Thanks for pointing out the sexist slur though, that’s about to get redacted.
If that was the point you wanted to make about Kunoth-Monks upthread, then perhaps saying so clearly instead of wrapping it up in multiple layers of snide sneering spin of your own might have worked just a wee bit better.
Hi Tigtog,
Thanks for your comment. I don’t know, or really care, who PeterTB is (should I ?), I don’t go in for targeted ad hominem attacks on anybody, they’re usually pointlessly provocative. But yes, if he is right-wing, it shows that right-wingers can be wrong too. I certainly don’t have a problem with that concept. Who IS he ?
And I’m sorry, what sexist slur do you mean ? Did I do something wrong there ?
And I’m trying to keep away from ridiculing the LP hivemind – I’ve never mentioned it and never intend to.
And no, Tigtog, although I have some right-wing friends, and occasionally do like to bait lefties of certain orientations, I’ll always think of myself as being rusted on to the Left, from birth to death, even if others don’t think I am: it’s a very broad church
Congratulations for making the thread all about you.
I couldn’t have done it without you, Tigtog
True enough. You got me to bite your bait. Whoopee.
You win some, you lose some, my dear.
Apologies tt if you found my use of the term t%%t offensive – it was meant only in the “stupid incompetent fool” sense – as it was appropriately applied to The Ant.
PeterTB, I know how the word is used as a generic insult. I’m sure that you didn’t think of it as a gendered slur, and I accept your apologies, but surely you cannot argue against its origin as a gendered slur.
Marginalising language does real harm. Since I’ve realised this, I don’t go around calling anyone a d**khead, either. Also not at all keen on other marginalising slurs such as ret**d, sp*z or l*me. Wherever I find them as a moderator, I will redact them.
There are plenty of other options in our language for describing incompetent fools.
With regard to a thread on spin, the way that language can be used to marginalise distinct identifiers as Other is actually on topic, so thanks for bringing the thread back on track.
Entertaining spin from the US.
(1) “Damage” to marble Government buildings from wisconsin union protests estimated at $7m. This was circulated in the press before someone checked, and, er, no actual damage was found and the “estimate” changed to… $0.
(2) Mike Huckabee, who seems to be a fact-free zone, has been pushing the idea that Obama, who according to him was raised in Kenya (?!) is therefore driven by Anti-British-Colonial animus (scary!) Many people have since gently pointed out that Independence Day is an anti-British-Colonial celebration – and exactly which event is the Tea party named after?!
(Someone also pointed out that Huckabee’s opinion was scrambled D’Souza – see The Roots Of Obama’s Rage.)
Helen, I hadn’t heard about the invisible damage! LOL
Huckabee has since claimed that he just misspoke and actually meant Indonesia, where Obama spent a whole 4 years of his youth, and then claimed that Obama attended a madrasa for that time. (In fact he spent two years attending an ordinary public school where the pupils came from a variety of religions, then two years attending a Catholic school).
Huckabee is dogwhistling like mad – he’s not willing to openly repeat the “birther” nonsense, but every single thing he’s saying boils down to Obama being “not American enough” to sit in the Oval Office.
Another good piece of recent spin is the opposition to the Territories legislation making it all about Teh Gay Marriage and whipping up conservative fears about having Teh Gay Agenda imposed on them.
When in fact the people opposing the legislation in fact are concerned that they won’t be able to impose nuclear waste dumping on the NT if the legislation is passed. But that won’t play so well in the media.
Sorry, that should have been: Teh Gay Agenda™