A couple of other excellent pieces on the performance of the political media, and its interconnection with pollies and political strategists, have come to light over the couple of two days. The first is an excellent piece by Laura Tingle on the misreporting of the RSPT stoush, and how much of the media swallowed the mining industry’s line whole.

Yesterday, Grog’s Gamut posted a passionate piece on his blog, critiquing the performance of the media pack in this election campaign specifically. You can read it here. Interestingly, the post sparked quite a debate on Twitter, with notable contributors being journalism academic and blogger Jason Wilson, Tim Dunlop, Greens web coordinator David Paris, and journalists James Massola, Samantha Maiden, Tony Wright and Latika Bourke.

Unfortunately, the debate is difficult to archive in the absence of a unifying hashtag. But the journos’ defence was partly that questions about policy were being put to the leaders, and, interestingly, that editors encouraged questions about the narrative. There’s a lot more to it than that, and I hope Jason Wilson follows up with a promised piece on it, which would better summarise a quite complex interchange than I am doing here. [The questions raised deserve some analysis and reflection, and all I'm really writing here is a very quickly composed set of night thinking observations!]

In the @GrogsGamut debate, then, there was a view being put that critics of the media didn’t understand the media as process.

On that point, one of the fascinating things about ABC News 24 is that you can see the raw material, if you like, as the entirety of both major party leaders’ press conferences are broadcast. We highlighted one grab from Julia Gillard’s presser in Perth here earlier, but my overall impression is that her fight back really didn’t flow through to the nightly news in any real way.

So, Labor Outsider’s point on a previous post about the real difficulty that politicians have in communicating messages holds true. Had you been watching 24 hour news, or reading blogs or the Twitter conversation, you’d have perceived the story moving on from the now stale talking points about leaks and polls, but that doesn’t translate (at least not immediately) into what most voters see.

The speeds at which the media cycle moves, then, are not unidirectional. And the mass communication aspect, the distillation of raw reporting into a product packaged up for most voters to see, is highly selective – not just via highlighting the narrative, but also by selecting particular policy announcements to report, and particular ones to ignore.

Talking about the nightly tv news, one other observation I’ve made is that ABC and SBS, in particular, are very meta. It’s not so much about reporting what’s being said, but about “analysing” its significance. That can be quite egregious, and for what it’s worth, I think SBS tv news is the worst offender. It’s very difficult to see Karen Middleton as ever being even handed as between Labor and the Coalition, and that bleeds into the ‘straight’ news.

All that’s by way of introduction to a roundtable thread were you can discuss any aspect of the media’s coverage of the campaign, and its role in the contest, you wish.

Elsewhere: An Onymous Lefty.

There’s an interesting piece by Alister Drysdale in Business Spectator this morning, which rips into the Liberals:

There is no sign whatsoever of alternative public policy – just oppose. For Rudd, Gillard and Wayne Swan the Opposition modus operandi – exemplified by Question Time idiocy – must give them not a moment’s lost sleep. They’ve been lashed by the proverbial wet tram ticket, and feel no pain. And for that, we all lose.

I don’t know Drysdale’s work, but it’s interesting to see this sort of critique in a publication targeted at a business/finance readership. The alienation between business and their natural political allies is one of the most interesting and least analysed stories of the Rudd incumbency.

It’s also ironic to see John Howard ‘stirring from his sick bed’ to denounce Labor in opposition for, well, opposing. (Not that I think the great debate Dennis Shanahan and his mates claim is occurring on Kevin Rudd’s latest red rag to the bulls is pre-occupying public attention).

For all the claims from the Libs and their media mates that Rudd and co are pre-occupied by the media cycle, it’s clear that Labor has successfully laid down a narrative and shaped public opinion. Drysdale’s argument is that the Liberals are narcissistically obsessed with popping up on Sky News and tweeting to political tragics, and have eschewed all the things oppositions should do in favour of playing to the press gallery’s short attention span. He’s right.

No wonder the polls never perceptibly budge.

He’s the Bert Newton of Australian politics: the polished performer whose gift for spontaneous, stiffly splenetic wit was honed in tougher vaudevillian times, times when having a personality meant more than booking an in-store appearance from Sophie Monk. “He” is of course Paul Keating, a man who knows how to milk a moment in the public gaze, a man who also knows how to fill that moment with something pointedly amusing and worth the repeating.

Two brackets of achingly sharp political standup from Keating yesterday have hogged the airwaves and set a handful of agendas in the 24 hours since. That Keating need only floss his teeth in public to turn the news cycle on its ear says a lot for the standard of over-massaged, verbally neutered performance we have come to expect from the modern political operator.

And then there was this in the Tips and Rumours section:

Keating speaks for all of us: Will Paul Keating’s unsolicited but sage advice to Kevin Rudd prompt a change in style and direction? The view among many Labor staffers and most of the ministry is hopeful. Prompted by Kerry O’Brien on The 7.30 Report, Keating took aim at the government’s lack of “narrative”, strategic direction and ability to work to a theme, a story. The PM’s speechwriters should take note. Keating also took aim at the propensity for “little press secretaries” to keep the PM captive to the 24-hour media cycle while ignoring the bigger picture and time to think. He also ridiculed the PM’s penchant for small-time micro-management, recalling Jimmy Carter’s control of the White House tennis court time sheet. It was a big call for Keating to give the PM a gentle slap in these areas, but he knows he can because he is being urged to by the many players in Canberra he is still in contact with. While the Government is travelling well, mostly due to Nelson’s poor performance, there are underlying signs of worry that Keating has picked up from the odd minister, staffer and party official. He speaks for all of us.

Here’s the other part of what Keating had to say – aside from the bit about narrative – on the 7 30 Report on Wednesday night:

KERRY OBRIEN: Kevin Rudd has been painted as micro manager. Now whatever you and Bob Hawke were accused of as prime ministers I don’t think micro manager was one of them. Can a Prime Minister afford to engage in the small detail in running Government? In the end do you have to invest trust and significant autonomy in your ministerial colleagues?

PAUL KEATING: Absolutely. You can’t micro manage a thing like the Commonwealth. And I noticed the other day that the US presidential candidate Obama was overheard with a microphone on.

KERRY OBRIEN: With the British Opposition Leader.

PAUL KEATING: With the British Opposition Leader saying in these jobs you must have time to think and I used to say that to that Gary Gray when he was secretary of the Labor Party, he thought we should have been out all the time talking. I mean John Howard turned the prime ministership into something like a state police minister. He was at the scene of every crime, twice a day on radio. The guy did no thinking. When a country has a lead they’re does not think, think then that country starts to move back.

KERRY OBRIEN: You would have to form the impression that Kevin Rudd is not giving him that much time to think either?

PAUL KEATING: Well frenetic activity in the end suiting journos, running at the behest of little press secretaries does not pay off.

…And it looks like PJK’s push for increased super contributions may be having an effect.