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This is all your fault

Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

BERNARD KEANE ON THE FEDERAL ELECTION 2010, FEDERAL ELECTION 2010

Yes, this election is rubbish, and it represents the lowest point in policy debate since, probably, 1980.

Yes it's boring, and visionless, and run by two parties that are entirely risk-averse and who have turned their backs on so much achieved by previous generations of leaders. Parties for whom a key campaign strategy is to explain to voters that they have no intention of carrying out reforms they have long insisted were crucial.

But bad luck - it's your fault. Politicians, and the media, and the business community all share responsibility for this dire state of affairs, but it's voters themselves who have ultimately brought this about.

Last week, even mainstream media journalists began complaining about how tedious the campaign was. Hitherto, their main complaints had been poor catering and a failure by the Labor campaign to give them sufficient access to Julia Gillard. When blogger Grog's Gamut attacked the press packs accompanying the leaders for ignoring policy issues (reproduced below), it elicited a very defensive reaction from some journalists (Larvatus Prodeo covered the spat and the broader political ennui enveloping us all).

The media indeed bears some culpability for not merely the dire state of this election campaign but the dire state of politics as a delivery for quality government and public policy. But it isn't solely or evenly mainly to blame for it.

The role of the media in relation to politics is best understood as akin to that of feeders, the parasites who encourage obese partners to grow larger to satisfy their psychological and fetishistic needs, creating a deeply unhealthy cycle of mutual dependence. The media exploits and encourages a flawed political culture, but they don't create it or control it.

That's not to say there isn't much left to be desired in mainstream media political coverage (let's leave aside for the moment News Ltd's anti-Labor campaigning, which extends to smearing Julia Gillard over her appearance, relationships and childlessness). Most journalists indeed fail to cover policy properly, but not because they're lazy or obsessed with trivia or think their readers and viewers are idiots -- to pick three of the criticisms routinely thrown around -- but because they lack the specialist skills and the time.

Few journalists have an economics background - and ultimately economics is at the heart of most government policy. Many, it appears, can't count. More seriously, few have the time to invest in analysis of policy, as political bureaux are cut back.

Instead, they rely for policy analysis on external "expert opinion" and therefore inevitably frame policy analysis as a debate and conflict. This leads to "he said-she said" journalism which offers an easy way out for time-pressed hacks, and in the case of the ABC is actually made obligatory by editorial guidelines as part of the national broadcaster's unthinking and unreflective quest for "balance".

This isn't just a recent phenomenon occasioned by the slow death of the print media. Commercial broadcasters have been cutting back on news and current affairs since the 1980s. Political coverage has slowly become niche journalism. And 24 hour news channels are not a substitute for the long-term diminution of mainstream current affairs. They rarely provide in-depth analysis, but offer instead talking-head commentary and commentary on commentary. In any event, they are only watched by political tragics anyway.

All this makes media complaints about "spin" all the more ironic: the media needs spin, both from politicians and from external experts and observers, otherwise it would have to do the heavy lifting of actual analysis. Political coverage relies on spin and fills columns and airtime analyzing spin, discussing how the spin will be perceived: spin, messaging, propaganda as it used to be called, has become the primary material of the media cycle.

The result is too much cynicism and not enough scepticism. The media not merely covers policy poorly, it covers it selectively. A remarkable feature of the last three years has been the ruthless assault on every claim advanced by the Government in relation to key policy issues such as emissions trading or the mining tax, while the claims of vested interests have been waved through and reported as fact with virtually no scrutiny.

Much of this, true, is the product of News Ltd's war on Labor. But it isn't confined to the pages of The Australian, by any stretch. The Financial Review was one of the worst offenders in relation to the RSPT, and the ABC is now the sort of broadcaster where it is typical, rather than a matter worthy of remark, that an irrational and discredited a figure like Chris Monckton is given extensive and high-profile airtime.

In this swirl of self-interest, credulity and inconsistency, the role of the business has unfortunately avoided scrutiny. Despite its frequent calls for economic reform, Australia's corporate sector is one of the biggest impediments to it. It was amusing to read last Thursday in the Fin the demands of the "Business Coalition for Tax Reform" for "real reform" to be considered in the election. At the centre of those reform demands was a significant reduction in the corporate tax rate, to 25%.

Again, we'll put aside that the Government tried to pursue a proposal to cut company tax to 28%, and received exactly zero support from corporate Australia while foreign multinationals successfully intimidated Labor into abandoning it.

Cutting the company tax rate to 25% would cost perhaps $8-10b a year. Did the BCTR, or any other of the business groups that support it, nominate what other taxes should rise to make up the shortfall? Did they nominate any area of expenditure that should be cut? And not just something generic like "government waste", but actual programs where proposed cuts might upset people - lower school funding, fewer roads, fewer doctors and nurses, waiting longer to buy some new warplanes or frigates? No.

This isn't serious public policy debate. It has no more validity than the bloke at the bar bitching about taxes between beers. The corporate sector, despite calling for it, provides no support for the cause of real reform. In fact it provides the opposite: individual industries or sub-sectors that may lose as a consequence of reform know they can try to derail legitimate reform without opposition from, or criticism by, the rest of corporate Australia, although the latter reserve the right to then criticise politicians for failing to show leadership.

But neither the media nor the business sector can take responsibility for the policy timidity and risk-averse nature of the current generation of politicians.

That's where we come in.

Bernard Keane is right.

Excellent article and spot on analysis.  We the voters are really at fault for believing the insulting rubbish used by the ABC (24-7 now) and the Murdochracy media.  It might sound a little like Rattus' policy of caveat emptor - or "serves you right you didn't have to take that loan' - remember?"  The difference being of course that one person's blunder can be excused on naivety or lack of education while the blunder of millions of voters in the National Interest is unforgiveable.

IMHO the key to the ancient methods of the “born to rule” was to keep the poor poorer and uneducated and tired by wars for profit – definitely a Howard/Abbott “New Order” mantra and still is. 

I quote from Bernard's article....[My emphasis]

"The role of the media in relation to politics is best understood as akin to that of feeders, the parasites who encourage obese partners to grow larger to satisfy their psychological and fetishistic needs, creating a deeply unhealthy cycle of mutual dependence. The media exploits and encourages a flawed political culture, but they don't create it or control it.

The result is too much cynicism and not enough scepticism. The media not merely covers policy poorly, it covers it selectively. A remarkable feature of the last three years has been the ruthless assault on every claim advanced by the Government in relation to key policy issues such as emissions trading or the mining tax, while the claims of vested interests have been waved through and reported as fact with virtually no scrutiny.

Much of this, true, is the product of News Ltd's war on Labor. But it isn't confined to the pages of The Australian, by any stretch. The Financial Review was one of the worst offenders in relation to the RSPT, and the ABC is now the sort of broadcaster where it is typical, rather than a matter worthy of remark, that an irrational and discredited a figure like Chris Monckton is given extensive and high-profile airtime."

Bernard's article is like a lifesaver to a drowning person, or a breath of fresh air and truth to an otherwise foreign Corporation's love session against anything that raises the status of Australia's working families.

Perhaps the State of Queensland is feeling for the downfall of its once favorite son but, it was not long ago that the Murdochracy was claiming that the Queenslanders were keen to get rid of him (for their own perceived and selfish purposes). 

In fact, probably one the major reasons for the change of leadership in the Government was to try and negate the media's insistence that Labor would lose Queensland (and even his own seat) because of Kevin Rudd - and after that happened - they hypocritically condemned that action as though it "slighted them personally".  Fair dinkum.

The negative gutter tactics of the Howard “New Order” remnants was clear from the start of Abbott’s “one vote” defeat of his leader Malcolm Turnbull that surrendered to him [and his influential contacts] the leadership of a 51% Howard mob - much to the alarm of the other 49%.

How amazing is the power of a dishonest media when that can be forgiven as it wasn’t really a split vote?  And the successful assassin is suddenly changed from an “Eliza Doolittle into a Lady of the Gentry”?  Not bloody likely!

Caveat Emptor Queensland – Labor governments have led you well and, even if you believe half of the crap that Abbott’s Corporations are handing out, you would still be the loser and may well take the rest of us down with you.  I kid you not.

God Bless Australia and may we lift ourselves above this media fed frenzy of State against State in a Federal election – after all, the boom of mining in both Queensland and W.A. were begun with Labor State Governments. NE OUBLIE.

 

 

 

 

Read Bernard Keane's article on Media bias 3 August.

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Media self-regulation has failed: Keating

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Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Broadcast: 04/08/2010

Reporter: Hamish Fitzsimmons  [With my emphasis].

Transcript

Former Labor prime minister Paul Keating is calling for laws enshrining an individual's right to privacyTranscript

TONY JONES, PRESENTER: The former Labor prime minister Paul Keating is calling for the introduction of laws to enshrine an individual's right to privacy to counter unwarranted media intrusions.

Speaking in Melbourne tonight, Mr Keating said self-regulation by the media has failed and it's time for the law to step in.

Hamish Fitzsimmons reports.

HAMISH FITZSIMMONS, REPORTER: For Paul Keating, privacy is under attack.

PAUL KEATING, FMR PRIME MINISTER: On a range of fronts - electronic surveillance, terrorism laws, growing police powers, these peek-and-seek provisions, police coming to your home, cleaning your computer, putting bugs in your telephone, business practices associated with information mining and marketing and new technologies.

HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: The demand for information, however trivial or personal, has exploded with the growth of new platforms like the internet and social media and it doesn't rule out basic rights, according to Mr Keating. He cites as example the stories involving sometimes sordid detail regarding athlete Candice Falzon, model Lara Bingle and NSW politician David Campbell.

PAUL KEATING: Whole industries now revolve around so-called celebrity, fame, rumour and gossip, often more correctly straight fiction, which is published these days often by media organisations. These organisations proclaim the importance of free speech in the dissemination of news, but clearly are more at home in the entertainment business.

HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: In 2008 the Australian Law Reform Commission recommended the introduction of laws to protect privacy. The big ticket item was that people could sue for an unwarranted breach of their privacy, which Paul Keating wants to see made law.

PAUL KEATING: What the Law Reform Commission has put on offer is a proposal to remove uncertain and possibly haphazard and fragmented development of the law in favour of a unitary approach flowing from national legislation.

HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: Mr Keating has long taken issue with media intrusions into his private life, including his business affairs, his marriage and more recently an alleged driving infringement. Mr Keating wants laws to protect his and others' privacy because he says self-regulation by media organisations has failed.

PAUL KEATING: It is naive in the extreme to believe that a clutch of large companies, in this case media companies, will or can conduct their affairs on some sorta trustee basis, having permanent regard for the public interest, leaving these companies to actually determine what that public interest is.

HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: The solution? Mr Keating wants better training for journalists about what constitutes the public interest and an enforceable, uniform code of ethics.

Media commentators like former editor of Melbourne's Age newspaper Michael Gawenda doubt that's workable and think having lawyers and judges determine what the public interest is could be dangerous.  [COMMENT: The Judiciary is the last bastion of National interests you clown – not you or your ilk!]

MICHAEL GAWENDA, CENTRE FOR ADVANCED JOURNALISM: Judges and lawyers and politicians don't necessarily have the same interests in terms of the public's right to know things that we journalists have traditionally thought was a right, and that's my major concern: that we're gonna hand this - we're gonna have to hand things over because of our failures, basically, to judges and lawyers to decide what's in the public interest. [So you insist that ratbags like the drunkard Milne, Piers Sackerman and Andrew the Dolt to mention just a few, should decide what is best for me to know?  You need assistance when you speak such illogical and uncivilized breaches of common decency.  Lock yourself up or become a man].

HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: The Federal Government has indicated it will change privacy laws following the Law Reform Commission's report.

Hamish Fitzsimmons, Lateline.

 

Further to my take on Lateline.....Long article fellows.

Paul Keating: Privacy is under attack

Former Prime Minister Paul Keating says privacy is under attack and the media doesn't care.

Unless the media cleans up its act, it risks a backlash from an irate public.

Privacy in a broad sense is under attack these days on a range of fronts. Electronic surveillance, terrorism laws, growing police powers, business practices associated with information mining and marketing, and new technologies.

Where do we draw the line between freedom of expression and any remaining right an individual has to have some control over the gathering and publication of information about personal aspects of their life? What can or should be done when that line is crossed?

I repudiate those who assert that privacy in modern times is dead and that we should get over it, and those who claim the framework within which the media deal with privacy is effective and works well.

I support the case made in two Law Reform Commission reports that you won't see widely reported: that the law should provide recourse in the event of an unwarranted serious breach of an individual's privacy.

These issues are topical owing to questionable calls about balancing privacy and freedom of expression. Some in the media dismiss errors as unfortunate, inevitable and rare, and claim a strong commitment to values that include respect for privacy. I know many editors and journalists struggle with the issue, conscious of their responsibility to get it right and the harmful effect of getting it wrong.

But on just about any day in the tabloids and any night on A Current Affair or Today Tonight, you will see examples, including foot-in-the-door interviews, claimed to be necessary and justified by the media's right to know and to publish just about anything they like.

A 2008 report by the Australian Law Reform Commission on the country's privacy laws put forward 295 recommendations for change with the general aim of modernising and simplifying laws that are seen as dated, complex, confusing and full of gaps and inconsistencies.

The recommendations propose changes to, but continuation of, the largely self-regulatory arrangements that are a condition for the exemption media organisations enjoy from privacy laws.

This important report also recommended legislation to establish a general statutory cause of action for breach of privacy subject to a number of qualifiers to ensure the protection of other public interests. While the commission made clear that the proposal was not aimed specifically or solely at the media, reaction took on an ''end of the world as we know it'' tone in some media circles.

Some media voices called for calm consideration, suggesting a need to get their house in order before jumping to the barricades.

In this age of truly mass communication, when incursions into the privacy of people will continue to rise exponentially, we should not have important liberties shorn from us in some revelatory information free-for-all. The social contract we are subject to involves the surrender of certain rights in exchange for other societal benefits and protections.

But at the core of that contract there must never be derogations such that the notion of individuality is materially or permanently compromised. The essence of the dignity of each of us goes to our individuality and our primary need to be ourselves.

Not ourselves shared with billions of others, not ourselves X-rayed by new intrusive technologies, not ourselves ground to an amorphous mass of human sameness.

For these reasons, privacy will always matter. It will matter because the right to it represents a core and inalienable human liberty. It will still matter in the face of otherwise overwhelmingly invasive technologies; in the face of the attempts by the image and news wholesalers to have us believe that we live in the age of a new normal, a normal in which these astringent and corrosive facilitations are not simply to be tolerated, but accepted within a framework of powerless resignation.

What the Australian Law Reform Commission has put on offer is a proposal to remove uncertain and possibly haphazard and fragmented laws in favour of a unitary approach flowing from national legislation; legislation to create a general cause of action for unwarranted and serious breaches of privacy.

If, in certain circumstances, people had, or believed they had, a reasonable right to privacy and that privacy was breached, people should have a right of action in law by way of remedy.

The notion that media corporations should continue to enjoy different self-developed and self-regulated standards, instead of regulation by exemption, is simply opportunist. Every day the media is out there insisting on ever higher performance standards in the community, urging the full force of the law be applied to transgressors, but not to itself.

Industry leaders and the profession itself should acknowledge that the free-for-all cannot go on. That invading the privacy of celebrities and sometimes ordinary people has nought to do with the public interest and everything to do with profit.

Media organisations should work with and not against the modest reforms proposed by the Law Reform Commission for the continuation of the media exemption from the Privacy Act and to acknowledge that the media in general would benefit from legal clarity, consistent principles and uniform national enforcement when it comes to respect for privacy.

To date, governments have been wary about meddling with the media. But even wary ones will pick up the public disquiet. In this, the age of poll-driven policy, it is likely that governments will be encouraged to act and, when they do, the remedies will be sharper and more punitive.

Far better for media organisations to negotiate with the commission now than to wait for the counterpunch which has to come.

This is an edited extract Paul Keating delivered last night to the Centre for Advanced Journalism at the University of Melbourne. Read his full speech here.

Comments  [Edited as above]

Ken - August 05, 2010, 8:46AM

One only has to look at the Murdoch press to see that the media is out of control.

This is the organisation that negligently printed the private email addresses of climate scientists enabling some of their nut-job readership to send them a torrent of hate-mail and death threats.

The same organisation is desperately doing anything it can to try and get a climate-change denier elected PM of Australia. Some control is desperately needed.

Think Big | Sydney - August 05, 2010, 8:47AM

Spot on Paul Keating !

I'd like to add too , that you cant even call Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation a media business.
You look at Fox News in the U.S,Sky News in Australia and Murdoch's so called newspaper The Australian and all you read and hear is high powered ,sophsiticated ,brainwashing ,vicious,disinformative,negative politically biased in the extreme and outrageous PROPAGANDA.
Never in the history of Australian politics has the public of this country seen such a heinous and disgusting withchunt of an Australian Prime minister like the witchunt perpetrated on Kevin Rudd by Rupert Murdoch.
To top it off you,ve finally got politicians like Bob Brown publicly declaring that issues like Global warming have been seriously and irreparably undermined by Rupert Murdoch because Murdoch has a vested interest in seeing these issues OFF the political agenda !
Rupert Murdoch's insidious use of FEAR ,outright lies,proaganda and attack politics is now so serious in Australia that the public of the country is no longer capable of having informed and rational debates on topics like Global warming.
This is a so called media mogul with a $47 Billion dollar corporation putting his OWN vested political and business interests ahead of the VERY country he was born in !
Such appalling and reprehensible abuse of the media by Rupert Murdoch shows that Murdoch has way too much power and influence in this country and that his so called media style needs immediate scrutiny and punishment for the way it is deceiving the Australian public.

End the Lies | Albany W.A - August 05, 2010, 9:00AM  [Amen NE OUBLIE]