He said-she said

This week Tony Abbott actually appeared on the ABC's 7.30 program, where his inability to answer serious questions about substance rather than slogans was embarrassingly obvious.   24 hours later Julia Gillard faced a barrage of questions from the press gallery to deal with allegations about her conduct as a lawyer 17 years ago.  She spent 50 minutes answering all questions until journalists had no more to ask.

The contrast in media behavior between Tony and Julia was stark.

And one media outlet published one claim about the PM's past behavior, then retracted it and  apologized.  Again! (This claim had been published  by them,  then retracted on another occasion)  No prizes for guessing  which newspaper!

If only

Quick thinking by First Dog On The Moon when discussing on ABC RN an article by Barrie Cassidy.  Cassidy was critical of main-steam journalists for never really challenging Tony Abbott's claims or proposals, when they interview him.  Cassidy thought they let TA off too lightly.  Whereupon First Dog On The Moon agreed, but also lamented the lack of an hour-long TV show in which to really test TA out.  Ouch!

But perhaps, on second thoughts, Cassidy can't do much, if TA refuses to subject himself to the same degree of probing questionning that the PM has repeatedly undergone on Q&A; 7.30; Insiders etc?

Cognitive dissonance

How can it be that there is so little confidence in Australia at the moment, when most Western countries would be more than happy to be in our  economic shoes?     Does it have anything to do with the way media is busy constructing politics and society as a sort of tv reality show, full of strife and with misery to come?  The preoccupation with gloom and doom seems particularly unreal to one who has seen Australia survive many truly difficult times in the past century and who has just returned from Europe, where there really are considerable economic problems to worry about.

Back to Unreality

The News of the World hacking scandal exposes the worst of contemporary journalism.  But Britain still has first class newspapers to give some sort of balance.  It was, after all, the dogged journalism of the Guardian that finally brought to light the extent of the problems of the Murdoch tabloid.  Returning to Australia I have been once again reminded of how our lack of media diversity and a public appetite for national discussion of issues as if they were  football matches have combined to drag journalism down to less scandalous, but just as disappointing, depths.  And the fact that the owner of News of the World controls 70 per cent of the metropolitan newspaper market in Australia, while its only major competitor Fairfax is struggling to survive, is no source of comfort.  To put this British affair into an Australian context readers will find this site illuminating The Failed Estate


Update: There is a very interesting article in Crikey today by Margaret Simons