Category

Media

I'm working on a research paper analysing the interaction between journalists and the audience on twitter. What we've found so far is that, contrary to what we often hear from journalists, replies to news items are not full of what could be deemed 'personal abuse' but instead show the audience is pleading with journalists to look at stories from different perspectives, and to do a better job of verifying information - for example. These critiques of journalists' work are almost entirely received defensively by journalists as 'trolling'. I thought about this when I read the different perspectives from journalists in your [Tim Dunlop] piece. Apart from Amy Remeikis, they all did feel quite defensive in justifying what they're doing. I disagree that the audience don't 'understand' journalism - they know how important it is to democracy and when they see it being done badly - for whatever reason - they complain. And rightly. It's their democracy. I also don't think the journalists collectively can discount just how damaging the obvious bias of Murdoch has had on faith and trust in journalism as an institution. It has become a rule of thumb that most Murdoch journalists are out to campaign for causes rather than objectively reporting facts. When the audience has acknowledged that the largest media organisation in the country is producing what looks more like propaganda than news, it's only natural that they'll draw parallels between this bias, and bias creeping into other outlets - particularly the ABC of late. Journalists don't seem to want to acknowledge the problem of Murdoch bias, and instead host Murdoch journalists and commentators in a collegiate way on their panel shows etc., and sometimes even defend them as 'friends' when they're being criticised. As as media researcher interested in the sustainability of quality journalism, the lack of concern from journalists about the impact of Murdoch bias on trust in journalism is the elephant in the room amongst discussions of 'disruption' and 'doing more work with less resources'.

Victoria Fielding
April 25, 2022

I spoke today with a long time friend who used to work in the Canberra press gallery. I asked him for his opinion of the current cadre. His thoughts were *very* interesting. Firstly, he is an old-style journo of high repute. He has little if any regard for the current cadre. “Mostly lazy, and think that an answer to a “gotcha” question qualifies as a story. In his opinion, it’s symptomatic of the abject laziness of the current press gallery. It used to be a prerequisite for press gallery journos to live in [Canberra]. Today, they are mostly [Fly In, Fly Out] and often don’t even bother turning up to [Parliament House] on sitting days. They rely on politicians to come to them with stories rather than the other way around. He noted that there is an absence of collegiate thinking in today’s cadre: they don’t seek each other’s counsel, and certainly don’t respect boundaries. Rather, they are all hyper-competitive and think nothing of nicking stories off their compatriots. Importantly, he noted a distinct absence of senior mentors in the gallery. There is no Laurie Oakes, Mike Carlton or Paul Bongiorno to show them how to research and analyse a story, rather than go for a lazy “gotcha” or gossip moment. Overall, he rates the current press gallery as lazy, juvenile and overly competitive with no sense for “digging in the dirt”. [P.S. This Steve Conroy is not the retired senator]

Steve Conroy
April 12, 2022