Category Archives: Politics

What the fuck, Australia?

Posted on June 17, 2013 by | 54 Comments

This post discusses domestic violence.

And contains swearing.

Lots of swearing.

In the last few months, the racism and sexism and misogyny and vileness in our society have all come to the surface like a nasty boil:

Australia, this is you right now. If you think this is gross, imagine all the images I looked at to find it. Image: Mental bleach

Australia, this is you right now. If this grosses you out, imagine what I saw while looking for it. Image: Mental bleach

First it was racism, with a 13-year-old girl calling AFL player Adam Goodes an ape, then Eddie McGuire’s King Kong comments. And all those videos of people being arseholes on public transport. And today, more racist dickheads at an NRL game.

Then there’s the menu at Mal Brough’s fundraiser, and Socceroos coach Holger Osieck saying women should shut up in public. His apology was just a clusterfuck of wrong. Someone should tell him, in small words so his little brain can understand, that telling your wife to shut up, and saying “I’m still pretty happy with my wife so everything is fine”, doesn’t actually indicate “a lot of respect for women”. Sort of the opposite, really.

And there’s the bunch of idiots in the armed forces calling themselves the “Jedi Council” (what, are they 13 years old?). And Howard Sattler’s disgraceful questioning of the Prime Minister, and Piers Akerman repeating it all on ABC tv.

And we have News Ltd reporting that a 15-year-old girl has attempted suicide and the geniuses there put the story in the GLOBAL GOSSIP section (I’m not linking to it). She’s a child, they shouldn’t be reporting it in the first place. For fuck’s sake, what the hell is wrong with people?

Then we have the decision by The Mirror to publish a fucking NINE image photo gallery of Charles Saatchi assaulting Nigella Lawson. In Australia, News Ltd and Fairfax both republished the images, thereby furthering her distress. Hopefully I’m not doing the same by writing about the appalling coverage. Dailytelegraph.com.au and News.com.au even went with a cutesy headline calling him “hubbie”. Didn’t ANYONE in those newsrooms say “hey, we’re just hurting her more if we publish the images”? Are their brains just painted onto the inside of their skulls?

This morning 3AW radio host Dee Dee Dunleavy called for a boycott of Nigella Lawson’s products unless she takes a stand against domestic violence. What. The. Actual. Fuck? By the afternoon she’d issued a clarification, saying she wasn’t calling for a boycott. But what else does “If you want us to buy your books and watch your shows on how to run our kitchens, then we need you to make a stand on domestic violence” mean, other than to say we’re not going to buy your stuff unless you do what we want, aka a boycott. And then issuing a clarification instead of an apology, which should have said “I didn’t realise that’s what I was saying but that’s what those words mean and I should never have put pressure on a domestic violence victim to be a public spokesperson and I am so very very sorry for what I said and I apologise to everyone”.

It never ceases to amaze me that people who use words for a living think so little about those words. Another example is the wording of the link to the images in Dunleavy’s post:

Distressing to some people, but not a thought has gone in to how distressing it is for Nigella Lawson.

Dunleavy’s warning misses the point.

Trigger warnings are good. Shame there was a complete lack of thought for how distressing it might be to have the photos republished around the world.

Just because she is famous, doesn’t mean she “owes” us to be a spokesperson. In fact, at the moment we owe her. We owe her because we gawked at the photos. We owe her because all of the reporting is about her and not about Saatchi, just like it always is when Australian journalists report violence against women. We owe her because we’re writing opinion pieces and blog posts about her private hurt – this one included, and I don’t know how can I point at the coverage and yell THIS IS SO FUCKING WRONG without being just as bad as everyone else.

So. What do we do now? I don’t have any solutions but I do have a lot of swearing.

On the positive side, it’s a massive YES THE FUCK WE DO to everyone who says “Australia doesn’t have a racism and sexism problem”. It’s kinda hard to pretend it doesn’t exist now.

But on the negative side, I AM SO ANGRY AND I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO.

→ 54 Comments

Posted in Journalism, Politics, Sexism

Tagged , , , , ,

All the better to see pointless journalism

Posted on January 31, 2013 by | 26 Comments

Why do I get the feeling that I’m going to be blogging a lot about stooopid journalism between now and September 14? I kinda feel bad for the Sydney Morning Herald because I always focus on them, but I don’t read News Ltd rubbish so I don’t blog about their nonsense.

Anyway.

Today’s example of pointless journalism is All the better to see the opposition with, by Judith Ireland and Shelly Horton.

Here’s the story in the paper, on page three:

Story about Julia Gillard's glasses in the Sydney Morning Herald

The large blue photo holds the story

Page three is important real estate. Yet almost half of page three is taken up by this story about the Prime Minister’s glasses. Specifically – ooh, it’s a glasses pun – what people on twitter said about the Prime Minister’s glasses.

It took two journalists.

To write 306 words.

About what three people said on twitter.

As the Adelaide writer and “vampire hunter” Michael Scott Hand posted: “I don’t remember seeing Julia Gillard wearing glasses before. Is it because THIS TIME SHE MEANS BUSINESS?”

Some punters hypothesised that the member for Lalor was courting the youth market with the trendy new accessory. “It seems @JuliaGillard is already campaigning to the hipster voters with those new glasses. Well played,” wrote Kath McLellan of Sydney.

Then again, the glasses were suspiciously similar to the pair sported by the outgoing US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. How hipster could that be?

Justin Colee (who describes himself as pro-carbon tax) had other ideas: “did @JuliaGillard borrow her glasses from Greg Combet?”

But they must be three influential people, right? People with thousands of followers, like @GrogsGamut or @HelenRazer? Nope. Michael Scott Hand has 215 followers. Kath McLellan has 29. And Justin Colee has 19 followers on twitter. Only the tweet by Kath McLellan was retweeted, and that was once. Now, I’m not trying to poo on their sandwiches. I’m just questioning the editorial judgement of using two journalists to write a piss-arse story about what three people said on twitter, and then filling almost half of page three with that piss-arse story.

I’d also like to know if Julia Gillard said anything else during her address to the National Press Club on Wednesday. Because the coverage would indicate that she rocked up, said “Election’s on September 14, bitches” and left.

Here’s how the story is promoted on the smh.com.au homepage:

Smh.com.au makes a big deal out of the PM's glasses

It’s a pair of glasses. Get over it.

The caption under the photo of Julia Gillard reads: “What’s with the glasses? Election announcement plays second fiddle to PM’s specs.”

If a pair of regular, everyday glasses has played second fiddle to the Prime Minister’s address to the National Press Club, then it’s your fault, journalists. So what if a few people tweeted about her glasses? THOSE PEOPLE ARE NOT THE NATIONAL PRESS GALLERY. If you thought the coverage of the last election was bad – and pretty much everyone did – then just wait to see the rubbish the mainstream media will call “news” this time.

As I’ve said before, I don’t think news has to be stuffy and serious all the time. If it’s stuffy and serious then you’re not thinking enough about how you can tell stories. But honestly, this?

→ 26 Comments

Posted in Journalism, Politics

Tagged , , , ,

The everyday shit they call journalism

Posted on January 24, 2013 by | 50 Comments

There’s a story in the Sydney Morning Herald today that’s a great example of how meaningless political journalism has become. It’s not about a manufactured scandal, or a gaffe, or something that happened decades ago, but is just the everyday political journalism that is, frankly, rubbish.

I don’t think it’s because political journalists are stupid. It’s more that they write for each other and not for the public, and they don’t ever stop to think about what they are actually writing. When I was a journalist, I used to write in journalese, just like every other journalist. Every now and then, the news editor made half-arsed murmurs about not using journalese – like Person A “slammed” Person B, or “Thailand’s restive south” (go on, google that and see the 497,000 results for a phrase that no one but journalists use) – but journalese was only ever seen as particular words, and not the sentences that make up a story.

So, Rudd backers turn on PM for celebrity choice, by Mark Kenny and Jonathan Swan (interestingly, if you look at the URL, the “news story” is filed in opinion…):

The move to parachute the Olympian Nova Peris into Parliament has re-ignited discussion about Julia Gillard’s political judgment and the value of so-called “celebrity” candidates.

Now, the article contains no discussion whatsoever about the “value of so-called “celebrity” candidates”. None. Not a single sentence. The online version includes photos of Cheryl Kernot, Maxine McKew, and John Alexander, without any explanation of why these photos are there. Which is pretty suckful when you consider that the online version is almost permanent and will be the information that other journalists use when they write their stories. The paper version runs a pretty lazy story on the side of the main one, also by Mark Kenny, using these three people as evidence that celebrity candidates don’t work. Kernot shouldn’t be in that list. She was a senator for the Democrats from 1990-1997, then for Labor from 1998-2001. That hardly makes her a celebrity candidate. After all, no one says Billy Hughes was a celebrity candidate and he changed parties five times while in federal parliament, including while he was Prime Minister.

So that leaves McKew (a former ABC journo) and Alexander (a former tennis player). McKew won Bennelong from John Howard in 2007. Alexander won Bennelong from McKew in 2010. I hardly think Kenny’s case is made by one seat. Particularly when you consider Peter Garrett, Andrew Wilkie, Malcolm Turnbull, cyclist Hubert Opperman and cricketer/hockey player Ric Charlesworth all had high profiles before getting into politics and lasted quite a while. (And these are just the recent ones that I’ve found with a quick search. Remember the days when journalists did basic research?)

Anyway, moving along to the bit about how the move has “re-ignited discussion about Julia Gillard’s political judgement”.

But Labor figures loyal to the former prime minister Kevin Rudd rounded on Ms Gillard on Wednesday, calling the drafting of Ms Peris to replace a sitting Labor senator for the Northern Territory “unprecedented”.

Who are these Labor figures? Oh, look, there’s just one:

“Because we are in an election year, most MPs will bite their lips, but people are furious,” said the MP, who wished to remain anonymous.

One. Unnamed. MP.

One. Unnamed. MP. Who didn’t have the guts to put his/her name to his/her words.

One. Unnamed. MP. Who wanted to undermine the PM and asked the journalists to leave out his/her name and they agreed.

One. Unnamed. MP. Who is a bit shitty about something and is using docile, unquestioning journalists to have a bit of a whinge. Can Mark Kenny and Jonathan Swan seriously not see how they are being used? Are they that blind? But I guess “One MP has a bit of a whinge about something” isn’t as exciting as OH MY GOD WE HAVE TO KEEP WRITING ABOUT RUDD IN CASE THE PARTY DUMPS GILLARD AND RETURNS TO RUDD EVEN THOUGH THERE IS NO INDICATION THAT ANYONE WANTS THAT BUT MY GOD WE AREN’T GOING TO MISS IT AGAIN.

But wait, there’s more.

In an article about Nova Peris being endorsed as a Labor candidate there is no mention of her suitability. Except this bit:

“Unfortunately Nova doesn’t realise she’s being used by Julia Gillard,” said Michael Anderson, a former leader of the Australian Black Power movement and a founder of the Aboriginal tent embassy.

“Ms Peris-Kneebone is only being used as a public relations exercise for Labor. She has not been involved in major political processes, rallies or otherwise. She has been missing in political action all the time.”

Which is wrong. The journalists should have indicated that Anderson was wrong, not only for using her old name (she hasn’t been Peris-Kneebone in over a decade), but for having no fucking idea what he is talking about. Nova Peris was awarded the Order of Australia, she was a treaty ambassador for ATSIC, she created the Peris Enterprises charity to promote health and education for Indigenous children, then there’s the Nova Peris Girls Academy. And she was an international ambassador for the World Health Organisation (for youth suicide prevention), and a national ambassador for Reconciliation Australia, and a delegate to the National Constitution Convention, and a national patron for Beyond Blue. And here’s a list of 17 things she’s been involved in that make her one of the best candidates for political office that I’ve seen in a long time.

I found this information in less than one minute. Yet Kenny and Swan didn’t even make a basic effort to point out that Anderson is completely wrong. They published his ignorance/lie, playing in to the narrative of Nova Peris being an unskilled celebrity candidate who will no doubt crash and burn and it will be ALL JULIA GILLARD’S FAULT.

I started this post by saying Kenny and Swan’s story is a pretty bad example of political journalism. But now that I’ve dissected it, and seen how lazy and how wrong the story is, I’ve changed my mind. It’s fucking appalling journalism and they should be ashamed of themselves.

→ 50 Comments

Posted in Journalism, Politics

Tagged , , , , , ,

On wanting the PM to be everything

Posted on December 14, 2012 by | 28 Comments

When Julia Gillard became PM – and it wasn’t because she “knifed him” as the MSM mindlessly repeats, but because the majority of the ALP decided that she’d be better than Kevin Rudd – I got very excited.

Very.

excited

I’m not a Labor voter, but I was so very very pleased that we FINALLY had a woman as Prime Minister.

And even though I disagree with the ALP on lots of issues (like their breathtakingly cruel asylum seeker stance) I think Julia Gillard is doing a pretty good job. Particularly faced with a hostile/stupid media who are being taken for a ride by the Opposition and who berate the Government for not being able to get their message across when at every policy announcement they ask the same questions about leadership, the latest Opposition beat-up and blah blah blah. Seriously, political journos have no idea how silly they look to the rest of us.

Of course, as a woman in power, she is being held to an impossibly high standard. If she isn’t considered The World’s Greatest Leader by people on both sides of politics then it will be taken by many as “proof” that she wasn’t a very good PM. Which, apart from being fucked, is fucking ridiculous.

Anyway, I realised something on Saturday. (It was during a pub lunch that started with tequila and finished with me ranting at my poor friend at 2am, so be kind.)

A lot of us want Australia’s first female Prime Minister to be AMAZING. We want her to make Australia a better place so we can point and say, “See? She did that”. We want her to implement marriage equality, save the environment, pump funding into public education, end homelessness, increase support for people on low incomes, and to do all these things even if the rest of the ALP doesn’t support them.

In other words, we want the leader of the ALP to be an autocratic Green.

→ 28 Comments

Posted in Feminism, Politics

Tagged ,

Some of Tony Abbott’s best friends are women

Posted on October 8, 2012 by | 37 Comments

I completely understand why women related to Tony Abbott are defending him from accusations that he has a problem with women. I have no doubt that he is a supportive and caring parent, husband, brother and son. (And, of course, they’re not just calling media conferences and speaking to the Daily Telegraph‘s Gemma Jones because they want the public to know the Real Tony. It is politics after all.)

This from Margie Abbott:

“I say to the people who claim that Tony Abbott doesn’t ‘get’ women: You get this. Tony Abbott is surrounded by strong women. In fact, not only strong but capable women.

“He grew up in a household with three sisters. He has encouraged me and supported me in whatever I have chosen to do.”

Just because you’re “surrounded” by women in your family, doesn’t mean you “get” women. It just means you care about your family. It certainly doesn’t make you a feminist. It’s how Tony Abbott acts towards women he’s not related to that reveals that he does indeed have a problem with women. After all, Todd Akin has a wife and I’m sure he respects and trusts her. But in his breath-takingly ignorant and offensive comment that women can’t get pregnant from “legitimate rape“, it shows that he thinks that other women – millions of American women – are probably liars and can’t be trusted to make decisions about their own bodies.

Tony Abbott also believes women can’t be trusted to make their own decisions about their bodies and their reproductive health. What is it with conservative men and women’s vaginas? In his own words, he shames women who terminate a pregnancy:

The problem with the Australian practice of abortion is that an objectively grave matter has been reduced to a question of the mother’s convenience…. Even those who think that abortion is a woman’s right should be troubled by the fact that 100,000 Australian women choose to destroy their unborn babies every year.

He’s right, though – I am troubled by that statistic. Because it’s a lie. He’s wrong by about 20,000. And since he was Health Minister when he wrote it, he’d know it was a lie. He’d also know that most terminations are the result of contraception failure.

But check out the language he uses: 100,000 Australian women choose to destroy their unborn babies every year. That’s a fuckload of shaming right there. If Abbott really wanted to reduce the number of abortions, he’d be pushing for better contraception, rather than shaming women with words like “destroy”. (Check out Leslie Cannold’s great talk on shaming: I had an abortion… or maybe I didn’t.)

Tony Abbott even believes 14-year-old girls should be made to have babies, to punish them for having sex (no mention of the boys they had sex with, though. Funny that):

To a pregnant 14-year-old struggling to grasp what’s happening, for example, a senior student with a whole life mapped out or a mother already failing to cope under difficult circumstances, abortion is the easy way out… Our society has rightly terrified primary school children about the horrors of smoking, but seems to take it for granted that adolescents will have sex despite the grim social consequences of teenage single parenthood.

That’s right, if you’re a mother who is “failing to cope under difficult circumstances” – like an abusive partner, or illness, or that there just isn’t enough money – you should be forced to have another baby.

Those quotes are from a speech he made in 2004. In 2006, members of Parliament stripped Tony Abbott of the power to make decisions about women’s reproductive health. He had demonstrated that his personal beliefs were more important than the rights of Australian women. That Abbott believes that women terminate pregnancies “almost [as] a badge of liberation from old oppressions” demonstrates how little he understands, well, pretty much everything to do with women. Most of his own side voted against him.

He told women that the carbon tax would make ironing more expensive – then dismissed women who got annoyed by his comment as “hypersensitive”.

Then he made a rape joke.

The quotes from this video date from 1979 to 2010 (and yes, we were talking about this a few weeks ago, but that post was about the bigger picture rather than Abbott in particular, because it’s evidence that his ideas haven’t really changed):

Tony Abbott’s biggest problem with women is that we refuse to put up with his shit.

→ 37 Comments

Posted in Feminism, Politics, Tony Abbott

Tagged , ,

Where are we going with this thing we’re doing?

Posted on September 18, 2012 by | 23 Comments

I’m uncomfortable about this thing we’re doing at the moment, where we dig up something from decades ago and hold it up in front of everyone, crying, ‘See? See? This is what they are really like!’. Because while it does give me joy to see Tony Abbott in the shit, this, and the Slater and Gordon stuff the MSM hounded Julia Gillard with, makes me nervous about what it means to be a public figure, and about what kind of politicians we’re going to have in the future. I don’t know about you, but when I was in my teens and early 20s, I did and said some pretty dumb shit and I’d hate for someone to use it to illustrate what I am like now, as an adult.

When I was a journalist I turned down some stories that seemed to be about getting back at someone – which goes some way towards explaining why I wasn’t a very good journalist. I’d like to think that other journalists would see negative comments from a long-past boyfriend/colleague for what they are, rather than saying ‘wa-hey News with Nipples was a dickhead when she was 21, we got us some NEWS’, but it seems increasingly unlikely. With the Slater and Gordon story, if the journos had put in a call to the law firm before publishing, they would have realised that they were being used maliciously, with a story that turned out to be a load of rubbish. The first story was published without comment from Slater and Gordon – making it gossip masquerading as political journalism – and the second story was ‘we’re not falling for Pickering’s grubbiness but here, read all of this grubbiness’. Again, without comment from Slater and Gordon. How embarrassing for them.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s revolting that Tony Abbott punched the wall on either side of a woman’s head to intimidate her. Violence – which includes making someone think you’d hit them – is very serious, and around one in three women will be physically or sexually assaulted by a man at some point in their lives. Some estimates put it at one in two. Hell, if you still don’t think it’s a problem we can talk about money: violence against women costs the economy $13.6 billion a year (2008-2009 figure). That’s the same amount of money the resources industry contributed to the WA economy in 1999-2000, and it’s the same amount the Federal Government will give to universities this year. In other words, it’s a fuckload of money.

That he hid from the media for a week is evidence – more evidence – that Tony Abbott is not a leader.

It’s also evidence that Tony Abbott thinks women should be controlled – mainly by him – but there’s already an awful lot of evidence for that. Just because his wife and daughters are women, and he works with women, doesn’t mean that he’s Mr Equality.

And that Abbott referred to SRC president Barbara Ramjan as “chairthing” because she asked to be called “chairperson” and not “chairman” is evidence that, at 19 or 20 years old, he had a petty little mind. But I think his response is fair enough:

“It was silly, childish, embarrassing. It shouldn’t have happened but this is 35 years ago, a lot of silly things happen in student politics.”

I think almost all of us said some pretty dumb shit when we were that age. Of course, that doesn’t excuse being physically aggressive. (Lindsay Foyle has more about Abbott being a tough guy when he’s got a gang to back him up.)

But I can’t help feeling a bit icky about all of this. Every time the MSM publishes old dirt on someone – particularly dirt that’s unrelated to their ability to do their job, like going to a strip club in their own time – it makes me wonder, who the hell would get into politics? The answer: people who haven’t done anything silly/dodgy/illegal/fun/kinky/wrong in their entire lives. People whose youth can withstand the MSM. And how representative is that going to be?

I’m not saying that the MSM shouldn’t have published the story about Tony Abbott punching the wall beside Barbara Ramjan’s head in order to make her scared of him. At uni, he was a beefed-up boxer and rugby player with a reputation for aggression and it’s hard to imagine someone not being scared by the wall-punching. I’m just looking at the story in the wider context of what passes for political reporting these days. And no, I’m not saying it’s the MSM’s job to report on politics in a way that makes people want to be politicians. But it is their job to report accurately and fairly, and I don’t see a lot of that going on. Besides, I’d much prefer journalists to be asking Tony Abbott questions about what he says and does now, rather than about what he said and did in the 70s.

→ 23 Comments

Posted in Journalism, Politics, Tony Abbott

An open letter to Mark Scott

Posted on August 28, 2012 by | 31 Comments

Dear Mark Scott,
I’m sure you’re aware of what “Liberal strategist” Grahame Morris said to Linda Mottram on ABC702 this morning. But in case you missed it, here it is:

Linda Mottram: We saw Tony Abbott in this past week do that interview with Leigh Sales about the Roxby Downs mine issue and stumbled, and that was really quite poor. I was very struck, Grahame. Were you surprised that he didn’t handle that well?

Grahame Morris: Well, Leigh can be a real cow sometimes when she’s doing her interviews.

So, instead of answering the question about Abbott’s dud performance, Morris called a female journalist who was just doing her job, a cow.

He was back on the air shortly afterwards:

LM: Grahame, we’ve had a lot of sms’s and calls offended at your comments. Your response?

GM: [In a condescending tone] Poor little sensitive souls.

LM: You think that calling Leigh a cow is appropriate?

GM: No, no, I probably should have said ‘can be a tough interviewer when she wants to be’.

Wait. Probably?

LM: That’s what you would have said if it was a male interviewer, isn’t it?

GM: That’s silly. No, no, no, no, it’s a phrase that I have used a million times, you know, that somebody can be a real cow when they want to be.

Ah, I see. Because he’s called women cows “a million times” it means he’s not sexist. It’s good that someone who makes such an important contribution to public discussion is a regular guest on ABC radio and television.

GM: But [sighs] look, look, I apologise, it really should be something like, um, ‘having known most of the senior journalists, particularly the political journalists, over the last 30 years, there is a mixture there of people who can be tough, they can be straight up and down, they can be a mixture, they can be soft, and there’s no doubt Leigh at times can be tough’. That would have been a much better expression than being a cow at times.

I don’t know about you, Mark, but I’m not convinced that is an apology. (I’m also not convinced that Grahame Morris understands that radio isn’t print. When you tell a journalist to change your quote, everyone can hear it.)

I’m sure you remember that in April, Morris said people should be “kicking [Julia Gillard] to death”.

In case you missed it, Grahame Morris said people should kill the Prime Minister. In a violent way. Yet he’s a regular guest on the ABC. Why is that? And, since I’ve got you here, why wasn’t it reported by your newsroom? Telling people they should attack and kill a Prime Minister seems pretty newsworthy to me.

Anyhoo, you’ll notice from this tweet from SkyNews journalist David Speers that it’s the second time Morris has used this “oh, I always say that, it’s fine” excuse:

@David_Speers Grahame says it’s a phrase he has used in the past on different issues, but shouldn’t have on this occasion

Oh, well, since he says that lots of people should be kicked to death, that’s ok then.

Morris has also called Gillard “bitchy“. It’s not an insult he would use against a man. Shouldn’t the national broadcaster be looking for guests who are able to talk about politics in an intelligent manner, without using childish insults?

Now Mark, I’m willing to overlook the fact that the vast majority of guests on QandA and The Drum are current and current-until-recently-politicians whose only contribution to public discussion is to push the party line that we’ve already heard over and over again in the news.

I’m also willing to overlook the misogynist and racist comments that are regularly published on The Drum website. (We can talk about those later.)

But what I am not willing to overlook is the national platform given to a man who thinks that calling for violence against women, and calling women names, is an acceptable part of public discussion. Because when you continue to get Grahame Morris on as a guest, what you are telling Australian women and men is that you have no problem with what he says.

Four days ago, Julia Gillard said there were “misogynists and nutjobs on the internet“. She’s right. There’s loads of ‘em on here. They’re also, very clearly, on the ABC.

I look forward to your public statement saying that because of his misogynist, sexist and violent attitudes and language, Grahame Morris is no longer welcome on the ABC.

Yours sincerely,
Kim Powell
ABC watcher.

→ 31 Comments

Posted in Journalism, Politics, Sexism

Tagged , , ,

A story about nothing

Posted on August 6, 2012 by | 22 Comments

I love how when you’re thinking about something, you tend to notice examples of it around you. This morning I read ‘Young people, politics and television current affairs in Australia’ by Evans and Sternberg (ref below) and came across this bit:

… young adults also feel it is not worth investing time in television current affairs because any political information received from the programs is usually trivialised and played for entertainment value, (1999, p. 105).

And then I read this article by Jacqueline Maley, in today’s Sydney Morning Herald: Gay marriage pledge puts pressure on PM:

THE Prime Minister is again under pressure on the issue of gay marriage as the Labor Premier of Tasmania, Lara Giddings, said she would face down any constitutional challenge of proposed legislation for same-sex marriage in her state.

To get all Journalism 101 on you (and apologies to those who know this), Australian journalists use the “inverted pyramid” model of reporting, in which the first sentence is supposed to give the audience the most important information, and everything after that fills out the story with more detail.

Maley’s first sentence suggests that Julia Gillard has threatened a constitutional challenge. But she hasn’t. According to the story:

The Greens called upon Ms Gillard to rule out a constitutional challenge to the Tasmanian legislation but she did not.

“We don’t have any details on [the Tasmanian gay marriage bill], so it’s far too early for anything like that,” she said.

In other words, she’s not going to comment on a bill she hasn’t seen. Which, frankly, is the appropriate response. You can’t possibly give an informed response to something you haven’t read.

Every time I read about a politician refusing to “rule out” something, I know the story is going to be rubbish. Our group-think political journalists are hooked on the “rule out” game, because it’s a really easy (ie, lazy) way to create controversy. If someone refuses to rule something out, the headline breathlessly implies that the politician is being cagey BECAUSE THEY REFUSED TO RULE IT OUT. If the politician does rule it out and then later changes the policy, then GOTCHA! YOU RULED IT OUT SO YOU’RE A BIG DIRTY LIAR AND THAT WE’VE CAUGHT YOU IN YOUR BIG DIRTY LIE MEANS WE’RE DOING OUR JOBS PROPERLY. The idea that a politician should rule something out forever and ever amen, even if the situation changes, is terrifying (check out the scariest graph in the world).

The Greens know journos love the “rule out” game and journos dutifully played right along.

The story is 548 words. The last 129 words are on leadership bullshit, so we can immediately delete them. And there’s 107 on Cairns getting the G20 finance ministers’ meeting in 2014, so we can delete that too. What we’re left with is 312 words about a constitutional challenge that no one has proposed, to legislation that may or may not even be drafted, that happens to be different to two pieces of federal legislation that are not named or explained (the Marriage Equality Amendment Bill 2012 and the Marriage Amendment Bill 2012 for more info), and no mention of when the two parliaments will deal with the relevant bills that might trigger the constitutional challenge that no one has proposed. If the purpose of the news media is to inform the audience, then that’s a massive fail.

Now, back to that first sentence, about how Gillard is “again under pressure on the issue of gay marriage”. As she says in the story:

“The Marriage Act is a federal law and we do have a bill before the federal Parliament dealing with same-sex marriage,” the Prime Minister told reporters in Cairns. “I determined that this should be a conscience vote for the Labor Party and people will be free to determine how they vote.”

So, the pressure we’re talking about is pressure for Gillard to change her personal opinion. There are two options here:

1. Journalists are trying to get Gillard to change her opinion on marriage equality because ending discrimination is the right thing to do. But if ending discrimination is the goal, then they should be pressuring Abbott to allow a conscience vote because that would ensure the bill’s success. Journalists couldn’t be so stupid as to think that Gillard changing her personal view is all that’s needed for the bill to succeed, could they?

2. Journalists have already written their BACKFLIP!!!!!!!! stories and really, really want to publish them. And then Abbott will say something about how women change their minds and so can’t be trusted, and then the journos will write about how feminists have “branded the Opposition Leader’s comments as sexist”, and then they’ll get to write about leadership tensions because the PM changed her mind and hey look, there’s another week in which they don’t have to do their jobs properly.

From the Maley story:

Ms Gillard would not countenance a question on the security of her leadership, saying: “I can’t be bothered with any of that today.”

Neither can we, Prime Minister. Neither can we.

References:
Evans, V. & Sternberg, J. (1999), ‘Young people, politics and television current affairs in Australia’, Journal of Australian Studies, vol. 23, no. 63, pp. 103-109.

→ 22 Comments

Posted in Journalism, Politics

Tagged , ,

But they’re women, they should be nice

Posted on March 4, 2012 by | 47 Comments

In The Fitz Files today, Peter Fitzsimons wonders why Julia Gillard and Julie Bishop – two women with pretty much the only thing in common being that they have good jobs – can’t be nice to each other:

The venom between them is palpable, the delight they take in putting each other down in Parliament very obviously personal. One might have thought that as two accomplished women who are political pioneers, there might be at least a whiff of fellow feeling on the journey. And yet, quite the reverse. What is that about?

Now, leaving aside the fact that “accomplished” is never used to describe men who have good jobs, it’s disappointing that Fitzsimons sees respect in the Gillard-Abbott arguments – Despite their political divisions, it was so apparent that they respected the other’s political nous and abilities – but when it’s two women whose jobs require them to argue with each other, he says it’s personal.

Sure, politics is a tough gig for women. But saying that two women on opposing sides should be nice to each other simply because they’re women doing tough jobs suggests a rather shallow view of women. No one says that men must be nice to each other at work, that being nice is more important than whether they are good at their jobs, yet women still have to put up with this crap.

Pulling the ‘women should be nice’ card also ignores the reason why it’s a tough job for women: the mainstream media treats female politicians differently. Particularly columnists, who focus on the personal rather than the professional. I don’t regularly read his column so I could be wrong, but it’s unlikely that he’d write, “Hey, Rudd and Abbott both believe in God, why aren’t they BFFs?” Or “Bob Brown and Scott Morrison are both blokes, why aren’t they best buddies?”

When Kristina Kenneally became NSW Premier, a male colleague asked me if I was going to vote for her because she’s a woman. The rest of the conversation went something like this:

Me: Do you vote for a male politician because he’s a man?
Him: No, of course not.
Me: Then don’t insult me with such a stupid question.

And it is insulting to suggest that women would vote for a party simply because ooh look, vagina. It’s just as insulting to suggest that women should be nice to each other simply because they are women. Not to mention the sexism in suggesting that women need to be nice. Now, I don’t believe that Fitzsimons is sexist, so I’m looking forward to reading his thoughts on why Abbott and Rudd aren’t besties. Because what is that about?

→ 47 Comments

Posted in Feminism, Politics

Tagged , ,

Female soldiers have to fight the stupid at home

Posted on September 27, 2011 by | 94 Comments

Katie, one of my lovely readers, sent me this link today and pointed out the confusion in the comments: Women cleared to serve in combat.

The confusion and stupidity would be priceless if it wasn’t so frightening. But it’s still pretty funny.

Arthur, poor misguided Arthur, had this to say:

I still question the issue of potential sexual assault from both friendly fire and the more importantly (in terms of my arguement) the enemy. This has nothing to do with physical weakness or ability, it is simply to do with being female. In war sexual assault is used as a weapon against civillians and in the event women are in the front line would be used as a weapon against those women also.

Right, so if our male troops – ie, friendly fire – rape female troops, then it’s not the rapist’s fault, it’s the fault of the women for being there while in possession of a vagina. It also ignores the fact that men can be raped – and there are many reports of male prisoners in Abu Ghraib being raped.

Tahlia, the rape myths in the comments might be of interest to you too, and a timely example for your thesis.

Joe is a bit of a scaredy-waredy when it comes to feminists:

This is exactly what concerns me. As there will be a lower percentage of females than males in these sorts of roles, it will give feminists grounds to argue that standards need to be relaxed to encourage more females to join. We could potentially be putting soldier’s lives at risk by surrounding them with incompetence.

Because there are no incompetent men anywhere. Mind you, silly ol’ Joe also believes that there are more male executives than female executives because men are better at being executives.

Sean is either a concern troll or an idiot:

No, it’s a terrible idea. What if they get captured? The units will go out of their way to rescue them. Also, units with women in the front line will be targets for the enemy. And if the woman gets injured more soldiers will stay behind to try to save her. I believe in equality and am glad that our PM is a female but women should stay out of front line combat.

So he believes that when a male soldier is captured, the rest of his colleagues just leave him there?

Bootneck thinks that with women around, the male soldiers will only be able to think about HAVING SEX WITH THEM ALL, which is exactly what happens in workplaces around the country every single day and no work ever gets done:

My concern is the distraction of females on the front line. We have to remember that although we are talking about highly trained troops they are still young and full of youthful tendencies.

Seriously, how does the ABC get such idiotic commenters? Like Jim:

just a little more unravelling of the roles of males and females…..soon be a single gender species.

I personally can’t wait for the day when I have a vagina and a penis. I’d never leave the house.

I’m guessing that Alan of Manunda is single:

There is no privacy out on patrol for a female to halt the section to find a little private area to have a tinkle, something any bloke can do quickly and efficiently, ask the footballers in Melbourne who are always in the news.

And what about hygene? In jungle warfare you do not finish work at 5pm and then have a shower and put your feet up!
Depending on the operation you may be required to go weeks without a shower.

Kate, despite having a female name, doesn’t realise that you don’t need to have your period every month. I skipped mine when I went to Uzbekistan, Mongolia and Russia:

I support women in the front line if they are as capable physically and psychologically as men (and also not a distraction). It is my understanding however, that front line personnel cannot be reliant on prescription medication. I personally could not think of anything worse than having a menstruation cycle in a war zone.

As this link implies, you can be on prescription medication in the army.

And that’s about all the comments I feel I can read. One thing that keeps coming through is, “how would you like to see this happen to your daughter or wife?”. Well, if it’s your wife, then chances are you know by now that she’s in the military. If it’s your daughter, you probably know this is the career she wants. Maybe you even proudly went to her graduation ceremony. A frontline combat role is not something that will “just happen” to them, like jury duty.

Katie, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. And the thoughts from everyone else too, of course, particularly my two resident military experts, Pirra and kimsonof.

→ 94 Comments

Posted in Feminism, Journalism, Language, Politics, Sexism

Tagged