Tag Archives: carbon tax

There’s objective journalism, and then there’s the Daily Telegraph

Posted on November 9, 2011 by | 15 Comments

There are days when I pull a muscle in my eyes from rolling them so much. Today is one of those days. Check out this fine example of “objective” headline writing from the Daily Telegraph: Just who’s going to pay our bills now that the carbon tax has passed.

Um, that would be the Government. You know, the generous compensation package that your own newspaper reported on during June.

Of course, the reporting by Gemma “302 words on how Gillard is a hypocrite because we’ve calculated the emissions from flying a single pair of shoes from China” Jones is just as, ahem, balanced and objective:

But as the carbon tax Julia Gillard vowed never to impose was passed into law, yesterday marked a dark day for the majority of Australians opposed to it.

Oh, puh-lease. Anyone with half a brain knows that minority governments involve compromise in order to work.

Liberal MPs seized on a handshake between Mr Brown and Labor Senate leader Chris Evans.

“That handshake between the leader of the government and the leader of the Australian Greens says it all about the betrayal and the sellout of traditional Australia Labor Party values to the Greens,” Liberal senate leader Eric Abetz said.

OH NOES! A handshake! I shook hands with a charity collector this morning, so clearly I have sold out to ChildFund Australia.

Later, Jones “objectively” writes that Bob Brown was “crowing” over the victory. (It is possible that the story was changed in subbing, but it’s unlikely given her prior form.)

Now to another “objective” story in the Daily Telegraph, this one from Andrew Carswell: Hot to Trot on Karl Marx’s dogma at the federal government’s media inquiry:

THE first academic chosen to appear at the federal government’s media inquiry yesterday is a Marxist who once claimed Western democracy was a charade.

A fine example of playing the man, not the ball.

Martin Hirst, an associate professor of journalism at Melbourne’s Deakin University, joined three other prominent critics of News Limited, publisher of The Daily Telegraph, in speaking at the opening day of the inquiry, claiming there were not enough strong left-wing opinions in the mainstream media.

It’s easy enough to test whether this is just a lefty-pinko claim. Let’s name the regular mainstream media columnists, shall we? The ones who write each day/week and feature on the MSM’s websites as regular contributors. On the right we have Miranda Devine, Andrew Bolt, Piers Akerman, Gerard Henderson, Paul Sheehan, Janet Albrechtsen, and pretty much everyone who writes for The Punch. Plus there’s an increasing number of Liberal politicians, both current and former, who write for Fairfax. On the left we have John Birmingham, Ross Gittins, Jessica Irvine. That can’t be right.

While they may not be mainstream, Professor Hirst’s views are certainly strong, and considerably left.

He holds views that are “considerably left”? Quick! Someone arrest that man for being in possession of opinions not shared by the Right.

The Daily Telegraph can reveal the professor and prolific blogger has been a contributor to the Marxist Interventions web portal, on which claims are made he has been “the only Trotskyist to ever work in the federal press gallery as a journalist”.

Yeah, that isn’t a scoop. It’s publicly available information on the Marxist Interventions website, where it states: Martin Hirst has been active in socialist politics since 1975 and claims to have been the only Trotskyist to ever work in the federal press gallery as a journalist. To suggest that it is top secret information that you have dug up is to lie to your audience. And it’s just as ridiculous as writing “The Daily Telegraph can reveal that Peter Costello was a former federal treasurer”.

In his submission yesterday, Professor Hirst attacked News Limited for slanting stories in a way that was against the government, saying: “If they can find a way of attacking Julia Gillard … They will do so.”

Uh, Carswell, this post begins with Exhibit A.

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The readers’ editor

Posted on August 24, 2011 by | 24 Comments

As you can imagine, I’m quite interested in the new readers’ editor at the Sydney Morning Herald and Sun Herald: It’s about you, and I’m on your side:

Each Wednesday I will write about what you consider pressing matters but I will also speak to and email those who raise pertinent questions.

You will ask the questions and I will do my best to answer them by speaking to editors, reporters, photographers and the production team.

I’m not confident though. I worry that instead of “an advocate in the newsroom for our readers”, it will be little more than a column to justify news decisions when criticised by readers.

As I’ve said here before, I’m a Fairfax reader. I’m a Fairfax reader because you couldn’t pay me to read The Australian or the Daily Telegraph. If the ABC or SBS printed a newspaper I’d buy that. Ooh, that’s an idea. An iPad newspaper, so no printing costs and I wouldn’t have to look at the fucking awful news websites that News Ltd and Fairfax have.

But I digress. As an example, let’s look at today’s carbon tax story: Power price warning ‘based on gouging theory’:

THE NSW government’s dire warnings about electricity price rises are based on the assumption that the state’s generators will ”price gouge” by charging households one and a half times the increased carbon costs the power stations incur, the Minister for Climate Change has alleged.

There are two voices in the story: Greg Combet and Tony Abbott. Greg Combet and Tony Abbott being predictable, predictably disagreeing with each other. Two politicians on opposite sides disagreeing with each other. Woop-di-fucking-do.

Where are the quotes from experts outside of politics? Where is the Herald‘s own analysis? Where is evidence that a Herald journo has looked at the modelling they are arguing over? And I’m none the wiser as to who is telling the truth.

So, my criticism of the SMH and SH is simple: make it better than this. If you want balance and transparency – and to raise circulation figures and UBs and PIs – then stop simply repeating what politicians say.

But perhaps I’m being too harsh. Let’s see what happens next Wednesday, eh?

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Meanwhile, over breakfast in the News Nips household

Posted on August 22, 2011 by | 112 Comments

Me: Pah! The people did vote. Just because you don’t like the outcome doesn’t mean we should have another election. We had to put up with Howard for ten years.
ManFriend: Yeah, suck it up, princesses.

Convoy of No Confidence

Indignant dude in the Convoy of No Confidence. Picture: Stefan Postles/SMH

Signs like this one crack me up. We did vote. And we’re not going to do it again just because you don’t like the winner.

Years ago, an ant bit me on the bum while I was in bed. ManFriend laughed so hard and said the look of indignation on my face was fantastic. That’s what this “Convoy of No Confidence” stuff is like. Being bitten on the bum by an ant. You’ll get over it, but it feels better if you throw a little tanty.

Yes, they should rally. If they want to spend their money to protest over having to spend a little more money to make our environment cleaner, then go for it. (Although I have to laugh at Nick and Fluff Weckert who spent $3000 on fuel driving from Port Lincoln to Canberra to protest over the rising cost of living.)

If they want to demand a new election, then go for that too. But it doesn’t mean we should have one. Particularly when the 2010 election cost us $161 million. And particularly when their argument is “the politician is a liar so let’s have another election”. If we had to have another election every time a politician said one thing and then said another – or broke a core or non-core promise and thankyouverymuch John Howard for that slimy contribution to political discourse – then we’d be at the polls every fucking weekend. It would bankrupt us.

Sure, Labor went to the last election saying there’d be no action on climate change, which is why I didn’t vote for them. But minority governments change the game. It’s called compromise. You know, that thing you arrive at after negotiating with the people you have to form government with. The people who were voted in by lots of other people. Deal with it. Besides, it’s no different to the “never ever” GST. Many politicians will say anything to get into power and I can’t believe people are whining “oh, but they liiiiiiieeeeedddddd”. I don’t recall any pro-Abbott fans protesting over his constant changes of mind. His political opportunism is embarrassing and makes me think his supporters must be stupid. Or selfish. Probably both.

But I do have to laugh at the sign above: “Let’s take our country back”. That’s exactly how I felt in the lead up to the 2007 election when it became clear that we’d finally be able to take our country back from the Coalition and their mean-spirited policies.

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Posted in Politics, Tony Abbott

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Proudly not a real Australian

Posted on May 31, 2011 by | 38 Comments

I go away for 10 days and the Coalition falls apart and suddenly Cate Blanchett isn’t a “real” Australian because she’s rich, or an actor, or modified her house to use less energy, or something. If the second part wasn’t so pathetic, I’d say I should go away more often.

By now there’s simply no doubt that Tony Abbott thinks we’re all idiots. And the everyday Australians that he always speaks about, he thinks they’re the biggest idiots of all. That’s why he happily admitted that people shouldn’t believe what he says unless it’s scripted. He believes that no one will remember and/or care that he’s a big liar. That’s not the most flattering view of the electorate, is it?

Abbott seems to think that, despite the large number of Australians who didn’t vote for him, we all agree with everything he says and want him as our leader. Talk about being delusional (in the colloquial sense, not the DSM-IV sense). Dude, we know you’ve had your dickstickers in a knot for the last nine or so months, but you didn’t win so let it go.

I arrived back in Sydney to this utter nonsense about Tony Abbott/Barnaby Joyce/Australian Family Association* saying Cate Blanchett – whose environmentalism is well known, installing Australia’s second largest roof-top solar system at The Wharf – isn’t a “real” Australian because she’s in an ad for a carbon tax. Of course they’re attacking her – can you imagine them trying to say Michael Caton isn’t a “real” Australian? Actually, I’d love to see them try, that would be hilarious.

Blanchett isn’t a “real” Australian simply because she disagrees with them. It’s the Howard-era “unAustralian” bullshit all over again, where instead of acting like an adult when people hold views that are different to your own, you act like a petulant child and attack them personally. Can someone please call the waaaaambulance for Tony Abbott? For a great post about the attacks on Blanchett, see The Conscience Vote.

Abbott said “People who live in an eco-mansion have a right to be heard … But their voice should not be heard ahead of the people of Australia”. I call bullshit. By “the people of Australia” he means those who attended that awful anti-carbon tax rally in Canberra where he stood in front of the sign calling the Prime Minister “Bob Brown’s bitch”. So actually, Blanchett’s voice is being heard after the voice of “the people of Australia”. But Tony Abbott has never been big on the truth. Or making sense. Or being consistent.

And so Labor continues to let the Coalition control this discussion (it would be a lie to call it a debate). What the hell is wrong with them? Before the last election, Labor should have been selling the country’s economic health thanks to the BER and stimulus packages, but instead they couldn’t sell beer to a pissed rugby league fan.

The pathetic state of public discourse in this country makes me cringe.

So, having had my first post-holiday whinge, I am proud to declare that I am also not a “real” Australian. Not because I’m a rich actor with an energy-efficient home, but because I want the carbon tax. And if doing something for the environment costs me a little bit of money, then that’s ok because I’m not a selfish arsehole who thinks my cost of living in a rich country with a good welfare safety net is more important than everyone else on this planet.

*The Australian Family Association was founded by the National Civic Council, a conservative Christian organisation that believes a woman’s role is to have babies and that her “self-identity and self-esteem may be found and grown through giving themselves to and loving their husband and family”. They also want “extensive” censorship of film and tv. Funnily enough, I think they’re rubbish.

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Posted in Politics, Tony Abbott

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Just when we need it the most

Posted on March 9, 2011 by | 3 Comments

I read the Sydney Morning Herald every morning, listen to ABC radio during the day (two of the benefits of doing a PhD full time), and watch SBS news every night, and all I know about Tony Abbott’s carbon plan is that it’s better than the Government’s unmade one because he said so. Oh, and he’ll “stop the tax”.

This is a really important issue and he said, she said journalism is just not good enough. In that link, Jonathan Holmes quotes one of my brain heroes, Jay Rosen, who defines he said, she said journalism as:

* There’s a public dispute.
* The dispute makes news.
* No real attempt is made to assess clashing truth claims in the story, even though they are in some sense the reason for the story. (Under the “conflict makes news” test.)
* The means for assessment do exist, so it’s possible to exert a factual check on some of the claims, but for whatever reason the report declines to make use of them.
* The symmetry of two sides making opposite claims puts the reporter in the middle between polarized extremes.

Familiar, huh? It’s what we get every day. Holmes writes:

Consumers of news are largely left to fog it out for themselves. Of course, those who have the time and inclination can do so. But as the news story develops, the assumption is made by daily journalists that everyone knows what happened yesterday, and a week ago. It’s far harder than it should be to find the background analysis.

I wrote yesterday that I think it’s going to be a good year, and that doesn’t just apply to women. The gutter politics we’re seeing – in particular, from Cory Bernardi and Scott Morrison – can’t last, because the backlash has already started. Joe Hockey is positioning himself as the not-Abbott, which will leave Abbott’s attack dogs without a supportive master. And the independents keep showing that they are above the petty bullshit that passes for “political debate” these days.

This from Tony Windsor on the carbon tax:

He says people in his electorate are telling him that they want a productive debate, rather than one dominated by politics.

“They want it a little bit more advanced than the word ‘lie’ and the word ‘tax’,” he said.

“I think they want to find out what could happen, what sort of contribution we should be making, what are the advantages in regional Australia for instance in terms of renewable energy?”

He says he would like the same, and says he needs plenty more information about the implicit price of carbon and how Australia’s efforts sit globally before the Government can win his vote.

But this is all we get from Tony Abbott:

“I’m running a truth campaign against the carbon tax, because the truth campaign appears to be having an impact,” he said.

“I imagine that [Labor] will run an ad campaign, because the one thing that these guys specialise in is ad campaigns using taxpayer’s money.

“In this case it would be a dishonest ad campaign – this is a tax based on a lie and it shouldn’t happen.”

This would be a really good time for journalists to do the most basic of basic Google searches and point out that the Howard Government spent $2 billion on advertising:

According to Melbourne University academic Sally Young, the author of Government Communication in Australia, the Howard Government’s spending on advertising is among the highest per head in the world.

“It’s up there with only a few other countries,” she said.

Seriously, it’s not that hard to inform your readers. You know, that thing news is supposed to do? Otherwise we’re not being journalists, we’re being state stenographers (hat tip to John Pilger for that term).

It is precisely when an issue can be reduced to slogans – “we’ll stop the tax” – that we need better reporting than just he said, she said.

And, in honour of the title of this post, this:

I was looking for the Dolly Parton version, but this video is gold! And Randy VanWarmer is my new favourite name.

Update March 10: I stand (a little) corrected. One article today on the Coalition’s Direct Action plan: Direct yes, but not a lot of action:

Over the past week some journalists have made Coalition MPs squirm by asking: can you name an economist who backs your direct action climate policy?

The Coalition is banking heavily on being able to massively boost the amount of carbon dioxide stored in soil, estimating it could deliver 60 per cent of Australia’s 2020 emissions target. It remains a bold call…. Soil carbon is not recognised under international carbon accounting rules

But, it’s an opinion piece from The Age‘s environment reporter Adam Morton, so it’s not on the SMH homepage, nor is this information in any story in the paper. Why is a journalist giving readers the information we need to judge the Direct Action Plan considered an opinion?

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Posted in Journalism, Politics, Tony Abbott

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