Thursday, March 26, 2009

Crikey, why bother?

Very interesting piece from the electronic magazine Inside Story, about the Queensland election and the malign role played by the News Limited papers.

Veteran journalist Geoffrey Barker argues;

But perhaps more importantly the media’s Queensland election debacle exposed two disturbing aspects of contemporary Australian political journalism. The first is the apparent spin that is put on the interpretation of events by News Limited papers; the second is the strong tendency of other media to follow News Limited’s lead – especially when they have the empirical support of polls commissioned by News Limited.

It’s well written and convincing and I urge you to have a look.

It also explains how Crikey’s Andrew Crook could produce this howler on the Thursday before the Queensland election;

Even if the ALP somehow squeaks home on Saturday, it would be galling indeed for the Queensland Left if its most senior campaigner Wood ended up costing his internal ally Bligh the election. But with the finger pointing already beginning in earnest, it seems Bligh, Kaiser and Wood may have already boarded a slow train to political oblivion.

“Squeaks home” eh? Oh dear. What a schlub.

Really, if Crikey is just going to parrot the nonsense talked in the mainstream media – then what’s the point?

2 comments:

Perseus said...

I still remember fondly the Herald-Sun the day after Kennett vs Bracks, when they published the complex artwork/cartoon of Kennett in victory, and published a whole lot of articles about how he had just scraped through but with a decreased majority... when in actual fact, he had lost. Media Watch at the time had a field day, pointing out that articles and artwork had all been composed before the election.

News Limited often miss the point of 'reporting' news. They try to 'make' news instead.

Ramon Insertnamehere said...

It's got to the point now where I look at the front page of the Oz and just roll my eyes.