It's really quite disappointing to pick up our only national newspaper and see that it is not something to be proud of. Where you would hope for a great newspaper with professional journalism, you get pathetic bias.
This morning is no exception. There are two issues delt with today, both where the paper is acting like the media department of the coalition. A front cover article has a headline, "Gillard's army of spin costs $150m". It is tiresome to have to parse this but here goes. The "army" are the communications staff of federal agencies such as the ATO. How these have suddernly become "Gillard's" employees, let alone "army", I fail to see. Unless they were all employed at the instigation of the prime minister or her government and represent a number significantly higher than normal practice, then the story is falsely slanted. The article fails to comment on this. Any professional story would have discussed the number of communications and media staff that there were under the Howard government, and indeed under several governments, for comparison. And whether decisions about staff are made by anyone other than the departments themselves. And whether communications employees are essential to run a department successfully in this the information age.
The headline calls all these employees "spin doctors", so all media, communications, marketing and public affairs employees are belittled in one fell swoop. This is how The Australian works. Of course to defend communications and media employees makes you sound naive. But seriously, the article does not talk about the need to communicate important policy changes to the public, imagine what the Australian would do to them if they got it wrong?
Scoop! It is probably the The Australian and the media generally that has caused the rise in the number of employees in the communications area. The media, and the Murdock press in particular, is so aggressive and unrelenting in its attacks on this Labor government that they have no option but to ensure that there are no mistakes in the delivery of information to the public. They push governments into making the Perfect the enemy of the Good, to spend up big on communications staff, to ensure that there are no mistakes that will inevitably be pilloried by the Murdock press. The 1600 may as well be "Murdock's army of Spin". (I have just watched the release of the report by Angus Huston into asylum seekers and witnessed the aggressive and simplistic associations that some of the journalists make. It is quite obvious that anyone dealing with the media needs media advice and training to withstand the onslaught and to quickly put out the fires that the more tabloid journalists are trying to light, by sophistry and half truths).
This attack article continues on page two with a much larger headline: "PM's $150m spin doctor brigade". Every piece of information in this trumped up article is skewed against the Prime Minister and the government. The first paragraph is loaded to the max: "TAXPAYERS [that's you and me] are spending about $150 million a year on an army of spin doctors to sell the Gillard government's policies to voters [that's you and me]".
This sentence could quite reasonably have read: "Australian governments and their federal departments spend about $150m a year on media and communication staff to publicise policy changes".
There is a story here, but the story is about whether, in the context of the Australian economy, $150m is a lot to spend on media. It may not be out of proportion to the size of the economy and the federal budget. We wouldn't know, the article doesn't discuss it. Also, if one government spends 30% more than a previous government, then that would also be a story, but again, no data no facts, no analysis.
The article does not analyse this at all. It does not compare and contrast...except in one suspect way. The article cherry picks some comparison data in a tabloid fashion. For example, "The total number of public affairs staff in government is more than five times the estimated 300 journalists...in the Canberra press gallery".
This is meaningless outside of a full discussion of the detail. Off the top of my head: are there another 600 journalists operating elsewhere? What about virtually? Are there numerous journalists operating in the local electorates of federal members? Are there thousands of online journalists and dedicated bloggers covering federal politics? Are there thousands of staff in think tanks and in lobby firms and in universities analysing and covering federal politics? Also, hasn't the 1600 communications and media staff got a big job to do considering that number are representing 20 massive federal departments. Consider the the size of the ATO?
The positioning of paragraphs in this article is also suspect. After this wow statistic about the numbers of journalist we get this: "Opposition Senate leader Eric Abetz seized on the figures [gee, he "seized" on them!] to accuse Labor of focusing on spin over substance and vowed to cut the numbers if in government".
This is interesting. While our mind is wowed by the meaningless, selective and tabloid comparison data, we are told that Abetz has "seized" on figures. These figures or the original figures? Yes, logically you can make a case that it is the original figures, the subject of the article, that he is seizing on...but your mind has the shock tabloid comparison present when you are told that Abetz is active in stopping this travesty. The word "seized" suggests a dynamic discovery of something bad. Abetz rides in and seizes; he then "vows" to cut the media numbers. But didn't the Howard government spend a record amount on advertising? This journalist knows that but doesn't mention it. She allows only Abetz to "vow" to cut back this scourge of media expenditure.
Further comparisons are tabloid and unanalysed, but interspersed with further Abetz spin:
1. The ATO has 271 media staff but only 100 staff involved in tax responses to organized crime. (er, wouldn't that be because the key role in busting organised crime is elsewhere, in the law enforcement departments? 100 maybe a perfectly reasonable number to liaise with those departments. We wouldn't know, it hasn't been analysed).
2. At Defence they have hundreds of media staff but only 79 troops in Western Australia's far north west. (no facts about this, just the tabloid idea that we are undefended near "strategic gas and iron ore operations". So let's see, Gillard is responsible for our golden egg mining being undefended because of her "army" of spin doctors? No facts, no analysis.)
Now four combinations in a row of comments and quotes from Abetz. Including this: "Most Australians [speculative] would agree [speculative] that spin doctors [derogatory] are not necessarily [conditional] a core business [weasel words] of a lot of these departments [indeterminate]". This guy really puts the doctor in the spin! I guess that means that spin doctors are necessarily a core business of some of these departments? But would most Australian's agree Eric? And how can spin doctors not be necessarily a core business? If they are not necessarily a core business then they are not a core business. Unless you want them to be one when you get into power? How can so much of this crap go unanswered? The answer is that Abetz knows that The Australian is going to play the role of his echo chamber.
Then another free kick to Abetz to slander the government with crimes that his own side of politics has committed en masse. But no comment by the "journalist" about this.
3. The AFP employs 40 media staff nationally but only 28 AFP officers in Tasi. (I'm not going to bother with this one. I'll let you ask the obvious questions that the "journalist" doesn't).
This front page article and its headlines are no mistake. It would take a dedicated effort to generate such a warped story and to construct it this way. This paper is corrupt. But what can be done about it?
