Tasmania Media ... a big serveBy JANE PURCELLHaving read the Tasmanian media over the past two weeks I have to say my fears keep being realised, that media coverage of the Federal election in Tasmania is superficial, lazy, usually biased and too often based on the last work they've read or seen written by another journalist. Journalists in Tasmania are lazy, too full of their own importance (why we don't know!) and very poor quality compared to their interstate colleagues. I gather Andrew Probin from the ABC makes the only attempt at serious and investigative journalism. How appalling that this mantle does not reside with a print journalists. Tassie journos could set the world on fire but in Tasmania they seem settled in a comfort zone that only comes alive with elections and good court or crime dramas. Most of these lazy drones would not last a year in newsrooms interstate. Call me gratuitous, but here are some areas where the dumbos of the Tasmanian media could excel in this election, and give their readers a proper, thorough and objective service: 1. What have the incumbent MHRs and Senators each done for their respective area or for the State. Run a table of all the sitting members and Senators and evaluate their performance against say 15 criteria, such as speeches, achievements, money or investment raised for their electorates, questions asked in Parliament etc. For instance, what Tasmanian House of Representative Member has asked only five questions (yep five!) without notice in the House of Reps since 2002? Get onto it guys. There's front pages waiting around for this stuff. If you want to know the Parliamentary details of each sitting Mermber or Senator just go to the other side and ask. Don't excuse Opposition MPs from the achievements section. If they're worth their salt they'll have won more for their area/electorate than their Government counterparts. 2. Get out John Howard's election Tasmanian package 2001 and find out how much has been started or finished, or not started and not finished. Go back even further to 1998 and 1996. You'd be fascinated with the results. 3. Send a questionnaire to each sitting MP and candidates. Go for the non political because on political issues these whimps from all sides simply send the questions to their party headquarters and have the answers safely done for them. 4. Find out how much in allowances Senators and MHRs get. and expect that with the allowances starting again fresh from July 1 they will probably use up two thirds of the year's allowances by October 9 in order to have taxpayers pay for their campaigns. Then you'll get an idea how much taxpayers' money will be spent by these turkeys to get themselves re-elected and how unfair that is on non sitting candidates, and how unfair and disgraceful it is to have official taxpayer funded elections. Find out how much is the annual communications allowance of an MHR and compare it to your mortgage. Get off your arse and investigate! 5. How many staff employed by sitting Members and Senators have now resigned to be full time candidates? 6. What staff out of the State offices of the Tasmanian Government, Tasmanian Opposition and Greens Party are currently working outside or away from their usual office. Where are they? Two guesses dumbo! 7.Organise forums for the MPs and candidates to front up at and face a panel of journalists. Run a detailed account of each answer each gave on a selected topic. 8. Ask all candidates whether sitting or not to realistically pledge five MATERIAL things they will achieve in their first 100 days - and hold them to it. Have a go. Give your readers and viewers or listeners their money's worth. Jane Purcell is "a student at Melbourne University majoring in Australian politics who recently completed a major essay on the rise of Green politics versus resource development in Tasmania. I was born in Boston, Mass. and I now live in St Kilda and absolutely love Australia." HAG NOTE: God, Janey, you don't half ram it up 'em. Hag, she with more sordid pecadilloes than any pollie could poke a shooting stick at, has observed in her distinctive bleary-eyed way the performance of the Tasmanian media with sometimes appalled fascination, not least the Bacon resignation saga. And she has kept her cauliflower ear to the sawdust of every dark and loathsome drinking hole in Hobart as the gathered wisdom of the pack has been splashed against the wall.
And Hag reckons there's a bit in what Jane has to say ...
but that also reflects the parlous state of the Fourth Estate generally But, for all that, there's a fair bit of decent reporting going on. Some of the leaks may have been dropping through well-oiled machiavellian outlets during the recent Butler saga, but they were faithfully and appropriately reported, mostly by Ellen Whinnett, Chris Johnson or Heather Low Choy.
Tho' Hag will have to take credit for re-revving the whole thing by publishing that comparison on the Gov salaries: The repetitive Premier copped a bit of persistence during his presser announcing the Gov's exit to the extent that he labelled in that time-honoured chauvanistic way the persistence as "hysterical". In relation to the national broadcaster, the ABC's worrying situation of interstate journos filing for national radio and tv (link) appears to be over. Local issues have been getting an excellent run on 7.30 (by standards set by the legendary Judy Tierney). Jocelyn Nettlefold has been on the case since May 3 posting several local yarns on Big Red's show ... Coastal planning crisis - Ralphs Bay, WWF, Aerial spraying, Godfrey Euthanasia decision, Launceston Woodsmoke to name a few ... as well as a few big bites at the Butler yarn, including lead item the big week of the controversy. And Annie Guest is the dedicated full-time journo serving ABC Radio Current Affairs in Hobart... filing for AM, PM and the World Today.. and she's been filing solidly on Tas issues since starting in late May. Then there's the wisdom of Crawford, the ever forensic Bevilacqua and the persistently persistent Johnson. But Hag reckons there's still too much bloody Magpie mentality - story a shiny object one day, discarded the next - and not enough dogged application. And those PRIMERS FROM JANE are surely worth a ponder. Now, who's going to take them up?
RAPID RESPONSE EMAIL: What do you think? Sunday, September 5, 2004 |