Claims Australia's unemployment data is dishonest are wrong

In To those who claim Australia's unemployment data is dishonest – please stop Greg Jericho explains why journalists need to be very careful about claims the government is lying about unemployment numbers - for that leads us down the path of "fake news".

In an era where fake news is like a virus, media organisations need to be very careful that they are not adding fuel to the bonfire of fantasies. Even with the best of intentions journalists should be wary of arguing that government data is dishonest – such as recent suggestions that the real unemployment rate is much higher than what the ABS would have us believe.

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But there is no one measure that tells the whole story.

We should ensure our coverage reflects that. There is nothing wrong with creating new labour force measures, but we should be very wary of dismissing the official rates as dishonest.

Doing so only serves to reduce people’s confidence in the impartiality of the ABS. And we should discourage anything that would give succour to politicians – such as Trump – who seek to undermine institutions by suggesting any data inconvenient to their policies is fake.

Because of media reporting our fears of terrorism don't match the actual risks

In How Media Fuels Our Fear of Terrorism Nemil Dalal shows how the media report terrorism deaths out of proportion to other victims of violence, especially deaths in the USA and Europe.

Reviewing the interview

Peter Clarke is a "Melbourne-based broadcaster, writer and educator who teaches at RMIT and Swinburne universities". In Brandis free speech fudge he reviews Emma Alberici's interview with George Brandis on the topic of the Gillard Government's proposed media reforms.

Journalists are often criticised in social media when they interview prominent politicians. Usually the criticisms reflect the bias of the critic more than any alleged bias of the interviewer. It's good to see an independent and informed critique of an interview by an expert. We need more of it.

Some more Clarke reviews:

Anatomy of Sales -v- Gillard interview - Leigh Sales interviews then Prime Minister Julia Gillard

Morrison’s brick wall on how he’ll stop the boats - Sabra Lane interviews then shadow Immigration Minister Scott Morrison
How Sales dropped the ball on Abbott - Leigh Sales interviews then Opposition Leader Tony Abbott

The Australian newspaper's move to the right

In The ABC versus The Australian - and the winner is ... Alan Stokes writes:

As mad as it might make the independents feel, the Murdoch press simply pitches confirmation journalism to conservatives who are perfectly legitimate consumers of media products.

How would I know?

Because I have split my three-decade working life roughly between Fairfax Media and Rupert Murdoch.

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There was a time when The Oz was less extreme. Then the powers that be made a survival decision. I sat at meetings where News Corp executives stressed that The Australian should aim to become a conservative newspaper with story decisions seen through that prism.

More than a decade on it remains a great newspaper. The Australian has many very talented reporters.  Hedley Thomas's dogged pursuit of Clive Palmer has been laudable, as have campaigns to improve indigenous health and utilise freedom of information laws.

But too often the good journalism gets lost in the polemics.

The Abbott government gives The Oz more exclusives because they will be given less critical treatment and, usually, more space. Myriad news reports quote like-minded lobbyists, think-tanks, fellow staff and even editors at length. As noted American sociologist Charles Tilly might say, sometimes journalists just seek "a quotable bit that will reinforce the point they already want to make".

What's gone wrong with political interviews

Ian Katz writes about The death of the political interview. He makes some good points.

The future on journalism and outsourced education

Robert W. McChesney has written a rather bleak article on the future of journalism in Mainstream media meltdown! Basically he says that there's not enough money to support quality online journalism.

However, it's the summary that I want to highlight:

There is probably no better evidence that journalism is a public good than the fact that none of America’s financial geniuses can figure out how to make money off it. The comparison to education is striking. When manag­ers apply market logic to schools, it fails, because education is a cooperative public service, not a business. Corporatized schools throw underachieving, hard-to-teach kids overboard, discontinue expensive programs, bombard stu­dents with endless tests, and then attack teacher salaries and unions as the main impediment to “success.” No one has ever made profits doing qual­ity education—for-profit education companies seize public funds and make their money by not teaching. In digital news, the same dynamic is producing the same results, and leads to the same conclusion.

Unfortunately there's nothing in the body of the article discussing corporatised education. Judging by the one paragraph above I think it's a topic probably worth an article in itself.

Greg Barns on Julia Gillard

In Media should play fair with PM, former Liberal Party adviser and candidate Greg Barns writes:

JULIA Gillard is no Paul Keating, John Curtin or Ben Chifley to name three of the best prime ministers this country has had in the past 75 years.

But nor is she so poor a performer and leader that she deserves the daily excoriation to which she is subjected by many in the mainstream or traditional media, by which I mean newspapers and electronic broadcasters both public and commercial.

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The media campaign against Ms Gillard and her government can have only two foundations -- a dislike of a woman as prime minister or a nasty conservatism that seeks to protect privilege. Either one is unacceptable. We should call on our mainstream media to play fair or not play at all. It is far from healthy for the media in a liberal democratic society to become so unbalanced on matters pertaining to politics.

Richard Chirgwin takes apart the Daily Telegraph on spectrum costs

In Wireless spectrum scare-story: $400 per year per user? Richard Chirgwin finds the Daily Telegraph wanting when they claim that the Government's spectrum floor price will cost broadband users $400 per year. Mind you this should hardly be surprising given that surveys regularly show the Daily Telegraph to be the least trusted newspaper in Australia.

More failings of the Canberra Press Gallery

In The everyday shit they call journalism the news with nipples takes apart a story by Mark Kenny and Jonathan Swan:

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.

Some interesting articles on politics

Michael Gawenda on Time wrought Gillard's transformation.
Gay Alcorn on Media's character put to the test in federal election campaign.
Gabrielle Chan on Gillard's Captains Pick.
Dennis Atkins on Incumbent Northern Territory Senator Trish Crossin caught in indigenous vote crossfire.

And one on Nova Peris by Catriona Wallace:  Nova Peris: Achievements of an Outstanding Woman.

Why I no longer buy The Australian

For most of my adult life I was an avid reader of The Australian and The Weekend Australian. I have to say that its been several years since I purchased either paper. With one exception I now no longer trust anything in The Australian or it's Saturday stablemate. The exception is the writing of George Megalogenis (but even then you sometimes need to ignore the headline).

Why don't I trust The Australian? I feel that it's no longer a newspaper of record. Instead it seems to have become an agenda driven publication. There is no way for me to tell if an article is accurate or biased.  To me the Australian is no longer impartial.

I also find the paper incredibly arrogant and thin skinned, even bullying and vindictive. Woe betide anyone who criticises The Australian.

All this is a shame as The Australian can be a very good newspaper at times. It has carried out and reported on investigations that any editor would be proud of. But for me that's now all for nought, because as I said, I no longer trust it. Nor do I need it any more, the Internet now brings me other sources of news.

It is widely reported that The Australian runs at a loss and that Rupert Murdoch keeps it going for the influence it brings. But, one day Rupert will be gone. When that day comes many expect his replacement to close the loss making venture. I will be saddened when The Australian dies. Not for the loss of what The Australian now is, but for the loss of what it might have been.

Articles on the Australian
John Quiggin: The Oz is not a newspaper
Robert Manne: Margaret Simons and the Australian
Robert Manne: Payback: The Bullying Tactics of the Murdoch Press
David Marr: The Politics of News: David McKnight’s 'Rupert Murdoch: An Investigation of Power'
Tim Dunlop: Manne up: taking on The Australian
Sally Neighbour: The United States of Chris Mitchell: The Power of Rupert Murdoch and the Australian’s Editor-in-Chief

Nobody tells the truth about the economy

In With the economy, the truth is out there Jessica Irvine lets us know the truth: "Nobody tells the truth about the economy". She explains why you can't trust politicians, economists, business leaders or journalists on this subject.

Agnotology

In Smoke and mirrors Matthew Reisz writes about

'Agnotology', the art of spreading doubt (as pioneered by Big Tobacco), distorts the scepticism of research to obscure the truth. Areas of academic life have been tainted by the practice, but some scholars are fighting back by showing the public how to spot such sleight of hand

The good and the bad

In And now for some good news the News with Nipples blog has an interesting post looking at a couple of cases of good and bad journalism. They aren't kind on Ben Cubby:

Contrast Hasham’s story with the story placed above it on page three, from Environment Editor Ben Cubby, who’s been pulled up here before for lazy journalism: Cause for optimism on global warming.
It’s 475 words about a report that he doesn’t name so readers can’t easily find it and therefore have to take his word for it that he’s reporting it accurately (I assume it’s The Critical Decade: International Action on Climate Change), with a quote from Opposition climate spokesman Greg Hunt that ranges from clearly wrong (South Korea) to somewhat wrong (the US and Canada) but is left unchecked by Cubby. Like all politicians, Hunt knows that he can pretty much just make shit up and journalists will report it without pointing out that there’s no evidence to support the claims. There’s a general quote from Minister for Climate Change Greg Combet and a general quote from Climate Commissioner Tim Flannery that sound like they’re from the media release that arrived with the report. I’m happy to be wrong about that. If a journalism student submitted this story for an assignment, they’d be lucky to pass.

But back to the good bit. Nice work, Nicole Hasham.

How not to cover a mass murder

Helen Lewis reports How the media shouldn't cover a mass murder.

Adele Horin's final column for Fairfax

In For richer and poorer, the battle goes on Adele Horin has written her last column for Fairfax. It's well worth reading and I think her contribution will be missed.

The media and politicians who repeatedly lie

How do newspapers deal with politicians who go on repeating lies? looks at that very question:

But how do reporters who are doing their level best to tell their readers the truth cope when candidates move from spouting (just about acceptable) spin to telling (unacceptable) lies?

Unfortunately, he doesn't really come up with a solution. It's a bit of a shame really as we have an Opposition Leader who gets away with it repeatedly.

Objectivity doesn't work with the politically disengaged

In Screw Objectivity: Study Finds Opinionated Journalism Boosts Civic Engagement Gregory Ferenstein at Tech Crunch cites studies showing that people who are politically disengaged are more likely to be motivated into action by opinionated articles than by objective articles:

A new experimental study [pdf] finds that opinionated reporting is better at motivating the politically unengaged than objective reporting.

For years, much of the media has assumed that objective education, alone, was enough to promote a healthy democracy. What traditional media failed to realize is that a good chunk of the population needs a reason to care in the first place. “News articles that are written through the eyes of a mere observer, without a perspective or slant, can foster political disaffection among citizens,” explains author Minha Kim of Sungkyunkwan University (note: for the highly politically engaged, objectivity is better, which is explained below).

If you think about it this shouldn't be that surprising. At heart humans are emotional animals.

I find it interesting that people who are highly politically engaged are motivated more by objective reporting.

Tim Dunlop on the media and politicians osbcuring the truth

Tim Dunlop has written an interesting piece at The Drum: Have the dark arts of spin outflanked the fourth estate?
The recent kerfuffle at The Lobby restaurant in Canberra involving the leaders of both major parties and protesters from the Tent Embassy is a nice example of the way in which the media and politicians operate in a way that obscures, rather than reveals, the truth.
It's worth a read if you care about what's happening in our media (and if you don't care it's probably even more important that you read it.

Jonathon Holmes on tabloid TV

In 'Breaking the law': a strange tale of tabloid TV Jonathon Holmes compares Australian tabloid media to that in the UK and argues that the real excesses in Australian journalism are not amongst Australian tabloids, but in the weekly magazines and the commercial current affairs shows.

This is a reflection of where the competition is. Most Australian tabloids face no competition, at least from other tabloids, so they can maintain some minimum standards (although there might be argument as to whether the minimum standards are adequate). Where we see competition is in talk back radio, weekly magazines and in commercial current affairs. And, that's where we see the worst excesses. It's unfortunate (as I'm a big believer in competition improving markets), but when it comes to the media it seems that competition delivers a worse result.

But, then I guess that says more about us the consumer. After all, competition is only forcing the media to produce what we want to consume.