(no title)

Unaccustomed Power

“Get reporters off the bus and onto some decent news coverage”. In this scathing commentary Margaret Simons wonders if this ‘bizarre election campaign of 2010 is actually about anything’. The award-winning journalist is referring to the paucity of policy information and admits that journalism has failed to inform the public. Jay Rosen called the reporting of our recent election campaign horse race journalism where the spotlight was on ‘who is going to win rather than what the country needs to settle’. Rosen who is a Professor of Journalism at New York University describes the campaign reporting as he said, she said journalism where the two sides are reported but there is no real effort to get to the truth and the public remains uninformed.

There were many examples of ‘he said, she said’ journalism over the election campaign; policies were announced and the government minister and the shadow minister given token airtime and scant probing.

Saul Wakeman asks ‘why is there no probing of the issue by journalists when it is their job to inform the populace’. Wakerman reminds us of the hypocrisy at play as he ponders how our leaders spent countless hours trying to convince us that ‘people smugglers are the scum of the earth and that the boats must be stopped’. He asks “Where is the investigative drive to find out who the people smugglers are, who the boat-people are, and what are their motivations?

The author of The Media We Deserve, David Salter  claims that during the hurly-burly of campaigning, journalists ‘confuse the cheap hokum of personality politics with substance’, and that it is only when the excitement of the election is over they become aware of the important issues that were scantily covered.

Salter wonders if we can do anything to alter this state of affairs.

The result of the 2010 election is a ‘hung parliament’ in which there is no clear winner; the next Prime Minister and Government being in the hands of ‘the boys from the bush’ a couple of other independents and a Greens new member.

As the independents wield their unaccustomed power, ironically the campaign continues and the media is scrutinizing the issues. Maverick independent Member of Parliament Bob Katter cares deeply about the terrible reality that ‘a farmer in his electorate commits suicide every fourth day’. His concerns about farming practices, not scrutinized in the campaign, are now being articulated. The Independents crave the media space and are continuing the debate that the media had reduced to ‘he said, she said’ journalism. The 2010 election campaign that lacked balance and in-depth information, is incorporating the diverse views as we await the final result.