Crikey

5 Comments

1. Frank Birchall
   Posted Tuesday, 20 May 2008 at 2:31 pm | Permalink

   Witty and incisive as usual! One would have to conclude that leaking is more damaging than writing (provided writer and leaker are not one and the same or are not colluding) but the real irony is that it is such a political crime for two senior figures to hold conflicting opinions and for that conflict, horror of horrors, to be made public. One of the weaknesses of Australian parliamentary democracy.

2. Dave Liberts
   Posted Tuesday, 20 May 2008 at 5:44 pm | Permalink

   Frank, is it a weakness of Parliamentary democracy or a weakness of our media who jump on this stuff, decide it’s a massive scandal then promote it as such? Sure Oppositions (or in this rare case, governments but it’s usually oppositions exploiting a difference of opinion in the government) love to chuck petrol on these things but ultimately the media love a cheap headline much more than the hard work of a detailed explanation. In the ‘70’s the average length of a media soundbite was around 45 seconds. Now it’s down to about 7 seconds. You’re definitely right that differences of opinion should not always be considered ‘splits’, ‘divisions’, ‘brawls’ or some other word which looks great in a headline. Differences of opinion are crucial to effective democracy, and the media should remember this.

3. Tom
   Posted Wednesday, 21 May 2008 at 12:28 pm | Permalink

   That’s funny! So called ‘serious’ political analysis on a cartoon, which of course suggests it is a real story not media creation, because … it’s a controversial (I would say bad) policy, echoes Howardist irresponsible pre election splurges, calling up the election win/loss, calling up climate threat/not, calling up old regime/renewal, calling up Nelson low approval figures as night watchman/could anyone even do better?. Everyone knows debate is normal within the coalition, it’s dissembling to feign surprise at the media interest for the above factors. You won’t discourage the media from taking an interest. Albrechtsen thinks it’s real enough in the Oz today.

4. firstdogonthemoon
   Posted Tuesday, 20 May 2008 at 2:49 pm | Permalink

   ooh look - I left the speech balloons off frame three - bugger

5. Tom
   Posted Wednesday, 21 May 2008 at 1:36 pm | Permalink

   meant to question ‘serious readers analysis’ OF a cartoon - cartoons sometimes the best analysis