Playing at being an equal player
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Playing at being an equal player. Call me old-fashioned or just old if you like; I cannot remember an occasion in my 50 plus years as a journalist when I called a politician by his first name during a public interview. Whether I knew the person well or not (and over the years I actually became friendly with many of them) it was always “Prime Minister” or “Minister” or “Leader” or “Sir” or “Mr, Mrs, Miss or Ms” when I was the reporter and they the politician. It was not so much out of any sense of respect but rather an acceptance that they were the news makers and I but the recorder. The extent to which things have changed, to a relationship where the journalist assumes he or she has an importance and influence at least equal to that of the politician, was brought home to me last night as I watched that interview on the Seven Network where Seven News reporter Mark Riley challenged Tony Abbott about remarks he was captured making while talking to a military commander in Afghanistan. In response to silence from the Opposition Leader journalist Riley was moved to say: “You are not saying anything, Tony.” Tony! An arrogant familiarity from the a rude would-be star! My views on the incident remain unchanged from those I posted on The Stump last night. The comment of the day. From that same blog by Bogdanovist:
Visiting our GP. An interesting snapshot of Australians and their relationship with medical practitioners was released this morning by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Almost four out of five of us, it seems, visit a GP at least once a year although in 2009, approximately 1.1 million Australians aged 15 years or more (6%) delayed seeing or did not see a GP in the previous year because of the cost.
More people in Queensland (8%) and WA (8%) said they had delayed seeing or not seen a GP in the last 12 months because of the cost than people in Tasmania, NSW or SA (all 5.0%). There was no significant difference between people living in more disadvantaged areas and those in less disadvantaged areas, nor was there any particular difference between major cities, inner regional and outer regional/remote areas of Australia. Whether or not a person had private health insurance had an effect, however, with almost twice as many people without private health insurance reporting cost as a barrier to seeing a GP as people with private health insurance (8% compared with 5%). People under the age of 45 were more likely to have reported cost as a barrier to seeing a GP than people aged 45 years and over. After the age of 45, finding cost a barrier declined fairly steadily with age. Women were also more likely than men to have found cost a barrier to seeing a GP, which may relate to the fact that a greater proportion of women accessed GP services. In general, people living in major cities were more likely to have seen a GP (82%) than those living in outer regional or remote areas (78%). Across the States and Territories, people living in the ACT were the most likely to have seen a general practitioner (87%) while people living in the NT (76%) and Victoria (79%) were the least likely. People who were not born in Australia were a little less likely to have seen a GP than people born in Australia (77% and 82% respectively).
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13 Comments
Might also that Mark Riley was a bit nervous…it did look for a moment as though “Tony” might actually belt Mark….by the way did you call Mark Riley just Riley in your story? Perhaps a little familiar of you Farmer?
Pete from Sydney - “journalist Riley” was how I described him.
Perhaps he didn’t intend to trivialise the diggers death, but it could come across that way. More interesting was seeing Tony swinging in the wind without answering, head nodding slightly, for what seemed an eternity.
How should he address him, in your opinion, Richard? (oops, Mr Farmer (they’ve got a lot of titles, the honorable member for Waringah (SP?), Mr Tony Abbott, etc, but a lot of them would sound stilted in an interview))
And how does Abbott address “journalists” he’s familiar with?
Have times changed with that ascendancy of “Limited News”?
No doubt things have changed since you were a reporter - consider the way so many “journalists” seem to have placed themselves into the “reaction” and then want to retreat, like “catalysts” when it gets too hot. “Responsibilty”???? “Utegate”?
I don’t for one moment think Abbott was trivialising that death intentionally - I reckon he (“Rambo”) was upset being caught “tugging the forelock”, as he was - with yet another example of a “poor choice of words” - considering his “mission”.
Meski- I think Richard is fine for me. I’m not the politician and you are not the journo.
As for Tony Abbott, if ever I was to interview him, I would probably settle for Mr Abbott although I used to address Labor Opposition Leaders like Whitlam, Hayden and Hawke as “Leader”.
Klewso - I have memories of Whitlam referring to me as Agricola!
I do regard politicians being familiar with journalists and referring to them by first name as being different to journalists being familiar with politicians. As I wrote - Call me old-fashioned or just old if you like.
Agricola, there’s got to be a story there:)
Mr Abbott still sounds stilted to me - does anyone these days ask if they can call them by their first name, or is that an outdated idea?
Mark Riley didn’t need to call him by a name or title, he could’ve simply said “You’re not saying anything,” and omitted “Tony”.
Frankly I believe the journo should’ve stayed silent and played the game of seeing how long Abbott would hang himself out to dry. One of Mike Willesee’s strengths was the ability to shut up and wait for something to happen.
Roman Consul, Vacuum, Soulman, High Principal and El Gordo all sired by Agricola - he was a stallion too.
Meski,
From a very poor latin scholar, agricola is the word for farmer.
Note the origin of the word agriculture.
Gough’s Latin was always more fulent than “Mr Abbott’s” oratory.
Then again being *fluent* with a keyboard is obviously not one of my strengths.
Gough was probably more fulent as well, Paddy. Whatever it means, I think it should be onomatopoeic.