The problems the media and politicians face run deeper than the disgruntled voters and empowered readers: society is being rewired by the internet.
Political journalism
Innovation in Journalism: the death roll that is politics
At the moment politicians and reporters seem to be locked into a death roll. Both sides know they need to change, but neither side is able to break free.
Exclusivity, glass jaws and media business models
Media whingeing about exclusivity contradicts its incessant clamour for greater transparency from governments.
Keane: media bias v political substance in the budget
Last week’s budget gave an insight in to three of the key reasons why Labor is in such trouble. This government, as no one needs reminding, has a reputation for incompetence.
On politics, older Australians most switched-on, most sceptical
Older Australians emerge as the most politically informed and most sceptical of media users, according to Essential Research’s polling of attitudes toward political coverage.
Essential: the media aren’t biased, but…
Voters think the media aren’t biased and believe them more than politicians. After that, though, their view of the media is bleaker.
Tanner fights the devil of fragmentation, and maybe the ghosts of the Hawke-Keating years
Lindsay Tanner’s concerns about the dumbing down of democracy reflect fundamental changes in our media driven by the internet.
My name is Annabel Crabb and I’m a pollaholic
When you’re a political journalist, being obsessed with Newspoll and other polling comes as part of the territory. But Annabel Crabb is renouncing her long time devotion to the poll, saying last year should have taught journalist and this year she’s going “Polled Turkey.”
New political reporting … it’s facts, not fads, that really matter
So what might a new paradigm of political reporting look like? For one thing, it would involve a revival of the old paradigm — that facts matter and it is a journalists’ job to dig them out.
Wankley Awards: The lamest campaign questions
More than a month of election campaigning under a bright media spotlight produces a lot of questions to leaders. A bunch of them are awful. Many are Wankley-worthy. Here’s the worst.
How the 24/7 media cycle helped kill off Rudd
The extraordinary events that took place in the nation’s capital last week give us a good opportunity to get some purchase on the big questions of media, says Matthew Ricketson.
Talking the Town: Alan Reid’s life, a history of Oz political journalism
Reading a biography of the controversial and legendary Australian journalist Alan Reid, it’s hard not to be nostalgic for the days when journos chain-smoked at their desks and wore hats.
The dirty politics of the press gallery
Political journalists are an arrogant lot, thinking that they choose who the public votes for. And now some in the press gallery think that since they “made” Kevin Rudd, they can destroy him, writes Tim Dunlop.
Peter Garrett and the perpetual present of politics
Peter Garrett either should or shouldn’t have attended a meeting this week, and should or should roll out solar panels fast, and is or isn’t guilty of industrial manslaughter. Welcome to political journalism.
Crikey’s guide to political coverage in 2010: be sceptical
In an election year, all that glistens isn’t gold when it comes to political journalism, so be sceptical of what we in the media are offering. Sometimes in politics, there is much less than meets the eye.
Crabb: The fine art of taking the piss out of pollies
From the cult of “Kevinism” to “People Skills” Abbott, Annabel Crabb explains why making a mockery of our over-inflated politicians with clever political satire is critical to a healthy democracy — both for the players and observers.
Everything you need to know about big-P politics in four simple charts
Barely 10 years ago, the dynamics of the government/public relationship was such that the Prime Minister neither lifted nor depressed the party vote very much, says Possum Comitatus. But with the rise of PR-driven politics, just check out the charts now…
McManus out as Herald Sun ‘streamlines’ its politics
Herald Sun political reporter, Gerard McManus, has left News Limited amid mutterings of discontent in the Canberra Press Gallery, with their political coverage being “streamlined”. Or, downgraded.
Watching the slow death of traditional political TV, part 1
Is traditional political television dying? Have the likes of Insiders and the Laurie Oakes interview been left behind by new media and canny politicians? Bernard Keen weighs-in in the first of a two-part series.
Pollies: please just answer the question
Politicians are experts at ignoring questions and spinning answers to their own agenda. It irritates journalists, and more importantly, frustrates voters, writes Leigh Sales.
Lies: the constant of journalist-politician relations
Lies and politics go hand in hand and they’re the bane of political journalists’ lives. But was Malcolm Turnbull’s lie about Labor politicians wanting him in the ALP calculating or just delusional? asks Chris Wallace.
Elections slip out of newspapers
Australia’s newspapers have a problem: over the last three decades, there’s been a marked decline in front-page coverage of federal elections, according to research released yesterday.
Courier Mail journos can’t get the facts right
Why are Ministers dodging talking to the Brisbane Courier-Mail and putting answers in writing? Because the Courier’s journos regularly get facts wrong, writes a former QLD government spinner.
How the pundits got it oh so wrong on Afghanistan
Crikey / Jeff Sparrow / Monday, 7 September 2009
Given the almost universal recognition that the Afghanistan campaign has become a bloody mess, it’s worth revisiting some of the pundits who initially sold us the war.