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The Rainbow Report broadcasts live every Thursday 7-8pm AEST in Melbourne Australia on 94.9 FM, streaming via the web at joy.org.au. PODCASTS are available via the Joy website and now also on iTunes.

The Age of low quality

September 3rd 2008 03:50
Press Gang
A bunch of tabloid reporters

News is a strange profession. What makes news, and who decides, is even stranger. This musing is prompted by developments at my favourite Australian newspaper, The Age, which is in strife over the slashing of journalists jobs by the bean counters.


Much has been said about the decline in standards that will probably result, less quality work, more junior journos, loss of corporate memory etc. etc.

However it seems to me that the decline was already well under way. Since Andrew Jaspan – now, ironically, a casualty of the bean-counters himself - took over in 2004, news frequently vanished from the front page, to be replaced by stories about trashy celebs and sports ‘personalities’, excessively large vapid full-colour photos of politicians standing/walking/waving, huge graphics belabouring the obvious statistical point and so forth.

In-depth reporting was crowded to the margins by admittedly entertaining but largely fact-free opinion and lifestyle writing. Politically the paper moved neither right nor left – just down.

Jaspan has a record of ‘reinventing newspapers, favouring flashy design, funky typefaces, lots of colour, but he also has a record of moving on after a short reign, leaving others to unwind his changes.

Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t see the need to ‘reinvent’ the quality press, especially when, as with the Age, the usual effect is to lower the quality.


If this is to be a further reinvention, lord help us. Quite how anyone else will manage to take this lively but serious broadsheet any further in the direction of a tabloid comic without destroying it is hard to imagine, but given the lack of journalistic nous on the Fairfax board, I suspect they’ll manage.

The Age has also developed a culture of ‘not invented here’, which means that if the Herald Sun runs a story, the Age won’t pick it up with ten-foot tongs and a peg on its nose. The Herald Sun has always had this snotty attitude, but it’s a shame to see the Age responding in kind. If it’s meant to be ‘quality’, it ought to be above that sort of thing.

That leaves The Australian alone in attempting ‘quality’ journalism, and in terms of coverage it does a better job. However, it has such a strident saloon-bar right-wing tone that it becomes quite exhausting to read, since it is necessary to apply a translation filter to every line in order extract the embedded fact from the surrounding prejudice. There are times when articles in the Aussie remind me of those tanked-up blokes in pubs who are determined to provoke you into a fight.

That’s not to say the Age is or ever was ‘unbiased’ – in my view a complete impossibility for any person, be they a judge or a journalist – but its leftward tilt is milder and its tone far less combative.

The long slow death of the Age is not, contrary to suggestions, the death of quality journalism, just the gradual loss of one of the few places to make a good salary practicing it. If journalists are serious about their craft – and a surprising number of them are – then they will continue to do good work. They just won’t get the fat salary and expense account to do it with. For more and more the job itself will have to be its own reward.

Which will be good for journalists souls, if not their bank balances.
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Journalists prise China open

August 15th 2008 00:47
Free Tibet Protest London
Free Tibet Protest in London


The Chinese government is discovering what it means to be open to press scrutiny, and are not enjoying the process much, it would seem.

Unused to having their decisions publicly questioned, they’re getting quite testy with journalists who expected the same freedom to report that they have in most Western countries (most of the time).

In 2001 Beijing Olympic vice-president Wang Wei said: "We will give the media complete freedom to report when they come to China."

Yesterday his tune was somewhat different.

"We welcome the people and the colleagues of the Olympic Games with us and we welcome suggestions that are constructive advice from these people, all kinds of peoples. But the foreign press, you come here to pick, critically dig into details, but that doesn't mean we don't fulfil on our promises. I did not say China would promise to do whatever; I did say the Games would open up the horizons of China," said Wang.

He then went on to make a number of statements at odds with the facts. For example, he claimed that a British journalist, briefly detained by Chinese police for covering a pro-Tibet protest, had been released as soon as he had shown his credentials.

Footage aired worldwide, however, clearly showed that Chinese police repeatedly ignored his credentials and persisted in asking him why he supported Tibet.

Either Wang doesn’t watch CNN, BBC, etc., or he is so used to controlling the news that he does not understand how the embarrassing footage could possibly have made it into the public arena.

He didn’t know anything about a Guardian cameraman being assaulted by officials, either. Maybe even he is blocked by his own censors from seeing YouTube, where footage of both incidents is posted.

The Olympics is the first major event held in Communist China which is not entirely controlled by the Communist Party. Although the IOC are kowtowing to the regime more than we would like, it isn’t totally under Chinese control.

And the press are doing what a free press does best. Although often trivial, irritating and stupid, with an inflated sense of their own importance (and I speak here as a journalist myself) it’s good to know that some journalists can rise to the occasion.
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Shane Crawford
Shane Crawford, the gay-friendly Hawks star - even appeared on Joy 94.9


John Michael Howson, speaking on 3AW, asked how the hell Jeff Kennett became embroiled in the Ken Campagnolo saga, leading to his reported comments painting gay men as sexual predators and akin to paedophiles.

I know the answer to that one. Ken has been fighting the Bonnie Doon Football Club and the AFL over his sacking as a sports trainer, after his bisexuality became public knowledge. The RJM Trust, headed by former Lexton Plains Football Club President Rob Mitchell, stepped in to help Ken, picking up his legal bills and providing support.

Rob and I thought it would be a great idea to ask Jeff Kennett to be a mediator in Ken’s case. After all, he is chairman of beyondblue, the depression-fighting charity, whose policy contains the following:-

"Mental Health, Depression and Anxiety in Same-Sex Attracted People".

"Gay, lesbian and bisexual men and women may be exposed to higher levels of unpredictable, episodic, and day-to-day social stress than others because of the stigmatisation of homosexuality in western culture. Experiences with discrimination and stigmatisation have been shown to lead to greater vulnerability to depressive distress and anxiety and perhaps to higher rates of some psychiatric disorders."


The RJM Trust is already working with beyondblue on an initiative to introduce diversity policies, practices and training into the Victorian Country Football League, covering sexual orientation and gender identity.

Kennett has in the past been something of a champion of human rights, and of course he is a force to be reckoned with in footy, as the (as always) outspoken chairman of Hawthorn Football Club.

Kennett did broker a deal but it was totally unacceptable to Ken, because it sought to muzzle him (and anyone connected with him) from ever speaking publicly again about what had happened, offered only a private apology without compensation, did not include a public apology and retraction from Bonnie Doon and the AFL, and could not be reported in the press.

I should add that Ken has made it he does not wish to cause Bonnie Doon Football Club any distress by seeking compensation from them: that is the AFLs responsibility as the overarching body governing football.

In other words, Kennett colluded with the AFL and BDFC to try to make the whole issue disappear.

Naturally, Ken refused to accept any confidentiality agreement – he has been publicly vilified, likened to a paedophile, his reputation trashed, and that requires an apology, an admission of error, and public exoneration.

After the most recent VCAT hearing, the Age and the Herald Sun interviewed Kennett about his involvement, and for whatever reason, instead of urging the AFL and Bonnie Doon to come to their senses, Kennett chose to compound the public vilification of Ken – if the report is accurate, which Kennett disputes.

But Rodney Croome, of the Australian Coalition for Equality, has heard the entire unedited transcript and says that, if that transcript is accurate, then Kennett was not misquoted or taken out of context, as he claims.

Curiously, Kennett has not released his own version of the interview, nor urged the Sunday Herald Sun to do so, nor offered any detailed credible explanation of how and why he believes he was misquoted. If he was misquoted or taken out of context, surely it’s in his interest to have the unedited transcript released into the public domain.

Perhaps the Sunday Herald Sun will counter Kennetts assertion by doing just that this weekend. Or perhaps they will say they were wrong and issue an apology. Kennett is said to be applying behind the scenes pressure, which may explain why the press have suddenly gone silent on the issue. Either way, it should be an interesting read.

Hawthorn Football Club,
PO Box 829 Mt Waverley VIC 3149, Ph: 03 9535 3000, Fax: 03 9535 3050, Email: hawka@hawthornfc.com.au

Beyond Blue,
Ms Leonie Young, CEO, Administration phone: 03 9810 6100, Fax: 03 9810 6111, Beyondblue info line: 1300 22 4636, Email: bb@beyondblue.org.au
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