Remember the moment in the Life of Brian film where the naughty boy who is not the Messiah urges his followers to accept that they are all individuals. “We’re all individuals’” they chant in unison. Then a voice at the back of the crowd speaks up: “I’m not”.
Well, today the Fairfax broadsheets are in the position of that one voice. Or are they?
Today 56 major newspapers around the world ran the same editorial on climate change. This effort was organised by The Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom. One might see this as an admirable acknowledgement of the special nature of this issue. Or one might see it as an act of imperialism by one of the few media organisations that is looking comparitively good in the new media age.
The justification for the move is carried in this article from The Guardian.
At the end, author Ian Katz makes something of the fact that on his long list of newspapers, the two nations slow to sign up to the Kyoto protocol are not represented. There is no major USA newspaper, and:
Another Kyoto holdout is also unrepresented: both the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age dropped out of the project after climate change convulsed Australian politics, demanding, they felt, a more localised editorial position.
Now, that is a slightly different slant than that given in The Age’s rather strange little article on the Guardian initiative today.
The Age was invited to take part in the global editorial but declined. Editor-in-chief Paul Ramadge said yesterday: ”We applaud The Guardian’s global initiative. At The Age we decided it was important to put our own views – to be consistent and partly because of the nuances of the debate in Australia.’
Now, several things occur to me. First, was it Ramadge’s decision, or a Fairfax Media decision? And if the latter, what does it mean for editorial stances on things such as forthcoming elections? Will we be getting individual lines from the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, or will there be a company line?
Second, isn’t rather strange to applaud the initiative on the one hand, but not sign up on the other? Surely it is one or the other. And the truth is that the joint-effort editorial is considerably more strident and greener than the line that Fairfax newspapers have previously endorsed. So is Ramadge signalling a change of attitude? I doubt it. Rather, his comment suggests the matter has not been fully thought through.
Seems to me that two positions are defensible in this: signing up, perhaps with the acknowledgement that this is a departure from usual practice and usual relationships with readers because of the special nature of the issue.
And not signing up, because you either disagree, or because you place a premium on your own voice and your masthead’s unique relationship with the audience.
Seems to me that Fairfax is having a bit both ways.
Finally, while I would agree with the Guardian that this is an issue like few others, I can also well imagine that editors might hesitate to abandon, even for just one day, their right to their own voice. To suggest that failure to participate (or willingness) is related to the attitudes of governments is disingenuous of the Guardian.
8 Comments
Actions speak louder than words at the end of the day. Being supportive of something requires no real committment. Actually doing something means putting your reputation and credibility on the line.
Regardless, as a SMH addict, I would applaud the move not to publish the article. A newspaper shouldn’t outsource its editorial to the Brits.
Surely this all adds up to one thing: how much of a relic newspaper leader columns are. The idea that any publication has one prevailing view is nonsense in a digital age of dissemination of voices.
Find somebody to put a byline on it or don’t run it, I say.
Your last paragraph says a mouthful. What’s more, I would suggest that the Guardian’s sneering comments about those who didn’t participate is precisely the sort of holier-than-thou attitude that gets up a lot of people’s noses when it comes to these issues. I don’t blame Fairfax one bit for not joining in and if it got up the Guardian’s nose, all the better.
I guess one of the sadder ironies of this whole silly stunt, is the sheer irrelevance of the assembled newspaper’s editorials.
Whether it’s 56, or 556 editorials around the globe…Who cares.
With their circulation, bottom lines and influence collapsing at breakneck pace, the whole sorry business has the tragic-comic resonance of a “We warn the Czar” moment.
The Guardian’s groupthink is somewhere between fatuous and hubristic. It certainly isn’t journalism. Journalists were once professional sceptics, which is the only reason to pay them anything.
Katz says: “Climate change poses a particular challenge to journalists. It is almost incontrovertibly the biggest story we cover; perhaps the only one with genuinely existential implications. Otherwise measured scientists discuss it in apocalyptic terms.”
This is exactly the sort of hyperbole that is driving Australians into the hairy arms of the simian Right. Empirical science attests to modest global warming 1975-2000, with ample precedent in recorded history, precedent which does not implicate CO2. AGW remains a plausible hypothesis which is coming under increasing pressure, both from the revealed partisanship of scientists and observations.
There are no rational grounds for a millenarian cult. Katz raves about the “apocalypse”. Presumably he’ll join Prince Charles’ end of the world party in July 2017. That when Charles IIIrd finally loses his head.
Scott – it wasnt about papers ‘outsourcing’ their editorial to the Britis – it was a collaborative effort to draft a text we could all agree on which The Guardian anchored
Tim – I didn’t mean to sound sneering about the SMH or the Age dropping out at all and sorry if it came over that way. I was simply try to explain to readers why they weren’t there as imagined that people would reasonably ask why no Australian titles were on board.
Margaret – I didn’t say that decisions of the SMH and Age not to participate were related to attitudes of governments did I? But it was hard not to be struck by the parallel with Kyoto – the US and Australia the only two major countries not represented.