Five Star’s News Ltd blog this morning published a fairly extreme political rant – declaring, of all things, “Kevin Rudd doesn’t want you to have your own money” – by someone named Jamie Briggs.
Someone who knows perfectly well that most people reading his diatribe won’t have any idea who he is – and who, oddly enough, declines to reveal it to them in his piece. Only the really curious – those who bothered to click on his name for a bio – would have discovered that Mr Briggs is the new Liberal Party MP for Alexander Downer’s old seat in South Australia.
Everyone else? They’d have had no idea.
Is that particularly ethical? Should News Ltd’s new Crikey ripoff at least make a point of identifying politicians who aren’t household names so that readers know that they’re just reading a party hack having a go at the other side? Okay, your Tony Abbots and Bronwyn Bishops don’t need an introduction – but someone who’s only been in the parliament for less than a year, and who has never held a prominent national office? I think it’d be good practice for major media organisations, if they must publish such vacuous polemics, to be upfront about just who the authors are.
6 Comments
As far as being fair, balanced, ethical and professional, a by-line should be present regardless, explaining who the person is, unless they are a News Limited staffer.
This goes for politicians, directors of various research ‘institutes’ (you know who I mean), and anyone else. How hard can it be?
“by Bronwyn Bishop – failed liberal party front bencher” and the like…
Huh?
This is his bio found by clicking on his name which is shown to have a link.
In early 2006 Jamie Briggs was appointed to a senior adviser’s role in the PM’s office, one of the youngest ever to hold that title.
Following the Howard Government’s election loss in 2007, he won a by-election held in 2008 to replace the retiring Alexander Downer in the Federal seat of Mayo.
He is a member of the House of Representatives Standing Committees on Health and Ageing, Economics, and the Joint Statutory Standing Committee on Public Accounts and Audit.
It’s at the bottom of the page, like everyone else’s bio.
Don’t know how to scroll down, Jeremy?
It’s down in the “punching on today” section, at the very bottom of the page, at the end of all the comments – although that won’t necessarily be the case when someone reads it tomorrow.
And I acknowledged in my post that the details were accessible by clicking on his bio.
The point is that it’s not made in any way clear adjacent to the text, and that it’s only people who go looking who’ll realise who this Jamie Briggs fellow is.
it’s already been established that The Punch readers spend so little time at the site, and rarely return, therefore it’s safe to assume readers wouldn’t scroll all…..the……way……down……to……the…….bottom…….of……..the……..screen to find out the credentials of some little known person they wouldn’t know from adam.
I agree that parliamentarians and other partisan hacks who aren’t household names should have their affiliations or expertise to comment listed at the end of their post, like it would occur at the end of articles if they were published in a newspaper. And lets face it, jamie briggs ain’t no Maxine McKew – the only reason i know of him is because he infamously defamed that war veteran (who lived until 110) in parliament when he reportedly screamed “only the good die young”.
Nice.
PS Mark, you’ll note that the bottom-of-the-page banner which yesterday for a period included a summary of Jamie Briggs’ position, now doesn’t. That advertisement was not a byline, was not attached to the article itself, and now doesn’t mention him at all.