Senator Stephen Conroy has drawn the ire of News Limited papers the Daily Telegraph and The Australian due to a novel media management strategy. Conroy has begun issuing general press releases whenever he responds to questions from the Oz and has indicated that he’ll take similar action with the Tele, with the reasoning being that it’ll stop them distorting his answers, or at least give other media organisations the chance to call bullshit on News’ spin.
So what’s the considered response from Daily Telegraph editor Paul Whittaker?
“This level of media management would make Joseph Stalin proud – next they’ll drag editors off to the gulag.”
I suppose we should at least be grateful that Whittaker decided not to go the full Godwin.
Laughably, the Tele then sought the opinion of John Howard’s former chief of staff for some helpful analysis:
“Maybe it’s time that some of the senior staff said to the ministers, ‘Stop being sooks and welcome to politics’.”
Perhaps, or maybe it’s time that someone said to The Daily Telegraph and The Australian “Stop making stuff up“?
The circus surrounding the set-top box program, which had complete bi-partisan support up until a few weeks ago, seems to be the final straw for Conroy, who has also had The Australian waging a campaign of misinformation against the NBN. By releasing his answers to all media organisations he deprives the News mastheads of their ability to scoop their competitors, and also stops the other media (I’m looking at you ABC) from mindlessly repeating the News Ltd story before corrections can be issued. It’s no surprise that this annoys News Ltd, but I’m struggling to find a compelling argument as to why Conroy shouldn’t be issuing this information to all of the media organisations.
Is this a sign that the Federal government has decided to stop taking the regular beatings handed out by News Ltd?
Update: In today’s Australian, editor Chris Mitchell calls for a wahmbulance of his own. This time the target is Defence Minister Stephen Smith who preempted a story in the Oz by giving detailed answers about a troubled project during question time. This is looking more and more like a government strategy to deal with hostile media.
48 Comments
Is this a sign that the Federal government has decided to stop taking the regular beatings handed out by News Ltd?
None too soon. Show some balls for once, ALP. News Ltd’s coverage simply couldn’t get any more partisan. Take the bastards on. Watch them shrivel when they face a real challenge.
This is great. It basically tells News Ltd straight up they’d better report honestly because if they don’t they will be caught out straight away.
They’re terrified of the growing campaign to make foreign ownership of Australian news media illegal.
Conroy has always been their boy in Canberra.
Needs his chain yanked.
Labor and the Greens have reason to retaliate against News Ltd, its echoes, and the talkback turds. It would be fantastic to see them do something about the media when the Senate changes on 01 July.
Hey, Uncle. I’ll believe my media and you can believe yours. Captain Col 2011 etc.
“Is this a sign that the Federal government has decided to stop taking the regular beatings handed out by News Ltd?”
What? The Labor/Green government are going to promise to be honest?
That would be a start. Then move on to ethical, responsible, prudent … you know … and eventually … popular.
Not likely.
Col the difference between you and me is I am intelligent and have the wondrous ability to assess the information I read for myself.
You blindly believe whoever tells you what you want to hear. You admit this.
This is why Conroy is now bypassing the media you blindly believe. It’s because people like you accept distortions and misrepresentations because they want to believe them.
You mean the two parties that just formed government after being voted for by a majority of the Australian population aren’t popular?
Oh, I’m sorry, there was a Herald Sun internet poll that said the opposite. Carry on.
It’s not a new tactic, they should all be doing it, nothing annoys them more.
Good plan, Conroy over all is doing a good job in communications and is largely left to get on with it.
Pity Bowen sounds more and more like a nazi freak every day.
This response by the Daily Telegraph and the Australian, along with the earlier Crikey report on media unrest due to the government’s release of documents under FoI to the general public simultaneous with release to the applicant seems to me to raise fundamental questions about whether governments (and, I guess, other bodies) have some sort of moral obligation to support a newspaper’s commercial interests. In both cases, the outcome of the approach is twofold. 1. It deprives the newspaper of the ability to claim an exclusive story (which, cynics say, is designed to discourage reporting and scrutiny), and 2. It makes government more accessible by providing information that is released in the public interest equally available to everyone (which, cynics might say, is all about reducing the chance of News Limited entities to run anti-government spin).
To me, if journalists are serious about their rhetoric about being essential to a well functioning democracy, then this new approach is a good thing. It makes the government more accessible to the public at large (or at least those sections of the public that can be bothered looking at press releases). If this approach does have negative outcomes for a media organisation’s commercial success, then to me that only reinforces the need for a well resourced, independent and unbiased public reporting service, a diligent and inquisitive opposition, and a government that, in question time or otherwise, will engage with the issues and provides information rather than bombast.
Conroy should also publish every Release on his website, and send it to an opt-in Mailing List as well.
Stephen Smith did it too.
Shorter OO: Waaah! How dare you put parliament ahead of our demands.
Caen,
Which, of course, is what the ABC Charter was written for the ABC to be. But under a partisan directorship and management the ABC has dropped the ball in a big way. No longer the source of authoritative, unbiased reporting, it now customarily picks up News Ltd talking points, acts as a virtual clearinghouse for Coalition press releases, and its opinion spots are dominated by the extreme ideological rantings of the Liberal-connected Institute of Public Affairs.
Join the hundreds of people who are making their feelings known about the need for the ABC to return to its Charter. Vote and comment on the petition here:
http://suggest.getup.org.au/forums/60819-campaign-ideas/suggestions/1684971-petition-for-abc-to-return-to-its-charter
Dave, Where’s Conroy’s tash?
Brilliant strategy and not before time. What a surprise this morning not to see Liberal Party squabbling as lead story in the Oz but yet another beat up on the carbon tax!
I guess this is sort of related:
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2011/s3226109.htm
Kate Lundy taking on the libs in estimates over some of the worst aspects of their anti-boatpeople smearing lately. I think she scored a direct hit over the child pornography claims.
Now that Conroy seems to have given up trying to censor the Internet I’m beginning to warm to him.
You can thank Bob Brown for starting all this “Media Bashing ” , the Labor mob has to grow some balls and brains. This is a good start to what will happen AFTER 1st July , when editors will arrested and jailed for Treason. ( Wishful thinking )
SonofMogh, I was too lazy to put it on.
confessions @12
It does seem to be getting up their noses, doesn’t it? Even if one believes the BS about how this “breaches trust” or “bullies journalists”, one is still left wondering about this apparent tension between the papers’ business interests and the task of informing the public.
Of course, that’s not really what this is about. This is really about NEWS’ ability to misinform and misrepresent and set the agenda with big, incorrect headlines. That seems to be their business model just now (let’s call it “the first to be wrong” approach), and the guv has finally hit on something that threatens it. Well, good. I don’t think that business model benefits the nation.
Expect this to catch on, I reckon.
caen – yes I was interested in that earlier FOI story. On one level it seemed ironic to complain that a freedom of information request was made generally available, but I had a tiny bit of sympathy for the angle that it undermines the research of a story. tiny bit.
All of which is different from Conroy’s tactic when asked questions around policy detail or implementation. Frankly, I think it’s great that the answers are given as a general press release.
“Frankly, I think it’s great that the answers are given as a general press release.”
I’d personally like to see it becoming the norm. I’m sick of not really knowing what was said and having to second-guess isolated quotes. I don’t trust anybody. We don’t live in an era of page-size constraints any more. Give us the information – all of it. Let us make up our own minds.
What’s really sad is that this is necessary at all. It seems to me that james o’keefe’s approach to journalism has found its way into the mainstream, and the subjects of journalism are feeling obliged to take on the responsibility of informing the public about the activities of journalists, rather than the other way around.
three cheers for Brown, Conroy or any other politician with the backbone and integrity to stand up to the lying guttersnipes at News.
hopefully it frightens some sense into those formerly known as journalists at the ABC.
MoC:
It’s also illustrative that the PR/lobbyist spinners quoted in the Tele article are opposed to a general press release – with Hawker ludicrously wondering how long such a practice “can be sustained”. Now why would they have a problem with the public having all the facts, I wonder?
I’m trying to work this out
I assume The Australian supports a free press, the ready availability of information and open discourse but objects when it happens? The sheer dishonesty of their position beggars belief. Do they all live on Planet Janet.
Makes sense in one dimension. The Oz openly comes out & says they will destroy the Greens the has a big cry baby session when that mean old leader of the greens gives them a mild talking to.
I see Capt Col got slapped back into his burrow pretty smartly. Pity it’s such fun reading his next lot of biased unreasoned & assertions.
Het CC did you see this Abbott quote
But Mr Abbott said cost-of-living pressures had changed the nature of the debate, and faced with a choice between “policy purity and political pragmatism, I’ll take pragmatism every time”.
There, your beloved hero admits he will do the wrong thing if it will cause him any political pain. He admits that he does not have the courage of his convictions ( well he couldn’t really as he doesn’t have any) and that it is a clear statement that he is a policy free zone and that he not a leader but a mindless zombie who follows the herd.
Can you imagine the News Corp outcry if Julia said this?
Actually, The Pav reminds me. Wasn’t it the Australian who led that ‘Right to Know’ media campaign?
Oh dear, yes the campaign was headed by News ltd chief John Hartigan as its public spokesperson. From their website:
And the OO and Tele have the hide to whinge about the govt issuing responses to all media outlets. Who’s the sook indeed!
Hit ‘em where it hurts. The squealing coming from NewsCorps’ bunkers after being called out as blatantly partisan hypocrites, is sweeeeeeet music to my ears. That particular patch of the fourth estate is really just a rapidly decaying, vermin infested slum hidden behind a white picket fence. (With some honourable exceptions, e.g. George Megalogenis, Mike Steketee, Jack the Insider.)
Agree with those who say that Conroy is turning out to be a pretty good minister, apart from that whole intertubes censorship thing.
Below is an example of the kind of fundamentally dishonest reporting that seems all too common at The Australian:
In October last year The Australian ran a story by Rick Wallace – NBN a waste of money, says Japan IT mogul Masayoshi Son:
Here’s the video of the press conference. At about 36:35 the reporter from The Australian asks the following question:
Firstly, professional journalists shouldn’t ask leading questions or editorialise in order to elicit a particular response. Secondly, the reporter was, unsurprisingly, poorly informed. The government is not proposing to spend $42 billion of “taxpayers’ money”. The tax payer contribution was (at the time) $26 billion. The fibre foot-print is not 90%, it’s 93%. Not only did the reporter misrepresent the NBN, it’s also clear from the video of the conference that The Australian completely misrepresented Mr Son’s response.
Here’s what Mr. Son actually said:
When Mr Son said “It’s a waste; it’s a stupid solution” he was referring to the idea of overbuilding the copper network with fibre (resulting in two networks – copper and fibre), which is not what is being proposed in Australia. He actually supports the NBN, including the idea of an opt-out rollout instead of an opt-in/on-demand rollout (from later in the conference). He believes that an FTTH rollout can be achieved without tax payers’ money. That may well be the case in Japan but it’s obviously not the case in Australia.
Look at what The Australian did to a response by a Japanese telco CEO that was recorded and placed on the web for the public to see. Now imagine what they are doing to private emails and government responses to questions that the public never get to see. What I cannot fathom is why “conservatives” like the good Capt’n Col seem to prefer being lied to by The Australian over being given facts and the truth.
This is great to see – give them nothing (including any government advertising revenue).
I don’t understand who this government is getting in the way of The Australian running the country.
Its The Australian FFS.
THE Australian.
There is no other.
The sooner everyone remembers that and gets back in their place, the sooner they can stop the tantrums and get back to running the country.
What I cannot fathom is why “conservatives” like the good Capt’n Col seem to prefer being lied to by The Australian over being given facts and the truth.
But we do know why. Because col is not interested in the truth he wants to win!
At the cost of all else, he just wants to be on the winning team. This is because he is so stupid (drug addled I think) that understanding the issue is of no importance to him.
This is the best (real) news this week, and has been picked up by First Dog over at crikey, delightfully. The Australian today is bleating about Stephen Smith doing it too. Chris Mitchell is really really upset. This is the funniest and most effective payback I have seen for yonks, whoever thought of it (Senator Faulkner?) deserves a medal.
Exactly, twobob. They don’t care about the lies, because for them newspapers are just part of the tactics of getting back into power, not a way of getting the news.
Well, it seems we have a bit of a gamechanger and one would think that Paul Whittaker would be slightly ashamed of his response. But considering how he responded to the Budget that’s probably not going to happen.
There’s more to it than that, Twobob. Essential reading: http://tinyurl.com/4xmjeed
To be fair, Twobob, I’ve come notice your interest in ‘the truth’ extends only as far as calling people ‘stupid’.
Assuming that News Ltd. did so in the first place, what’s to stop them from providing analysis and insight and context to the press releases emanating from Conroy’s office? The sole basis behind their whinge is that they’ll no longer be Johnny-on-the-spot, they won’t be able to claim “scoop!” or “exclusive!” anymore.
Press releases by their nature are mostly spin anyhow, so I’m reluctant to hope that Conroy’s move becomes standard practice, but this kind of PR should only be a jumping-off point for the story itself.
After years of operating as a propaganda arm of the Howard government, News Ltd. now has to redefine itself as the underdog anti-Establishment rebel (while simultaneously reflecting and upholding the values of “mainstream Australia”). The cognitive dissonance this requires is evidently taking it’s toll.
Also, there should be a Godwin equivalent for whenever a conservative starts spouting off about Uncle Joe, gulags, etc.
The Bloodthirsty Lefty Fallacy?
Jules,
To my mind the far left and far right are the same side of the coin. The only difference being that the fascists are pretty forthright about their stated aims whilst communists couch themselves in terms of justice for workers when the end result is really any thing but.
Thanks for that, Sancho!
Have a read of ‘The Political Brain’ by Drew Westen, if you can get hold of it.
ahhhhhhhh tis so good ta see some sorta fight back afta pretendin nothin was goin on for so long.
tha murdocracy an owards abc av truly turned our policial discourse inta cheerleadin in dis country. Tha economist got it spot on an tis such a shameful an negative thing for our country.
Tha rastafulla remembers readin a comment (ere?) suggestin that bob browns initial attack on news was tha first shot in an upcomin attack on tha aussie media ownership an standards. Seems dat might be right.
An bis yer tossin off in tha wrong place matey, you belong with dat otha buncha clowns who reckon lasers on sharks trump tha nbn. Makes ya proud ey bis!
http://www.news.com.au/technology/shock-jock-impressed-by-laser-speed-breakthrough/story-e6frfro0-1226062824273
Spoken like only someone who imagines they’re a moderate..
and yet Andrew Bolt is so ‘spot on’ according to you…please direct us to where you have been stridently critical of his deliberate fibs and distortions on this blog..
per F lease.
Actually, karsoe, I have suggested in the past (when accused of being worse that both Hitler and Stalin by freecountry in a thread on (surprise, surprise) the right of Big Tobacco to kill people for fun and profit) that we should have a corollary of Godwin’s Law (wherein the first to invoke Hitler loses the argument): Grech’s Law – the first to invoke Stalin loses the argument. Thus fc scored a Godwin Gretch. Now where have I heard that before?
I’m amazed that The Australian would characterise Stephen Smith’s actions as a “breach of trust”. Why should a person asked by a newspaper to answer some questions in relation to a story have an obligation to provide those answers only to the newspaper and not to anyone else? If a person comes up to you and says “I’m going to write a story about you and want to ask you some questions to give you a chance to present your side of the story, but you have to promise not to tell anyone else the answers or that I asked you these questions”, the logical response to me is “No thanks, if I think the question raise matters of general public importance or if I don’t trust you to present the information I give you fairly, then I’ll tell whoever I like”.
The Daily Telegraph included a quote that this new approach of Conroy’s is “unsustainable, but I’m genuinely curious what is unsustainable about sharing information equally. Should politicians be afraid that journalists will cease asking them for their side of the story because of the risk of losing the exclusive? Surely the risk there is that the journalist loses all credibility by refusing to present both sides of an issue simply because they might lose the right to claim “exclusive”?
I also recall an article either on Crikey, New Matilda or the Drum about the difficulties politicians have had for many years about getting their message out through a hostile media. Howard overcame it through talkback radio. Rudd used Sunrise for a similar purpose. Now Conroy and Smith are taking the next iteration in sidelining an openly hostile media by responding to journalist’s questions with general press releases. In each case, it is a way of trying to get the message out there directly to the people, rather than being reliant on traditional media.
In today’s OO there is this, which includes this sooky little snippet:
I also love how the whole premise of the article is that there are more govt-appointed ABC board members than there are Howard-appointed ones, as if this should be alarming. There’s that ‘balance’ thing again, not competence or experience, or appropriateness. The OO is trying very hard to prevent any incursion into the culture war efforts of the previous Liberal govt.
@Caen, On ABC returning to what its supposed to be.
Well said, however you do realize that it is still consider left wing by the majority of the right? The more I examine right winger’s comments, the more apparent it is becoming that:
If its not right, its left….and if its not right its wrong. Truth and facts be damed.
Sorry that should have been @Cuppa, while I do still agree with Caen lol.
Labor should pass a law requiring media ownership to be in Australian hands, then Murdoch would have to decide whether to hold on to his US assets or his Australian assets.