Is News becoming embarrassed by what’s made News great?

…Is the News empire at risk of selling out the Murdoch spirit that has helped to democratise the press and challenge the smug group-think of the Left? Is Fox News next?

Ah yes, News Ltd. Famous for “democratising” the press and not in any way using media power to bully governments into giving the proprietor what he wants at the expense of ordinary voters.

Let’s hope shutting down the News of the World doesn’t make News Ltd less like News of the World was.

If it reassures our friend at Southbank: we doubt it will.

ELSEWHERE: Have you been oppressed by the smug group-think of the Left and don’t have your own column published by the biggest media conglomerate in the country to whinge hilariously about it? We gather that The Australian’s Media Diarist wants to hear from you.

UPDATE: Media Diary, first with the media news, reports today on a Crikey public apology from 2008. (Originally the MD story didn’t feature the date, because although the screenshot showed the URL and it would’ve been the work of seconds to type it into a web browser – and what professional journalist has the time to do that these days? – the twitter picture from which it was sourced apparently excluded it.) We can’t wait till Media Diary starts letting Australian readers catch up on what was happening in 2009.

On last week’s show, a Senator from a minor — but by no means insignificant — party was on the panel, along with a mix of pollies and commentators from across the political spectrum. Those who watched the show would have seen that Senator face strong and sustained criticism from much of the panel (as some of our readers noted). The Senator was the Greens’ Sarah Hanson-Young, and the panel — including Labor’s Emmo and Richo — challenged her on the Greens’ positions on the CPRS and whether they should direct their preferences toward Labor to avoid an Abbott government.

How did Andrew present the show to his readers? He judged it days before it aired. Despite the fact that the show didn’t have a single-issue focus, he pretty much wrote it off as an exercise in groupthink on climate change. He didn’t give any updates after the show had aired — there’s no evidence to suggest he bothered to watch it.

On this week’s show, a Senator from a minor — but by no means insignificant — party was on the panel, along with a mix of pollies and commentators from across the political spectrum. Those who watched the show would have seen that Senator face strong and sustained criticism from much of the panel. The Senator was the Nationals’ Barnaby Joyce, and the panel — including Labor’s Bill Shorten, a comedian, a journalist and a philanthropist — challenged him on the claims that Julia Gillard is a factional puppet and on policies about asylum seekers and population growth.

How did Andrew present the show to his readers? He called for the waaaaahmbulance. Despite the fact that the show covered a range of topics and that all of the panellists seemed to disagree with one another at some stage — and despite the fact that Joyce had a reasonably consistent ideological companion in Janet Albrechtsen — Bolt dismissed the whole show as a stacked Leftist panel being rude to Barnaby.

Q&A might be far from perfect — I’m not a big fan of Tony Jones as a moderator (although I found Trioli surprisingly good last night), and some episodes just don’t work because the panel doesn’t have a good dynamic or is dominated by one or two blowhards. But at its core the show is one of the better avenues for intellectual debate on our TV screens. And rather than some notion that there has to be an even division into two supposed camps, the show’s effectiveness hinges on drawing on people with a range of backgrounds and expertise, who will each put forward their own ideas.

But judging it on those criteria requires people to watch the show, while Bolt can take a cheap crack at the purportedly left-leaning panel without he or his readers even needing to watch it. I guess that’s why it’s so easy — and common — for the commentators in the big corporate media outlets to attack the ABC through stereotyping. Like Caroline Overington’s comparison of her new role with Media Watch:

Media Watch tends to be: what News Limited did wrong this week. But here at Media Diary, we will take all and any items of interest {juvenile emoticon removed – Tobby}

Perhaps her first Media Diary could include an update on whether last night’s show changed her mind — what with Jonathan Holmes taking the ABC to task for its failures in covering the leadership spill.

Given the fairly personal nature of some of her past polemics (and the bizarre nature of some of her tweets), we’ll be watching with interest.

anyone over the age of 30 who spends any time deep in some sagging sofa, console in one hand, the other down the front of their pants, imagining themselves to be a combatant in some pretend city, is lame

I’m pretty sure that the only response to that bizarre image is “LOL, WUT?” But the strangeness doesn’t end there, in fact Great Aunt Caroline is only getting warmed up and all of you nasty gamers better watch out.

Overington’s picture of gamers is fairly well removed from any reality that I’ve experienced, and it’s laughable enough on it’s own, but it gets funnier when she then tries to use this strangely fetishistic picture as part of a further argument.

But some do have jobs. Some are, in fact, lawyers. Can you believe that? I can’t believe it. Imagine going to the internet, doing a little research on your lawyer and finding he imagines himself to be a excitable character in a pretend world?

What would you think? I know what I’d think. I’d think: `I’m going to jail’.

I wonder what leisure activities Caroline approves of for serious professionals? Fox hunting? Skeet shooting? Yachting? What about stamp collecting, or pigeon fancying? Medieval battle re-enactments? Euchre? Scrabble or crosswords? Should there just be a blanket ban on professionals undertaking hobbies that Caroline can’t understand?

Beyond the fatuousness of Overington’s little fantasy, it’s an incredible display of ignorance. Video gaming is now a bigger industry than either cinema or the music business and in Australia, 30 year old gamers aren’t some kind of fringe group, they’re the average.

- Average age of gamers is now 30; average age of non-gamers is 40.
- 88% of households now have a game device, not including mobiles.
- 61% have MORE than one — consoles are now dominant.

It seems that the mainstream has passed Caroline by, but I’m sure that if someone explained to her that her idea of gaming is something akin to her parents telling her as a child that TV would rot her brain, then she might begin to understand how silly her position is. I wonder if next week she’ll be telling us that Dungeons and Dragons drives people to the occult and suicide?

Because we’re big fans of disclosure here at Pure Poison it’s only right that I let you all know that I self identify as a gamer, as does my wife (we have two Xbox 360s so we don’t have to fight over whose turn it is) and quite a few of our friends. While you might think that I’m taking Overington’s article as some kind of personal slight, the reality is that I see this as just another example of how out of touch The Australian is with the broader community.

It’s not due to come in until January 2011 … that is, after the next election. It’s dependent on the Rudd Government being returned (quite likely) and on the deficit not blowing out (not at all certain).

No matter how you spin it, that’s not a budget measure.

That’s an election promise.

And she has a point there – it’s far from set in stone, and depends on the Government being returned at the next election, on fiscal circumstances not making it impossible, and on the political ground not shifting so that it’s abandoned for some reason. There are reasons to be sceptical that the scheme will happen in the specific form and time-frame in which it was announced.

But her other grounds for completely dismissing the scheme seem less than reasonable. Apparently, the scheme “falls apart” on parents because it will be implemented:

For some women. Eventually.

And she elaborates on those two points. On the first:

Which women? At the moment, it is supposed to go to “primary carers” (read: women) who earn less than $150,000 a year, which prompts the question: should maternity leave be means tested? Maternity leave is a payment to women that recognises the importance of being home with their infants during the first, precious months of their lives.

Once you get into the zone where this woman gets it, but her sister doesn’t … well, you’re exactly where we are right now, aren’t you?

Except instead of the employer deciding who gets maternity leave, it will be the Government.

So, at a time when we are finally seeing some justified questions about “middle-class welfare”, a Government introducing a means test that would exclude a very small proportion of families from being entitled to the parental leave completely invalidates the proposal?

And on her second point:

If that weren’t enough, has anyone looked at the start date? Swan says the scheme will start on January 1, 2011.

According to many very twitchy groups on the internet, that date – 1/1/11 – is also the day when the sky is going to fall in.

Somehow, it seems appropriate.

So, if it doesn’t start now, and if it doesn’t cover everyone, it’s no good at all. The glass really does appear half-empty to Caroline. Surely some delay in planning and implementing a completely new type of assistance scheme – particularly one that will affect both families and employers – might be expected to take some time? And surely it’s understandable that a government facing budget constraints might look at targeting the funding where it is most needed – at the families who would be less able to afford to take time off work without assistance?

What’s more, I would suggest that just having a Government willing to make an in-principle commitment to funding parental leave is a large step forward. A dose of practical scepticism is one thing, but complete dismissal seems hard to justify.

The Court’s decision includes some graphic detail and does not make for pleasant reading, but it is worth looking at to understand how the sentences – original and amended – were arrived at. The Court is stern in its criticism of the original decision, saying it fell “far short of appropriately denouncing his crime.” They also pointed to a number of errors the sentencing judge made in (i) not following the appropriate process for determining and explaining the sentence, (ii) his assessment of the seriousness of the offence, and (iii) underestimating the importance of the offender’s criminal history. After finding that the sentence needed to be adjusted, they explained their reasoning for the amended sentence.

So – the Crown exercised its right to appeal, the grounds for the original sentence were reviewed and it was found to be manifestly inadequate, and the sentence has been made less lenient. That should satisfy those in the media who decried it as a shocking outcome, right? At the very least, it should make clear to them the problem with the original decision and how it came to be, right?

Apparently not, at least in the case of Caroline Overington. She still thinks it’s all about lenience based on race, culture or class. But on the content of the decision itself, she is completely wrong.

Our earlier discussions of this case included the fact that the sentencing judge had stated Mr King was an Aboriginal man – something that some media commentators had jumped on to claim that it was a lenient decision based on race. Overington is not as crass as those commentators, but she does still suggest that the decision is based on the background and circumstances of the offender and victim.

Overington uses two sources of “evidence” to back up her argument. The first source is the questions she has been asked by people:

I’ve written a few things about the case. People have asked me: was the girl an Aborigine, too?

For the record, she was white …

But it’s interesting, isn’t it? Ordinary members of the community, when asking themselves how this fellow walked from court, assumed that it might be because he was an Aborigine and his victim was, too, and they lived in a house where the back door was held together with a nail, and where drunken people wandering around at night, smashing car windows and breaking into homes wasn’t so remarkable.

This observation might tell us something about the way everyday people, or at least the people she talks to, think about this sort of crime. But does that mean the three judges of the appellate court, or the original sentencing judge, thought about it in that way?

Her second source is a thought experiment:

Now imagine for a moment that King wasn’t an Aborigine, wandering around drunk out the back of whoop-whoop. Imagine the home he broke into was in South Yarra, or Kew, or Vaucluse, or Subiaco.

Imagine that the girl he assaulted was sleeping in a sweet pink bedroom, and her parents weren’t absent, but asleep on the Queen size Sleepmaker in the room next door …

Would King have walked with no jail time at the first trial? No chance. Would he now be serving four-to-seven years? Try 25.

So to Overington, even the amended sentence is woefully inadequate and she implies it is because the crime involved people living in a disadvantaged part of our society. By the way, 25 years is the maximum sentence allowed for the crime King was charged with – the standard non-parole period for the offence is 15 years.

But what circumstances of the offender and victim did the Court actually take into account? Of Mr King they said this:

The Judge found that the respondent had “considerable mitigating factors”. Apart from the fact that the respondent had been serving his period on remand in protection, we cannot identify any matter of significant mitigation in his background or personal circumstances. His parents were loving, caring and supportive, and he had a considerable extended family from whom he could have obtained assistance. There are many persons of all races in the community who are not so fortunate. The respondent could no longer rely significantly upon youth, he was 24 at the date of sentencing, especially having regard to his record of offending. As we have noted, the respondent had been given ample opportunities to reform including being given two suspended sentences shortly before the current offence was committed. He had flouted them all.

Of the victim’s background and circumstances they said nothing – which is as it should be. Their only comment related to the potential effect of the offence on her, and they viewed it as a serious risk:

It should not be assumed, without evidence to the contrary, that there is no significant damage by way of long-term psychological and emotional injury resulting from a sexual assault of a child who is old enough, as was the complainant, to appreciate the significance of the act committed by the offender. It should be assumed that there is a real risk of some harm of more than a transitory nature occurring. That should be a factor taken into account when sentencing for a child sexual assault offence. It is an inherent part of what makes the offence so serious.

So if the sentence might still be perceived as lenient, what other reason might there be? If she read the decision itself, then apparently Overington did not consider this section to be relevant:

After his release following sentencing by the Judge the respondent became for all intents and purposes housebound in his family’s home because of his fear of personal attack by members of the public as a result of media coverage given to the sentence imposed and criticism of it …

Public outrage at the sentence was turned upon the offender such that he understandably feared physical punishment at the hands of vigilantes. Had a sentence that appropriately denounced his conduct been imposed upon him, he would have been spared further public humiliation and anger. He could have simply got on with serving his sentence as he had been prepared to do. The respondent has always been realistic about the gravity of his offending and the sentence that he expected to be imposed upon him.

In fact, the Court went on to determine the appropriate sentence that should have been imposed (nine years with a non-parole period of six years and nine months), but then reduced it in their decision because of, among other factors, the “degree of extra-curial punishment” he had been subjected to.

Is it taboo for a media commentator to discuss the effect of media-induced outrage about sentencing? Or is it just easier to pin the blame on judges with double standards, or on our fractured society, than to stop and really consider the facts before one’s eyes?

Late last year, for example, we had Tony Abbott, unforgiveably late for a debate with Nicola Roxon, and then swearing at her.

[...]

Then, last Saturday, we had Kevin Rudd, devilishly and deliberately dropping the s-word on TV, and looking delighted when he got a round of a applause.

And then, last night, Maxine McKew dropped the p-word on the ABC’s QandA.

Now, Tony Abbott using a swear word to attack someone is completely different to Kevin Rudd using a swear word to describe something, and every person will judge the two incidents differently depending on their personal standards. Some may believe that Abbott’s use is less acceptable than Rudd’s, and some may believe that any use of a swear word in public should be equally condemned. However, swearing in public life is certainly not new and political history is littered with famous examples of heated cuss words being exchanged, and if anything the relaxed attitude towards swearing in today’s society makes the minor examples cited by Overington more acceptable.

At least Abbott, Rudd and McKew never slapped pushed a politician away with an open hand.