The Australian is rapidly losing credibility as a source of news, writes Peter Botsman. It's not political bias that will sink the national broadsheet, but a tendency to create its own reality through bully tactics.
One hundred years hence let us hope that future historians do not pore through the columns of The Australian to find out what happened in our period of history.
(Original Story by Professor Peter Botsman, for the New Matilda, at: http://newmatilda.com/2011/05/13/bully-boy-tactics-oz )
There is something immediately admirable, and rare, about a public thinker who thinks in one hundred year blocs.
Professor Peter Botsman's 2000 epic "The Great Constitutional Swindle" is perhaps the bravest and most honest (frankly, ferocious in his fearlessness) legal or historical or political or social commentary ever written by any Australian.
He even surpasses in my honest opinion Emeritus Professor Donald Horne's 1964 "The Lucky Country", and a string of other worthy contenders from Thomas Hardy and from Manning Clarke, for laying bare two of Australia's best kept and most dangerous historical and contemporary secrets.
Secret #1 is that the Australian Constitution is not a Constitution at all, but is a Royal Licence drawn up by Australia's pre-federation ruling class of lawyers, and rubber stamped without ado by Queen Victoria and her British House of Lords and House of Commons, to entrench their concentrated political powers, so much so that 110 years later Australia remains a 1st rate country run by a 5th generation of 4th rate lawyers (our second secret).
So much for 'separation of powers' written on a piece of Victorian English parchment, when (Secret #2) 98% of all parliamentarians, 99% of all Ministers of the Crown and other Senior Bureaucrats, and 100% of all Judges and senior judicial officers are 5th generation lawyers - lineal descendants of their (not our) founding law-fore-fathers.
And whilst political powers in our unLucky Country remain so concentrated, and all government processes, practices and outcomes (including tax systems, tertiary legal education institutions, access to legal professional positions post-graduation, vote-buying welfarism, and lawyer-enriching legal systems) have for so long orientated themselves to fit this lawyer class "ownership" of the reins and seats of power, there is no reason to think that these statistics will be any different (let alone any democratic or representative) in another 4 or 5 generations.
As one who was there with Gough in 1972 - 1975, who was there for the 1974 Brisbane floods as well as the 2010 sequel, Professor Botsman speaks with authority rare amongst social and political academics in Australia. Is he Australia's best, but least appreciated intellectual treasure?
So when Professor Botsman says that political bias or, more exactly, "being politically active and partisan" is "not the real concern" with the Australian, one shudders at the depth and depravity of the things that are the "real concerns" - lack of a paying readership appearing to be a virtue rather than a sin in these circumstances.
It stands for its own self importance. The problem isn’t that the organisation favours one side of the news over another, it is that it is an insular club which is cold to outside influences. News Limited likes, above all, to be seen as a king maker and power broker. It does not want to report the news — it wants to make the news.
Newspapers should have strong opinions, make choices and offer recommendations. But such views need to be merit-based and emerge from a rich editorial process. At The Australian the conversations that occur between editorial bosses are extremely narrow. You contribute if you are in the News Ltd club. The choices that it makes are not informed by anything of substance but rather a perspective that such and such is someone’s friend, or has the tick of approval by the bosses, or is part of an establishment club view of the world.The club shows no restraint. It will feature a half page picture of a favoured personality or raise a 16-point headline, even when the substance of a story contradicts it, in order to please the perceived hierarchy. Gail Kelly of Westpac found herself at the mercy of the News Limited spin merchants last week. Many have suffered a similar fate over the past few decades. .. Because of its club-like atmosphere, ..
Some further observations on the troubled Australian, from Professor Botsman:
.. like a ship being steered by several captains
Similarly those of us who still occasionally buy The Australian — its circulation figures are closely guarded so that advertising is not jeopardised by a falling readership — do so in order to read one or two columnists. In so far as the overall presentation of the world is concerned, you have to learn to read through the pages. This is difficult for those who have no idea of the internal permutations of personalities and masters within News, or who don’t seek out other sources of world news.
It’s true that since the days when Rupert Murdoch virtually dictated Gough Whitlam’s "It’s time" campaign, News Limited editors have never shied away from being politically active and partisan. But this is not the real concern — what we should be worried about is the propensity for News Limited papers to create their own version of the news. The offensive quality of News is their sheer ability to bully a sort of reality. So much important information is left out.
But still, there is more:
.. Kevin Rudd spoiled his opportunity when he dared to criticise the editor of The Australian for either erroneously quoting him or quoting something off the record about a phone call with George Bush Jr. From that time on Rudd was history so far as The Australian was concerned — even though the former PM enjoys a strong personal friendship with Chris Mitchell, the paper’s editor in chief.The implosion of the Gillard government is also being covered in an imbalanced way by The Australian. Blind Freddy can see that the Gillard Government will not win the next election — whenever it is held. But neither does the Abbott Opposition deserve to win government. ..
The Australian's Special Editor at Large, Paul Kelly's recently penned manifesto "The March of the Patriots" showcases as its central theme that the Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating and his successor the Liberal Prime Minister John Howard, headed parliaments and greater federal governments that were so alike from policy and political achievements perspectives, they could as well have been one and the same person, let alone one and the same political party. Isn't this a reflection of Professor Botsman's "Great Constitutional Swindle" hypothesis?
And then there are Paul Kelly's threats against ANU Journalism teacher Julie Posetti, threatening to sue her for defamation, for accurately transcribing speeches to the effect that Australian Journalists suffer from over-editorial governance from their senior editor(s), which roared around social media sites such as twitter.com under the tag of #twitdef. Isn't that a reflection of Professor Botsman's present hypothesis of bully boy tactics by the Australian newspaper's governing class to create their own version of the news.
Seems there is fertile ground for a grand unifying theory that links great Australian swindles of our first three estates of government (parliamentarians, bureaucrats, judiciary) with another great Australian swindle of our fourth estate (journalists and mass media).
Should our fifth, sixth and seventh estates (church, family, individuals - individuals, like wikileaks' Julian Assange, or Peter Lalor, or Matthew Brady or Ned Kelly) stand up as checks, to balance the dysfunctioning and swindling of our first four estates?
Can our eighth estate, our Queen of Australia, Mrs Elizabeth Windsor (or her antipodean nominee, Mrs Quentin Bryce) be counted upon to operate as a sole check or balance against the dysfunctioning and swindling first four estates - or is our ceremonial monarchy (with undemocratic, unconstitutional benefits) a symptom, a cause and an effect of the dysfunctions and the swindles?
I wonder which generation of Australians, and using what mediums of communication, may be able to hault, quarantine and reverse "the "March of the Swindlers."
As a 23 year old Edward “Ned” Kelly might have said in his famous Jerilderie Letter or on the gallows of Melbourne Gaol before he was hung (his skull taken by the Governmen and even today, 130 years later, never returned to his descendants) - "Such is Life" / "Such is Media".
James Johnson
Independent Federal Candidate for Lalor
Constitutional Human Rights Advocate
Solicitor and Barrister of the High Court of Australia
(Celebrating 20 Years of Legal Practice 1990 - 2010)
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