A fantastic critique of political journalism in Australia

In General the media have turned politics into nothing more than that: politics.  Once upon a time politics was about policy and vision.  Now it is nothing more than point scoring, buying votes and one-up-manship.  It is a sad indictment that political journalists (in general) care more about fights, leaks, he-said she-said politics than the actual issues affecting the everyday lives of Australians. 

The Blogger at Grog’s Gamut articulates this best when he slams the media for caring more about comments by Mark Latham rather than vital health and disability policy.

Election 2010: Day 14 (or waste and mismanagement – the media)

Here’s a note to all the news directors around the country: Do you want to save some money? Well then bring home your journalists following Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard, because they are not doing anything of any worth except having a round-the-country twitter and booze  tour.

It is a sad thing to say but we could lose 95 percent of the journalists following both leaders and the nation would be none the poorer for it. In fact we would probably be better off because it would leave the 5 percent who have some intelligence and are not there to run their own narrative a chance to ask some decent questions of the leaders. Some questions which might actually reveal who would be the better leader of this country.

…

This morning John Bergin tweeted that Tony Abbott was making an announcement about disability support for students. As I noted yesterday I have a vested interest in the topic so I quickly put on the Sky News stream to watch the press conference. He announced that:

[severely disabled] students would be given a $20,000 education card, with the measure costing $314 million over four years.

and:

the Coalition would also nationalise disability definitions across the country in a bid to ensure people in different states are treated the same way by authorities.

They are good policies. They don’t “trump” the ALP’s policy of yesterday because the ALP’s focuses on early intervention for pre-school aged kids. Both are good, and in fact in my dream world both would be introduced (and expanded).

But I had some issues – what is meant by “severely disabled”. Now my daughter has Down Syndrome, and it might sound surprising to people, but I don’t actually view her as severely disabled. I assume she would come in under the clause, but as someone who just views her as my little girl and often forgets about the DS, I was wondering if she would qualify.

So I waited for some questions from the journalists. They came and guess what, they were all about politics. They were about Mark Latham’s comments about his believing Kevin Rudd leaked to Laurie Oakes. They were about foreigners owning our farms and whether he disagreed with a National’s senator. They were about nothing to do with the press conference. Did they test the policy? Did they ask who will qualify and why? Nope. Not at all.

 

Read on at Grog’s Gamut