A footy coach once told me “you’re not much of a player if you need a smack in the mouth to fire you up”. Still, it certainly helps.
Bill Shorten got a smack in the mouth from News Corp yesterday and fired up, producing his best day of the campaign. That the attack in question exploited his late mother and was nothing more than shit-posting that annoyed even Labor’s enemies in Murdoch’s ranks was all to the better. (In politics, never let overreach by your enemy go unpunished.)
Shorten’s emotional defence of himself and his mum at Nowra was not merely a rare display of real passion from a man long accused of being robotic — I can still recall his media training-derived hand gestures from the Beaconsfield coverage — but he adeptly, and without artifice, turned it into an issue about older women in the workforce and the discrimination they face. His response dominated the evening news bulletins and would have been enough to engage even many disaffected, apolitical voters.
And even if there was no official declaration of a winner from last night’s third debate, Shorten came out ahead. Scott Morrison is now running on empty with a week to go, reminiscent of Kevin Rudd’s 2013 campaign when he visibly ran out of things to talk about and began announcing thought bubbles. Without any kind of meaningful agenda, Morrison only has attacks on Labor’s policies to offer and needs those attacks to take hold.
There are no more debates, so in the absence of the kind of bloody mauling that Keating delivered on John Hewson in 1993, Morrison now faces a tough task in the final week of running down Shorten’s lead, especially with 1.4 million people having already voted and perhaps a quarter million a day voting between now and next Friday.
Labor has now claimed it believes News Corp is about to ramp up its attacks on Labor — a handy means of discrediting even well-founded criticisms that come from the Murdoch press over the next week. The company’s campaign against Labor probably won’t do much to undermine its credibility: its tabloid newspapers, and The Daily Telegraph in particular, have long been the least trusted major newspapers in the country, although the Daily Mail news site has now provided an even lower standard for journalism that even Murdoch’s minions have so far failed to plumb.
Instead, it undermines all mainstream media in an election campaign that has seen an elevation of abuse of journalists for failing to adhere to the partisan expectations of social media participants. By lowering a mainstream media outlet to the level of shit-posting, the Telegraph editors — the Courier-Mail also ran the story, while the Herald Sun had the good sense to know it would do the Liberals no favours in Victoria — continue to blur the distinction between an industry that insists on its own credibility and importance in the polity, and the fringe dwellers and raging idiots of social media.
If mainstream media editors and journalists want to behave like an anonymous online troll, then they’ll acquire all the credibility of one, and drag the rest of the industry down with them.
Do you think political journalists have been doing their job this election cycle? Send your comment to boss@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication.
I think you have this quite wrong “in an election campaign that has seen an elevation of abuse of journalists for failing to adhere to the partisan expectations of social media participants”
I dont do twitter so cant comment on that particlur platform, but as for the criticism of “journalists” goes on the comments section of sites like this, the SMH or the Guardian, the cause is the distinct lack of policy analysis and the burgoeoning number of commentators dressed up as journalists who are simply parroting talking points from the head offices of either major party (mostly the Liberlas though). I should say that most complaints I’ve read on those sites have not been about the journalists employed by Crikey, the SMH or the Guardian…but rather the ABC and commercial TV……the ABC seem to have stirred a huge amount of anger amongst the public.
The ABC has certainly stirred a huge amount of anger in me – particularly 7.30. Last week we were treated to a couple from W.A. sitting on their boat and bemoaning the hit to their “modest” lifestyle from the franking credits changes. This could/should have been followed up be a couple of homeless people telling the story of how they came to be in this situation – all the better if they were from the same age group – there are plenty of them. This may have brought a bit of the balance they go on about and given viewers some idea why these changes are desperately needed. “They have worked hard all their lives” – well haven’t most of us.
Sorry Bernard,
It’s not abuse to call out rabid bias and fact free commentary by so called journalists. Abuse is when you threaten them or call them names. Discussing and objecting to their lack of analysis, obsession with often dodgy opinion poles and desire to look at everything though a lens of “Is it popular?” rather than “Is it correct?” or “Is it useful?” is not abuse.
It’s not surprising that people who want to behave like Cardashians get their nose out of joint and take it personally when they are called out for lack of professionalism.
All the mainstream media journalists are like sheep being led to the slaughter, the more redneck the press gets the more sensible people switch off, less readers/viewers more journo`s sacked, hoist by their own petard, even Andrew Bolt realises that and is moderating his rhetoric, mainstream media is destroying itself with the murdoch clans help, the more the journalists try to appease him the harder right he goes and the more the media dies and like like a dying snake the more he writhes the more he tries to bite, clearly Rupert has not got much longer till satan calls him home so the smart journalist should start thinking like Boltand labor should change the media ownership laws so that only Australian citizens can own media in Australia, like the U.S system.
Lovely work Braddy – the thought of Satan shortly calling Rupert home is delightful, even to those of us who don’t believe in hell or satan.
Bernard himself has often been guilty of searching for grains of goodness in this thoroughly corrupt and incompetent government, and thus done some damage to Crikey too.
Rational people expect little decency from the Murdoch rags, but this latest shot in their own foot has come at a welcome point in the campaign, and given us some relief from the agony of enduring Mr Shouty’s boundless mendacity.
Lachlan the incumbent son seems to be heaps worse than Rupert, and he lives in Australia I think, so is presumably some sort of aust citizen.
The story also ran in the Mercury (i.e. Hobart one, not the Illawarra one) on Wednesday under ‘Omissions in Shorten’s live TV moment’. Perhaps it bypassed Victoria on its way down here?
In the last week of the campaign, Morrison will pull out another few baseball caps, jump into more trucks and grin, eat something or other in a food court, wrap his chops around another sausage sanger, throw around another hundred scares relating to Bill Shorten, puff and blow, repeatedly talk about tax and taxpayer pockets, perhaps tackle ping pong, the same as what he has been doing for a month, blathering on with a torrent of words that mean nothing. He’s the ultlmate ad man talking under wet cement. Hopefully his voice will give out and save us some pain.
Annalise
Actually, Annalise, I think Scomo is practicing to be a spruiker for Clive Palmer. The huff n puff, bellicose attitude, inane smirking, and remarkable ability to tell serious porkies with a straight face all indicate that he is refining his CV to apply for a job with the UAP in the near future.
Some people are very lucky to be able to in-depth the media on this election. really who has the time anymore if your working in the coal face and have a family. I use to go through all the newspapers and TV coverage on an election. Not anymore I just don’t get the time.. I know I don’t. I have one or two news coverage journals I subscribe too. Plus a couple off podcasts I listen too and maybe if I am lucky the odd current affair TV show. that’s how I stay informed. Regards from the coal face
I didn’t know “in-depth” was a verb. What’s it mean?