Last week, Bernard Keane’s provocative exploration of why journalists fail to call out the conflicts of interest of those in power had readers despairing at the state of the world.
On the media and the powerful:
Judith Gamper writes: I certainly agree with Bernard (as I have been grateful for what Michael West has exposed) but I am in despair! I feel we are too corrupted to undo our governing system — we do not have “democracy” anymore.
For our recent droughts, floods and devastating bushfires not to have awoken us to what is happening to the planet in relation to global warming is beyond understanding! Immediate wealth/money is all that matters to our governing bodies.
I despair for my children and grandchildren and all wildlife on the planet.
Helen Kulhanek writes: I am so glad to see someone mentioning the big failure of the media to hold the systems and their facilitators to account. This is the trumpeted duty of media in any democracy, but it sure as eggs is not happening in Australia in most media spaces. All interviewers should be duty bound to LISTEN to what is said, and immediately question any statement that is waffle and only put out there to obfuscate.
Yes it means getting up to speed on the topics to be addressed, and putting the wafflers on the spot, interrupting the flow of bilge that is generally being spouted immediately. The lazy option of preparing a list of questions, and just trying to get from go to whoa with them, just plays into the hands of the propaganda merchants. Thanks be, for the journalists who seem to be able to do this, but the rest are just allowing our democracy and society to be white-anted from all directions.
Rosemary Jacob writes: Accurate reporting of events and holding power to account are the two most important functions of journalism. Currently, Trump’s disregard for truth have allowed sections of the media to lose sight of where opinion ends and truth begins. We have governments following policies which favour a minority and destroy the lives of those who most need help.
David Muscio writes: Corruption has been normalised when crafting policy is a thinly-veiled attempt to shore up vested interests. Judging by the sports rorts affair, this government appears not to know when it has wronged its citizenry. No voice of conscience is evident. Journalists do not need to turn over a sod to expose corruption, it’s there in plain sight.
The Australian media could better hold to account mendacious policymaking by providing a suitable analogy for the preferential treatment of banks. If you tell an organisation found guilty of malfeasance (let’s call it theft) in dealing with its customers that it could continue to plunder while out on bail, and we’ll just sort it out after the pandemic, would you extend that to other criminal activity? Not every lawbreaker gets a six-month moratorium. Justice delayed is justice denied, we are often reminded. The media seems to have missed this justice anomaly. Come on journos, call it out!
On the gas industry and the COVID commission’s roadmap:
Roger Clifton writes: As we watch the gas industry slowly consume the coal industry, we are plodding blindly through a moral failure of our own. The protagonists should have been non-fossil triumphing over fossil fuels, not fossil gas triumphing over coal.
The renewables industry has failed to solve the problem of storage, instead becoming cozy with gas, or at least silent when it should be condemning. Followers of renewables imagine that they are riding the tiger. However once gas has become the dominant force in Australia’s energy supply, we shall find out if it is renewables that eats the tiger, or the tiger that eats its rider.
John Payne writes: In diverting money from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to fossil fuel-related industry, Angus Taylor is going diametrically against his own words in his maiden speech of December 10, 2013: “We need to stop giving public money to rent seekers and we must be strong against the loud voices of narrowly focused interests.”
Peter Atherton writes: Crikey! Coming straight after the catastrophic droughts, fires, bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef and all the other destruction directly linked to planet-wrecking fossil fuels the “roadmap” is a breathtaking travesty!
The fossil fuel components of the “roadmap” must be ripped up and thrown out along with all the fossil fuel advocates infiltrating and donating to the Australian government! Australia has enough solar to power the planet and the technology to do it! So let’s get on with it!
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I am no fan of the media and agree with everything Bernard Keane says about the media’s failure to call to account those in power. In a capitalist society, with papers owned by the wealthy, and the owners looking for profit, why would anybody expect the media to do anything but publish tripe that will sell newspapers.I also believe that the short-term focus of the media reflects the interests of readers who do not want to read the same story day after day. Apart from that, who wants to read about the same corruption for weeks, months or years on end when absolutely nothing is being done about it.
Hold the powerful to account?? Does anyone seriously believe that the “media” is anything but a propaganda machine working for the corporate state?