Chris Uhlmann wants you to know he’s a non-partisan, straight down the middle journalist. One of the stars of the reinvented post-Kerry O’Brien current affairs show “7.30” (apparently ‘Report’ is superfluous now), Uhlmann represents the new, bland, board-approved face of the public broadcaster’s current affairs coverage – as in whatever you do, don’t upset the Tories because they might be back in government one day and cut our funding.
Covering a public rally, clumsily organised as a marketing tool by right-wing talkback radio shockjocks seeking to import the US Tea Party ‘movement’ to Australia, Mr Uhlmann decided bizarrely that the news angle was the unfair branding of the protesters as extremists, nutters and easily manipulated illiterates.
Wandering among the crowd, Uhlmann sought to render as morally equivalent this artificially orchestrated protest against the Gillard government’s chosen means of dealing with a problem that threatens life on earth with a hundreds of thousands-strong demonstration eight years ago against the then Howard government for joining Australia to an illegal war fought on a false premise in defiance of the United Nations.
But Chris is more sophisticated than that. He covers his tracks by saying how hard it is to tread a sane, sensible middle path between the liberal, tertiary educated, middle class and, oh, the League of Rights and One Nation and the National Civic Council (who were all represented at the Canberra protest).
“According to them I, and the rest of my colleagues, are captured by the Left and don’t even attempt to understand the grievances of that kind of crowd,” Uhlmann wrote. “They believe that we dismiss them as aging nutters, unworthy of our attention, except when we want to sketch a caricature. They believed that we would not report the event, or that we would ridicule it.”
But of course, Chris was not there to ridicule the protesters. He represents the new John Howard-reinvented ABC, which seeks to legitimise the most fringe right-wing elements of the country as somehow representing the real, salt-of-the-earth “forgotten” Australians who are overlooked in a media crowded by bleeding hearts and cafe-lurking urban sophisticates who know nothing of the concerns of “ordinary people”.
So we see lots of verbal gymnastics from Uhlmann in which he notes that the “vast weight” of scientific opinion is against the protesters, before giving a kind of lawyer’s credence to their incoherent views by saying some in the crowd made “better arguments” by saying the science was “chock full of uncertainties”. Llike the theory of evolution and its disputation by creationists? Or like the tobacco industry’s long campaign to discredit evidence of a link between smoking and lung cancer any conservative attempt to forestall change by insisting on a fake certainty principle?
In Mr Uhlmann’s world, all arguments are valid and his job as a reporter is to provide an apolitical assessment of it all in a way that in the end merely plays into the hands of the most conservative and reactionary elements of society. It is just another back-and-forth, like a tennis match, and his job is to blandly call the score.
Was there ever a more blatant example in Australia of what New York journalism academic Jay Rosen describes as “the view from nowhere” – the idea of the journalist not as someone who informs people, but as a tightrope walker who seeks to walk a middle way between polar extremes, tiptoeing above politics in a way that tells us nothing except the fact of conflict:
“Journalists position themselves as being above the conflict as the neutral arbiter between the poles,” Rosen says. ” If you want to be in the news, you play the poles. The ‘Real’ is opposed often to the ‘Fake’. So in the case of climate change, the fake is still given legitimacy. So this view of the world as being all about conflict, much of it illegitimate, and all about the extremes on either side of the conflict informs our political process. So our media and our politics tend toward entropy and ritualized conflict.”
So well done Chris. You’ve got all the bases covered. Tony Abbott is happy. And you’ve been invited up to Maurice Newman’s office on Monday for tea and biscuits. How courageous of you.
14 Comments
m · March 25, 2011 at 11:00 AM
One of Uhlmann's opening questions to Abbott in the following interview was “What are your views on climate change?”. Sorta like asking Howard “What are your views on Iraq?”. Dorothy dixism not journalism.
Pip · March 25, 2011 at 1:47 PM
Uhlmann was very easy on Abbott, and he looks and sounds like a Murdoch lackey unfortunately, and worse, he sounds, well, not very bright, but as you say he'll be sharing tea and biscuits with boss, and friend of John Howard, Maurice Newman on Monday.
What are the chances of Newman's contract being renewed this year?
There is no chance that any of the “revoltings” would be having tea and biscuits with Abbott and co., or Mr. Newman for that matter but I'm sure they'll accept another bus ride if invited.
Fozzy · March 25, 2011 at 1:55 PM
The Smoking and Climate Change doubters are the same.
See http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2011/3101369.htm
[I know it's ironic to be referring to another ABC page].
Anonymous · March 25, 2011 at 9:00 PM
RWFs and the Opposition Organ rave about how “balanced” and “objective” Uhlmann is. Their ABC is becoming Australia's version of FOXNews – Fairly Unbalanced.
Cuppa
Anonymous · March 25, 2011 at 10:53 PM
I posted this at Cafe Whispers, but thought I would repeat it here, since it was in response to your article Mr Denmore. While I largely agree with the posting, personally, I suspect he is deliberately giving Deniers oxygen more through his own Denial than any warped view of 'balance'. He is what we might commonly refer to as a 'concern troll'
Whatever he is doing, he is very clumsy at it, which leads him to make so many inaccurate statements. And finding himself in bolts game of cherry picking information. From his article
'”The scientists have been saying that we are going to experience more extreme weather events, that their intensity is going to increase, their frequency.” That's not exactly what they say.
The Bureau of Meteorology says, “Trends in tropical cyclone activity in the Australian region … show that the total number of cyclones has decreased in recent decades. However, the number of stronger cyclones (minimum central pressure less than 970 hPa) has not declined.”'
Again, it is the bits of information he leaves out that reveal his agenda. Directly from the link ulman gave
'Each of the above studies finds a marked increase in the severe Category 3 – 5 storms. Some also reported a poleward extension of tropical cyclone tracks'
So, that IS exactly what the scientists say, he just chooses to portray it differently.
I do agree with your comment about his Monday tea and biscuits, and get the feeling that certain relationships are more responsible for his ascendancy than any real journalistic talent (something I have not witnessed a great example of too date)
Tom R
Anonymous · March 25, 2011 at 11:55 PM
Unfortunately for Chris, someone gives the game away in the comments section of the recent Uhlmann article where he insufferably said ….
“According to them I, and the rest of my colleagues, are captured by the Left”
worriequeen: “I've met you Chris, and you can tell them that they can rest assured that you are in no way captured by the left.”
boom, boom, say no more!
joe2
Anonymous · March 26, 2011 at 1:47 AM
Tony Abbott said everything that needs to be said about Uhlmann's “toughness' as a journalist when he turned up for an interview.
-ozy
Gordicans · March 26, 2011 at 8:03 AM
M, quite right. I watched that interview Uhlmann did with Tony Abbott, and had Kerry O'Brien interviewed him he would've carved him up. Uhlmann was totaly soft on him.
I mean, two weeks ago Abbott was saying “I don't think we can say that the science is settled here…whether carbon dioxide is quite the environmental villain that some people make it out to be is not yet proven.” He backed away from these statements a couple of days later, which is pretty remarkable. Why didn't Uhlmann ask him detailed questions about this? The fact that very recently the leader of a major party doesn't know that C02 is a greenhouse gas and then two days later changes is of interest is it not?
For example, a few questions on the basis of his belief that C02 is not a 'villain', which part of the science is not settle, and importantly what was it that changed his mind a few days ago? One would think that these relatively straight forward questions are what a journalist from the national broadcaster should be asking, or am I crazy?
Is Uhlmann incompetant or Mark Scott scared of Rupert Murdoch and News Limited? What the hell is going on?
Anonymous · March 26, 2011 at 12:54 PM
Sometimes I wonder whether Mr Uhlmann deliberately goes easier on the LNP and harder on the govt in order to pre-empt any criticism that his views are influenced by the fact that his partner is Gai Brodtmann, Labor member for Canberra.
His interview with Abbott reminded me of the comment about former UK Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe, of whom it was said that being attacked by him was like being savaged by a dead sheep. Abbott is all over the place on climate change, being simultaneously both a denier and a putative implementer of a restorative policy. Uhlmann let him get away with it – which was a weak as piss.
Anonymous · March 26, 2011 at 11:11 PM
A great analysis – I find Chris Uhlmann supercilious at best and disingenuous at worst. His article on Friday took my breath away and I also felt that he was providing oxygen to the most conservative elements of the community on this issue. I refuse to watch 7.30 because of his appointment as 'interviewer' because I think he is the journalistic equivalent of Peter Costello – imperious smile and air of air of 'all knowing.'
Mike Hopkins · March 27, 2011 at 3:24 AM
I'm not sure Kerry O'Brien was as tough as some seem to think. I remember the infamous “Children Overboard” interview of O'Brien on Howard. Howard stated that his source of information was the ONA. All it needed to open up the whole lie, was O'Brien to ask “and what is the ONA information based on Mr. Howard”, but he squibbed it.
Anonymous · March 27, 2011 at 6:42 AM
Uhlmann is very poor. I agree with Mike that Red Kez often missed glaring opportunities, especially when he was probing for the angle about how something would play out in the sense of domestic politics/polling/party positions, and thus missing statements that offended basic truth and common sense. Tony Jones has these tendencies in spades, with unconcealed arrogance.
Steve Cannane is my great hope- he did great work on JJJ, better issues and more incisive interviews than the 'news' ABC, and he played Greg Hunt very well on Lateline on Friday night… allowing Hunt to dig his own hole, not needing to smash him apart because he had already made him look ridiculous. Cannane's research and rational line of questioning were displayed well.
Rolly · March 30, 2011 at 2:30 AM
There is a world of difference between journalism and reporting, though it appears that few, even in the news media itself, actually understand that distinction.
We need less of the first and more of the latter, giving the facts to the long suffering population and less of the bias and opinion that passes for journalism in the minds of the media hacks.
Dan · March 30, 2011 at 9:35 AM
I've pointed this out previously here. If you want a pointer to Chris Uhlmann's political leanings, look back his record in supporting so-called independent Paul Osbourne in his (Osbourne's) time in the ACT House and his efforts to have himself elected. His wife's politics do not necessarily reflect his.