Is journalism about truth or marketing? If you picked the former, go back three spaces.
Journalism, as it is practised for the most part today, is about packaging, framing and distributing information to match the world views and ideological biases of distinct target markets. But don’t take my word for it. (more…)
At what point does journalists’ dedication to ‘neutrality’ obscure their obligation to reveal the truth? My post about a public form about ‘false balance’ in reporting on climate science, run late last year, has sparked feedback from one of the quoted forum participants – the Sydney Morning Herald’s environment’s editor Ben Cubby. Ben’s complaint, and I quote him in full below, is that I had taken him out of context.
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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 Read more…
On the day the nation’s federal and state leaders met in Canberra to thrash out a new deal on health reform, the ABC’s website ran with this headline: ‘Desperate’ Gillard Set to Push Health Reform. Once again, our national broadcaster chooses as its preferred angle the Opposition’s interpretation of the story rather than the facts of the proposed reforms themselves, a baffling tendency this blog has explored before here.
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The Twitterverse, fingers poised on keyboards and 140 characters at the ready, has been excitedly awaiting the resumption of the ABC’s hit current affairs panel show, Q and A. The usual suspects are being primed to play their customary roles on either side of compere Tony Jones, the constable in this televisual Punch and Judy. (more…)