“We’ll build a world of our own that no one else can share. All our sorrows we’ll leave far behind us there.
And I know you will find there’ll be peace of mind
when we live in a world of our own.”
— The Seekers
When Julia Gillard recently embarked on her first major trip abroad as prime minister, to the East Asia summit in Vietnam, the ABC’s Lateline ran the item at number two in their bulletin – behind a report about an Opposition caucus committee meeting on tax reform.
Here we had our head of government engaging with our key trading partners at a time of enormous economic and political upheaval. Aside from the big picture global concerns of climate change and the still unsettled international economic environment, there were immediate and pressing regional issues in people smuggling and the proposed, contentious merger between the Singapore and Australian stock exchanges.
Why the ABC, two months after a federal election, would consider a story about an Opposition tax proposal a more newsworthy item than a regional meeting featuring our prime minister at a meeting of the dominant economic powers in the world speaks volumes for the myopia of the Canberra press corps.
It also highlights the increasing irrelevance of local media at a time when our most pressing problems are global in origin. As other critics have noted, with increasing frequency, the Canberra press gallery spends its life focusing on inconsequential short-term noise with little regard for the global context and connections.
Take for instance, the current row over bank competition. Lost in all the hysteria is the fact that much of the world’s financial architecture remains extremely fragile. The IMF, as recently as last month, said the financial system was still in a period of “significant uncertainty”. Nearly 140 banks have closed in the US this year, while Europe was saved from a major default crisis only through emergency funding from the ECB. The wholesale funding markets are in a state that does make it harder for banks to roll over arrangements struck before the GFC. That means they are having to rely more on deposits and that means they have to compete by offering tempting deposit rates well above cash (the untold flipside of the “more pain for home loan borrowers” story is “a better deal for self-funded retirees”).
Yet every economic story in Australia, particularly on the ABC, is told through the prism of he said-she said Canberra politics. Look at Lateline’s item on this week’s surprise rate rise by the RBA. It was all about Swan versus Hockey, passive and ignorant reporting about fiscal policy contributing to higher rates and nothing about what the central bank actually said. And what it said was that the Australian economy is dealing with a terms of trade shock – from a boom in commodity prices – that is outstripping its capacity to deal with the resulting higher demand. There is little Canberra can do about this. Well, actually, there IS something Canberra can do about it. But the media, in its hysterical and ill-informed reporting of the resource profits tax, precluded the possibility of serious policy action.
This is why the Fourth Estate, living in a manufactured world of its own, is failing us. It is parochial. It is lazy. It is focused on conflict as an end in itself rather than the substantial issues behind the conflict and it fails to supply its audience with the global context that might provide them with a wider frame of reference in judging the actions of the politicians.
6 Comments
Anonymous · November 3, 2010 at 10:13 PM
The ABC is at least as biased in favour of the Coalition as 'The Australian'.
Bushfire Bill · November 4, 2010 at 1:00 AM
“We're in a world of our own”…
I thought you were referring to the tendency of the media to “Australianize” anything and everything, as if the world didn't exist.
Therefore we get, “We're worse off than before. Gillard's to blame,” without reference to the many countries whose economics are actually tanking big-time and that, in contrast, we're in a class of our own on good economic performance.
Many similar stories like this.
The only time you DO see other countries brought into the equation is when the comparison is (supposedly) bad.
For example, “Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore can afford their own versions of the NBN because they're so tiny geographically.” Never mind they have 8 times our population and that we'll slip even further behind them in competitiveness if we stick to digging up dirt to be flogged off to their steel and aluminium makers.
Kit · November 4, 2010 at 1:14 AM
Sorry, MR D – in the sixth para, do you mean the global finacial system is in “a period of [not] insignificant uncertainty” or “a period of [significant] uncertainty”? Or is it in fcat a period of “insignificant uncertainty”?
Mr Denmore · November 4, 2010 at 5:44 AM
Kit, whoops, thanks, have fixed.
Bushfire Bill, yes that was what I was referring, the tendency of the media to make out as if the world beyond Canberra doesn't exist. That's not really surprising when most of them spend 12-14 hours a day in their little rabbit warren inside the press gallery in parliament house, which is built into a hill. Their whole universe is pretty contained. Even when they go abroad, they are locked into the orbit of the politician they're travelling with.
The perfect example of the myopia was during the election campaign when the tone of the coverage was that the GFC was a non-event because it didn't appear to affect Australia much – hence, the government got absolutely no credit for swift action on fiscal policy.
Anyone who spends any time corresponding with people in the UK or Ireland or the US knows how badly hit they have been.
Yet, here, it's all “oh, Julia Gillard doesn't carry a handbag”….
Anonymous · November 5, 2010 at 4:58 AM
I have in recent days received emails from friends from Ireland and France who are both in the tourism industry. Long and sad messages from places that are really suffering from the GFC in a way that the Australian press seem not to have any clue about.
The only good news from both was that the Aussies are travelling abroad as though there was no tomorrow and thus providing them with some much needed custom.
I guess you don't have much of a world view when you are down a hole on Capital Hill.
MJC
crabbometer · November 7, 2010 at 9:14 AM
Excellent post. The issues you raise I also find extremely concerning, particularly the blithe and insular reporting on our banking system. There's also the he said / she said fare, which was particularly appalling during the RSPT blackballing, as discussed in Jonathan Holmes' 17/6 Drum piece.
The media's failure to provide context or analyse these issues tends to result in the ALP caving in on meritorious policy, or as now, simply not daring to do anything.