Take two: Colour, Victoria Finlay

I bought this book on the same outing that I bought the David Bailey one, at Abbey’s in the CBD.

I didn’t choose a particular painting to go with this book cover, it’s just what’s visible when I sit at my desk. I had houseguests on the day this photo was taken so I didn’t want to go roaming around the house making noise. Here's my Patreon review in case you're interested in reading more.

Take Two: Profession: Journalist, Clem Lloyd

For a full review, see my Patreon. 

This old thing has been in my archive for donkey’s years, bought at Berkelouw’s for $8.50. I’d never got around to even think of opening it but recent economising made me get serious about this Hale & Iremonger publication. The year it appeared sits right smack at the point of origin of me as a writer: I’d graduated with my Arts degree but nobody in 1985 could have told me – and have been taken seriously – what I’d end up spending the majority of my time doing (though going by the types of people who gravitated to the profession at the end of the 19th century, I might’ve guessed!).

Book review: So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, Jon Ronson (2015)

I bought this at a St Vincent de Paul’s opportunity shop having just left a meeting and it cost $5.

This study of reputation as it is constituted in the public sphere in the developed world was well worth the price paid to buy. It’s a fabulous account of online culture and came well before its time (see publication date). 

In his fun and well-written book, Ronson tries to come to grips with the democritisation of speech in the internet age, where pile-ons are the dark flip-side of its ubiquity. The dark lining of a silver ear. I totally got his appeal to the reader’s better nature. He tries very hard to pin down the issues raised by the cases of reputational damage he chronicles.

I’ve written on this blog at length about the public sphere, so readers will be familiar with the issues Ronson grapples with if they sample my jouettes. Ronson does the same thing but with a few more concrete cases. I would have liked more exposure of the perpetrators of the kind of malicious commentary that passes for political speech in countries where the ability to say out loud about politics what you really think is not questioned by authorities. 

People often, as Ronson points out, abuse the privileges they possess. 

The fact that this fabulous book was given to a charity is illustrative of our collective priorities. I certainly won’t be giving it away – unless it’s to a friend to borrow and read.

TV review: Dirty Money, season 2, Netflix (2020)

I was pressed to find a linking theme for the six episodes in this season of the show but agree with comments seen on Twitter: it is good journalism. It won’t please everyone though. Each ep chronicles a type of fraud or corporate wrongdoing, ranging in seriousness in terms of the extent of the corruption involved and in the amount of harm done.

In each case the narrative progresses quite fast, so you’d better concentrate if you want to keep up with one of these stories. If you zone out for 20 seconds then come back into focus on the screen you might miss something important. Parts that are in a foreign language are properly subtitled, so there is no danger of missing anything because of a lack of Chinese or Spanish.

I can’t really pick out one ep for special comment as all are excellent exponents of the genre, but the one that seemed to get people exercised on social media was episode 3, ‘Slumlord Millionaire’, which is about Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. He had used various unethical tactics to maximise the yield of his real estate holdings and was, to be quite frank, callous and deceptive in his dealings with tenants and with local government.

The final episode in the series sticks out because it’s different in nature from the other eps. It is titled ‘Point Comfort’ and is about Taiwanese manufacturer Formosa Plastics’ industrial plant polluting a Texas town. While the other eps had money at the centre of the drama, this one dealt with poor conduct in relation to the environment. It chronicles the efforts of whistleblowers and community activists to make authorities take notice.

Episode 2, ‘The Man at the Top’, is about Malaysia’s ex-prime minister (Najib Razak), who allegedly used a company called 1MDB to siphon money out of state coffers. Episode 4, ‘Dirty Gold’ combines the environmental and money themes and is about the use of illegally mined gold from Peru to launder cash earned from the sale of drugs in the US. I’d have to say these are the most serious cases chronicled in this season of ‘Dirty Money’ simply due to the quantity of money involved in each case. With Razak’s corruption you’re talking about billions of US dollars stolen. 

But episodes 1 and 5 compete for prominence in the seriousness stakes because they are about systemic failure. Ep 1 is about a US bank named Wells Fargo that over-serviced some customers with unnecessary products. Ep 5 is about the US guardianship system and uses, as material for its storytelling, two cases of elder abuse, where senior citizens were exploited by various people in the community who profited from schemes aimed at institutionalising them and stripping them of their assets.

Apart from money, two other things unify all of these cases: concerned citizens and the media. In each case, some people who knew about the corruption spoke out. The media had a role in the end but its action was delayed.

The media comes in for a lot of criticism from many people – you can see their thoughts now because of social media – but without it our societies would be more oppressive places to live in. One message that has to come from watching this show is the importance of financially supporting the media. Newspapers and TV stations may not always get it right, and they might not express views that agree all the time with every person in the community, but a free media is essential for a healthy polis.

One man’s view of ‘Sydney Today’, a Chinese-language news website

The following interview with a Chinese-born Australian was made on 30 November 2017. I got it transcribed in October last year and am publishing it today. The subject of the interview is ‘Sydney Today’, a Chinese-language news website delivering news to the community in Australia and, presumably, wherever people who can read Chinese are based. I have changed the name of my interlocutor. 

Editing this for publication it struck me how often, when I had paraphrased what I had been told, I was faced with a “No”. But this dynamic seems to me to be par for the course in the public sphere. We seem to have an urge to say “No” hard-coded into our DNA.

MdS: So, do you work in Australia, are you a student? How did you get to be in Australia?

Mark: I am an Australian citizen now. But 10 years ago, I came here to study and, after fulfilling the criteria of the residency, I applied for the visa and also, I got the Australian citizenship a few years ago.

MdS: Sydney Today is one of the most popular media outlets in Australia. It’s a website only, right, they don’t publish a printed version?

Mark: That’s right. Because Sydney Today has their own website and also Sydney Today has their own official account with WeChat and WeChat is the most popular socialising network-type one just like a popular Facebook, is for Australians. For the Chinese people who live in Australia, and if they want to read the news in their own language, normally they just get on the WeChat and just read the articles from Sydney Today.

MdS: So, Sydney Today is more popular than, for example, New Express Daily or Sing Tao?

Mark: So, we have Sydney Today, we also have Australian Chinese Daily and we also have, I think it’s called, Australia Mailer or Australia Chinese Mailer. So, they are about the three of our major media companies in Sydney. The Australian Chinese News Daily, that used to be one of the most popular media companies because that newspaper it was, well, popular but nowadays everybody is reading the news from smartphones. Nobody really purchases the paper-based news anymore so, the Australian Chinese Daily, that company is getting less popular [compared to] Sydney Today.

MdS: Right. Do you think that especially young people rely on Sydney Today, or is it old people as well?

Mark: Actually, it’s a mixture of young and old. For the older people, they can only read the news in Chinese, for the older people who don’t speak English, and then the Sydney Today has many, many interesting articles. For the young people in Australia, they have a good education, they have a good English knowledge and they are able to read the news in both language but, somehow, the news from [unclear] always quite interesting so, it trigger people’s interest to read it.

MdS: Hm. Do you know how long Sydney Today has been operating in Australia?

Mark: I am not sure because I use Facebook more often than WeChat, but normally the Sydney Today spend their major energy on their WeChat official account. But I think it should be six years? That’s just my random guessing. It’s getting so popular now.

MdS: I understand, because of the conversations that I used to have with [my friend], I understand that the Chinese government is always monitoring the activities of Chinese language publications in Australia. Is the same true of Sydney Today?

Mark: No, because Sydney Today is based in Sydney. According to my understanding, as long as the articles [unclear]

MdS: Sorry, I can’t hear you.

Mark: I am saying, my understanding is, because Sydney Today is a Sydney-based media company, so I don’t think there is anything to do with the Chinese government.

MdS: Right, okay. How would you describe Sydney Today’s attitude towards politics? What sort of approach does it take? Is it more favouring the Labour Party or the Liberal Party or is it both, or it doesn’t matter?

Mark: Actually, I think it doesn’t matter because Sydney Today, I read a couple of articles from Sydney Today, what they do is, when there is news from the major Australian media platforms, they just translate it into Chinese, and publish into their platform. So, they don’t have a clear obvious stance of a preferred opinion, they just translate news from the local Australian media company. Translate the news to Chinese and repost on the Sydney Today media platform. So, normally, they don’t write their own news, they normally just translate it.

MdS: Yeah, but they change the – they don’t just publish exact translations, they change the story, especially at the beginning of the story, to make it more interesting for a Chinese reader, right?

Mark: That is right, and that is what I am really concerning about.

MdS: Okay. For example?

Mark: We are only talking about Sydney Today, this media company, right? We are not talking about Chinese language-based media in general, so, you only want to talk about this specific company, Sydney Today, right?

MdS: [Yes].

Mark: Hm, let me think. I think it … For example, I’m not sure if that article is translated – it's from Sydney Today, but I’m quite sure it is from a Chinese-based company and this is very common behaviour among the Chinese language-based media company. So, when they translate a Australian news into Chinese language, they do not really change the content quite a lot, however, they change the title of news quite a lot to attract the readers.

MdS: Yeah, that’s right.

Mark: So, for example, I think before the – April there was a long weekend, right? I mean, there was a public holiday in April. So, the local news says, the police are targeting the drivers who are speeding, targeting the drivers who drive with negligence. Then there was a Chinese platform – I think maybe from Sydney Today, or maybe it’s from Australian Chinese Mailer, another Chinese language-based media company. So, they put a title like – I think the title was something like this: the traffic authority want you to cry over the weekend, or something. I’m sorry, I can’t really recall how they – the exact title.

Basically, they are writing something really, really bizarre to get your attention and so the reader will think, oh, what’s going on? Then when they read the news, actually it is very standard news.

MdS: Yeah. So, would you – I mean, the word I’m thinking of is, sensationalism. Is that an accurate word?

Mark: Actually no, I think I would say the title they make for the reader is very stimulating or something, so, they want to stimulate your interest, get your interest. After you read the entire article and realise, oh, see the title is saying something very, very shocking, but after you read the entire content of the news, you realise it’s nothing extraordinary.

MdS: Right. So, you think that they’re not honest about the use of headlines?

Mark: The use of what?

MdS: Headlines, the titles.

Mark: That’s right. Yes, you are quite right and it is quite common among the official account in WeChat. So, they want to attract the readers as much as possible and once they attract a large amount of readers, and they have a very good advantage to dealing with – they’re advertisements for a company. Because they get paid by how many readers could follow their official account.

MdS: Yeah. We call this type of story, clickbait. Have you heard that term before?

Mark: Yeah, I think so, click view.

MdS: Clickbait. We call it clickbait.

Mark: Oh, I see.

MdS: So, it’s a bait – it’s like when you go fishing and you put bait on your hook, and you want someone – you want a fish to get your hook, so you have to put bait on the hook. So, it’s called clickbait, to get people to click.

Mark: Oh, yeah, that’s right.

MdS: Yeah. So, do you think that this is different from other Chinese language media in Australia?

Mark: It really depends. I think for a large Chinese language–based media company, they use this kind of trick way too often, way too often. Yeah, so, what they do is, they write a really shocking – they write a headline to draw your attention and then the content of the article is quite – it’s less extraordinary. That is very common among Chinese language–based media company.

MdS: So, not just Sydney Today but other companies as well?

Mark: Oh, of course, of course. I think Sydney Today use this kind of trick quite moderately, but there are some other Chinese language–based media company, they overly use this kind of trick and it’s getting really, really annoying nowadays.

MdS: Hm. Yeah. But people continue to click, I guess people – even though they think that the media organisation has a bad reputation, they still continue to click, right?

Mark: That’s right, and the reason why the media company with the bad reputation could still get enough reader because, in Sydney, we only have three or four major Chinese language–based media company. So, of course, from these three or four companies, we don’t really have other choice.

MdS: So, there’s a big appetite for Chinese language–based media in Australia, is that right?

Mark: Sorry, would you ask that again? You say there is a big advertisement, right?

MdS: Big appetite. There’s a lot of demand for Chinese language media in Australia.

Mark: Yes. Also, because the Chinese language is different from the English language, culturally and linguistically. If some Chinese editor could have played with the word a little bit, for the article to translate into Chinese could be 100 times more interesting. If you’re going to change the content a lot, if you play with language, it could enhance the flavour, the attraction of the article.

MdS: So, what is your main complaint about Sydney Today? What is it mainly that you don’t like about it?

Mark: Let me see. The reason why I don’t like about it is about the contradiction, because you see the Sydney Today reports the article from an Australasian for families [of the] Asian. That article is talking about the link between the same-sex marriage and the Safe School Program. So, this article is promoting and calling for all the Chinese people to vote ‘No’ against the same-sex marriage, claiming that if we allow the same-sex marriage to be legalised, our children will – the future of our children will be jeopardised because the school will be forced to carry out the content of the same-sex material in the school curriculum.

Which is a very, very – I mean, the way how they present the fact, is very distorted and very misleading. That’s why, I think – so such a very unreliable article. Sydney Today should use its discretion: should I report it or not. Because that article itself is very clearly unreliable.

MdS: Yeah, that’s right. Even if the readership knows that it’s unreliable, they continue to click. I think that Sydney Today knows that people have a big appetite for sensational headlines and so they are giving people what they want.

Mark: Yes, because the title of that article is attractive enough to let the Chinese reader to click their fingers, to click that article, to read the entire article.

MdS: Yeah, but it’s not the only problem you have with Sydney Today, is it? Same-sex marriage is not the only thing that you don’t like about Sydney Today. Is that right?

Mark: Yes, and also, I do not exactly like the way how Sydney Today write the advertisements for their clients. For example, I’m not sure if it’s because I have never dealt with Sydney Today as a client, but my understanding is if you are – for example, if you are a restaurant owner, and if you want your restaurant name to appear on the Sydney Today website, you can pay them the fee for the listing, so they could put your restaurant name on the website and write a story about the restaurant, as a promotion. There was an article, it’s also – it’s not written by Sydney Today, but it is reposted by Sydney Today, word by word.

MdS: Right.

Mark: So, I think it's a very small worry - I believe it’s a worry. So, there was an article about this restaurant. The article claim that the owner of the restaurant travels thousands of kilometres across half of the entire China, to look for some good ingredients for the hot pot – you know what is hot pot?

MdS: Yeah.

Mark: It’s kind of the Chinese cuisine, right, it’s more spicy, puts different foods into the boiling water with some really good ingredients. Basically, this article write a very sensational story about how this restaurant owner travels half of China – you understand that China’s a very huge – travelled half of China, so it’s a very big thing, to look for very special ingredients to make their very special cuisine and once you go to the restaurant, and eat, you will be so satisfied, after you eat a meal, you also want to lick the remaining food on your bowl or something.

So, basically, this article is really, really sensational and if we use our common sense, this article itself is a lie. Because if you want to study how to make the cuisine in a professional way, you should go to the local school or you look for the master chef from local. You do not travel that much just to study the art of food, because if you travel to different regions, and they have the different idea about how food could be prepared, it will never work in that way. But, anyway, that article is really sensational, really stimulating. And Sydney Today repost this article on its website.

MdS: Hm. Right.

Mark: So, basically, I believe it’s a very normal restaurant with a very normal owner. However, somehow, they write a entire large story about it and, if we use our common sense, and it looks like the story itself wouldn’t be that true.

MdS: Yeah, but it seems like they’re not honest, Sydney Today. The way that they treat information, everything is designed to get profit, I think that’s the main aim. Is that right, would you agree with that?

Mark: Yes, yes. Because on one hand, the media company, like Sydney Today, are using a very intriguing, stimulating headline to get the attention from the reader, so reader will be intrigued to read the entire article. On the other hand, I think that the reader has something themselves to be blamed, because nowadays, the reader has a very little interest in reading good quality articles, so they are only interested into reading some interesting, intriguing, stimulating article. I think both parties, the reader and the media company, both of the parties need to be blamed somehow.

MdS: Right, yeah, I understand what you’re saying. So, there’s responsibility on both sides.

Mark: Yes. Actually, [our friend] forwarded me her website, so she also has a website, and her website also do some advertisement for restaurants, and I really like the [unclear] on the website. The way how she does the advertisements. So, she wrote a very beautiful story about a restaurant, it’s nothing extraordinary, nothing unreliable, it’s just very comfortable to read. There is nothing beyond the truth. But, unfortunately, nowadays, few readers are willing to be patient – sit and enjoy reading the good quality articles, and nowadays, I would say, the readers’ tastes are getting very different.

MdS: Right, yeah. I understand what you’re saying. I think that it’s difficult for all media companies to make a profit and I think that – especially with .. the value that you can capture from online advertising is going down because the number of potential stories that you can advertise on is increasing. So, the pay-per-view, when the reader views the ad, that’s one view, so the amount of money that the advertiser can get for each view is going down, so they have to get more views.

Mark: That’s right. I am interested in a matter of conversation, there was a idea just flashed into my head. You know, because nowadays, we have smartphones and we have the laptop, and it’s so handy to get the news from anywhere, from our Facebook, and our WeChat, our online platform is flooded with different news and the people – but the news stories, articles, I think a lot of these are coming [I say] more [then] before, right, but we still have 24 hours a day. So, we only have the same amount of time as before but now we are dealing with 10 times, or even 100 times, more information from the internet.

So, nowadays, I would say that readers are very, very impatient. So, they are going to read the news, if they don’t get interested into the first 10 seconds, then they are going to move on to the next article until they find something could get their interest up after 15 seconds of reading. That’s why they have to – I think the media companies are forced to make their headlines very eyeball-grabbing, very attractive.

MdS: Yeah, it’s an attention economy. The media is working within the attention economy so you have to get people’s attention, otherwise you can’t do anything. You’ve got to get people to read your stories.

Mark: Yeah, that’s why and not only they have to get the attention of the readers, but also, they have to get the attention of the readers within the first 10 or 15 seconds of reading, because nowadays, readers are getting impatient if they do not get interested in the first 10 seconds, then they move on. You see, in the past, we are only dealing with very limited number of the information, but we have the patience of reading the entire article, digest and then make the judgment of how good or bad it is. But nowadays, these readers don’t really read through or think a lot about the articles. They just want to [unclear] articles in a shallow way and they want to read anything that could interest them in the first few seconds.

MdS: Yeah. On the issue of the same-sex marriage survey that the government ran, the seat of Bennelong, which is where a lot of Chinese people live, actually voted …

Mark: Seat of Bennelong, which suburb is it close to?

MdS: Epping.

Mark: Oh, I see.

MdS: Yeah, so, Bennelong is a seat where a lot of Chinese people live and Bennelong actually voted, ‘No’. I think it was 50.2 per cent voted against the same-sex marriage plebiscite.

Mark: Yeah, that is very disappointing but that is very predictable because Chinese people don’t really have a strong voice against the gay and the lesbian. However, they believe that if we have a large population of gay and lesbians, their children could be influenced on their sexuality. Which is so far from the truth because, actually, the people’s sexuality is with our genes, right, it’s not something that could be influenced.

But there are many, many Chinese residents here, they believe if their children are spending too much time with gays and the lesbian people or if the Safe School program runs in their children’s schools, then their children will be taught to be gay and lesbian, will be induced to [unclear] the sexuality, which is very, very far from the truth. Because, actually, I believe the Safe Schools Program is not promoting the gay and lesbian behaviour, it’s only promoting the equality, the way how we respect the gays and the lesbians, not the gay and the lesbian behaviour. So, we are promoting equality and respect, mutual respect, not the sexuality and the sex itself.

However, some Chinese media companies, they just change the word, play with the word, and twist meaning of the fact and then they induce the Chinese readers to believe that if we have the same-sex marriage, the Safe School Program will be pushed through our schools in Australia, and then their children is going to have – spend a lot of time to discuss gay and lesbian issues in their school, and then their sexuality might be influenced. So, this is a idea that the Chinese media companies try to deliver which is very misleading.

MdS: Yeah. Okay.

Mark: Okay. Do you have any other questions?

MdS: Not really. I think we’ve covered everything, but I think that the main – that was the main thing that you were worried about, is that particular issue, but it’s not just that issue, it’s other things too. Sydney Today is twisting the truth, especially in the headlines, in order to get attention in the media space.

Mark: Yes, but to be honest, because yesterday, we were asked about how we inform conversation today, that’s why I spent some time to go through the Sydney Today’s website, so I was trying to find some good examples for you, for you to write the article. But actually, I did not find a lot of the very typical examples to have, because most of the reader read that article, actually it’s not written by Sydney Today but it has been reposted by Sydney Today. So, the writer is from other Chinese language–based media company.

But, anyway, once Sydney Today reposts it, I believe, they should have the responsibility of checking whether or not they should repost it or not. So, that’s why I no longer spend enough time to read the articles from these Chinese language–based websites and also, sometimes if I see very interesting, very intriguing headlines, and I try to control myself, I told myself, don’t read it, because if I read it, I will be wasting my time to processing this information. So, for me, it’s about self-control, because I have read a lot of articles like this: it’s a very ordinary fact, however the way how they present it is very extraordinary.

MdS: Yeah. I understand. Okay. Well I’ll turn this off.

Book review: The Soccer War, Ryszard Kapuscinski (1973)

Some pieces in this collection of literary journalism appeared in the original Polish in years that fell just after WWII ended. My copy of the book was published first by Vintage in 1992 and it was bought in Noosa Heads, doubtless on one of my trips to that locality in the period 2006 to 2015.

The cover is wild – in a classic, severe 1990s way – and deserves a blogpost all of its own. I love the bright orange lettering used for the book title against the navy blue ground. Note also the lack of a given name for the book’s author on the front and on the spine. He was, evidently, so well-known at the time that he didn’t need one shown.

Some of the pieces are about African countries and others are about Latin American countries. There is also one set in Syria during a time of war between Israel and its Arab neighbours, and there is one set on Cyprus at the time of the Turkish invasion. 

War is a common theme binding the pieces together but another is the struggle of many countries to enjoy peace at a time of renewal. In the 20th century the old ways had abandoned many nations and, in their place, democracy of a sort had emerged but the transition was usually full of conflict and violence. Because these problems persist, now, two generations later, the book remains topical.

In his articles, Kapuscinski delineates the disturbances with vivid prose. The reliance on fact as well as the presence of the author in his own narratives gives his writing a vibrancy and a liveliness that is often absent from journalism. 

Like many men and women who were doing it at this time Kapuscinski in these articles is a hardworking reporter on a quest to convey the truth to a waiting audience. A man, as he describes in one humorous piece, who was allergic to desks.

Since his death not long ago, Kapuscinski’s reputation has taken some hits due to accusations that he was not always truthful, but I don’t know enough about it to comment with any authority. It’s a shame, since Kapuscinski writes well, in the manner of Didion avant la lettre. You get long passages of intense focus on a small range of subjects, or on one subject seen from a variety of angles, and then you will get a single sentence as a new paragraph with a decisive statement that turns the story in a new direction. 

Overarching all of these pieces is Kapuscinski’s dry humour – which cuts deep due to the author’s abiding concern for humanity – and the image of a man who, for some reason, was driven to discover things that others ignored. Ignored unless they read about them in a newspaper. 

Poor writing by the media

This post deals mainly with examples of things like poor written expression, incorrect use of punctuation, and bad grammar by the media in Australia on social media and on websites. Sampling started on 29 July and ran until 28 August, in other words this survey went for a calendar month. These are just the ones that I caught myself. Others will have seen different errors in their social media feeds and on the web pages of their favourite media outlets. I limited my sample to the media because I think that different standards should apply to them. Errors visible in remarks made online by people in the broader community are, of course, far more common.

I think that what follows can serve as a comment on the decline in the news workplace of the subeditor; you don’t see the same problem on web pages published by bigger, better-funded outlets like the NY Times or the New Yorker. In such places, to ensure a consistent and high-quality product, there are enough people checking the copy as it is produced. Subs were among the first to go when revenues of news organisations started to take a dive about 15 years ago. What you see here is the result of a major change in economic circumstances for the news. In the end what was remarkable for me, however, was the fact that I didn’t find more problems.

In some cases the very meaning of the article you are reading is so badly distorted by the errors that are present in the text that, when reading, you can’t really understand what the journalist was trying to say. This type of error is in the minority – most of the errors aren't as egregious as this – but it still happens from time to time.

There are 25 individual errors in this post and I have categorised them for the convenience of readers, starting with the most serious offences and continuing down to the least serious. In the most serious categories (the first three categories listed) there are eight errors, with the rest of the errors I caught being relatively minor in nature. The categories are:

• Errors of fact
• Incorrect word choice
• Missing word
• Wrong preposition
• Spelling errors
• Errors in punctuation
• Lack of agreement

Errors of fact

On 30 July in the evening a headline appeared on the front page of the SMH website saying, “Paintings ‘seemed to disappear’ within months of artist John Olsen’s death.” In actual fact it had been the wife of John Olsen who had died, not the artist himself. I tweeted to the SMH Twitter account, “John Olsen hasn't died ...” and the headline on the website changed to, “Paintings ‘seemed to disappear’ within months of John Olsen wife’s death.” It seems as though close enough is good enough in many cases.

Incorrect word choice

On 8 August the Age published a story headlined, “Massive warehouses filled with recyclable materials that no one wants,” that contained the following: “’One of them is twice the size of this shed,’ says Whitington, standing in the 14,500 square metre warehouse, in front of massive bails of recyclable material, with scores of flies buzzing around her.” It’s “bales”, not “bails” (which are the things that go on top of the stumps at cricket matches).

On 26 August at 7.04am an account I follow with almost 20,000 followers tweeted a link to a story from the New Daily, a Sydney-based online media outlet. It read, “Worst night of violence as Hong Kong police draw guns and water cannon.” This puzzled me as it wasn’t clear to me how you would go about drawing a water cannon from a holster on your belt. It might have been better if the tweet has said, “draw guns and use water cannon.”

On 26 August at 6.44pm the Guardian’s Lisa Martin tweeted, “Qantas to face renewed pressure at its next annual general meeting over forced deportations of asylum seekers. A US investment firm is throwing its wait behind call for human rights risk review.” It should be “weight”. I saw the tweet two days later because it had been retweeted.

Missing word

On 24 August at 5.45pm the Independent, a UK newspaper, tweeted, “Man accused of raping, murdering and eating parts of ex-girlfriend's body ends granted mistrial.” The text should have read, “Trial of man accused accused of raping, murdering and eating parts of ex-girlfriend ends, with him granted a mistrial”.

On 25 August a New York Times story titled ‘ Trump Allies Target Journalists Over Coverage Deemed Hostile to White House’ appeared on the company’s website. It contained the following paragraph: “’They are seeking to harass and embarrass anyone affiliated with the leading news organizations that are asking tough questions and bringing uncomfortable truths to light,’ [A. G. Sulzberger, the publisher of the newspaper,] said. ‘The goal of this campaign is clearly to intimidate journalists from doing their job, which includes serving as a check on power and exposing wrongdoing when it occurs. The Times will not be intimidated or silenced.’” The correct expression would have been to say, “to intimidate journalists and stop them from doing their job.” Admittedly this was an instance in spoken language, and so was not, strictly, in written form until it was transcribed to use in the story. I include it anyway as Sulzberger is the owner of the paper and certainly should know better than to make this kind of rookie error.

On 26 August the Sydney Morning Herald put up a story about the Parramatta light rail line that contained the following paragraph: “The party's transport spokesman, Chris Minns, said the government had been ‘ducking and weaving’ on its commitment to build the second stage because it did want to admit that it was not funded.” The second “not” was omitted from the sentence, making the meaning all but opaque to a reader who was not paying close attention.

On 27 August at 5.44am, the ABC News account tweeted, “Centrelink seizes tax return of robodebt recipient in what may breach policy.” They probably meant to say, “in way that may breach policy,” but it wasn’t clear.

Wrong preposition

On 5 August at 6.50am Al Jazeera’s English language account tweeted, “India imposes lockdown in Kashmir, suspends mobile internet and puts leaders on house arrest.” They meant to say “under arrest”.

On 6 August at 9am the Sydney Morning Herald Twitter account tweeted, “NBA basketballer Ben Simmons appears to have suggested he was racially profiled when he was denied entry from Melbourne's Crown casino last night.” They meant to say “to” but made a mistake.

On 7 August at 5.55pm I saw a headline on the Sydney Morning Herald home page saying, “CBA puts $100m down payment in Afterpay rival.” They meant to use the conjunction “on”. The story was about an investment that the country’s biggest bank had made in a lay-by (“buy now, pay later”) firm named Klarna. The Swedish firm has a number of other investors as well.

On 10 August on the SMH website an article kicker read, “Australia Post and Qantas have signed a new deal to keep up with Australia's love for online shopping.” It should, of course, be “love of” not “for”.

On 15 August Michael Scherer, the Washington Post national political reporter, tweeted at 10.17am, “In 1939, 20,000 Americans rallied in New York's Madison Square Garden to celebrate the rise of Nazism -- an event largely forgotten from U.S. history.” The correct preposition was “in” as in “largely forgotten in US history”.

On 16 August a story on the SMH web page about the tunnels being made under Sydney’s CBD for the new Metro train lines included this paragraph, “Named Nancy, it is one of five giant boring machines churning away to form twin 15.5-kilometre rail tunnels stretching from Chatswood in the north, under Sydney Harbour to Pitt Street station and three others in the CBD, and onto Sydenham in the south.” It should, of course, read “and on to Sydenham in the south”.

On 27 August at 7.28am Carla Marinucci, a journalist with the California news outlet Politico, tweeted, “California Supreme Court backs greater access to police misconduct cases.” The correct conjunction was “in”, not “to”.

On 27 August at 7.30am the Age’s Twitter account said, “Racism remains widespread in Australia's primary and secondary schools, with discrimination coming from both students and teachers, ANU researchers find.” Better expression in this case would have had: “… with discrimination by both students and teachers.”

Spelling errors

On 4 August in the late afternoon a headline appeared on the Sydney Morning Herald website: “Hatred of migrants, support for Christchurch: Hate-filled manifesto linked to Texax [sic] massacre.”

On 16 August at 8.25am Neil McMahon, who writes the Sydney Morning Herald’s ‘Q and A’ rundowns for publication on Tuesday mornings, tweeted, “The first breakfast TV show host in history to quote Nabakov in her farewell? This is lovely.” He misspelled the Russian-American writer’s name (it’s “Nabokov”) and I sent him a comment to this effect but he didn’t respond.

On 20 August a story in the Sydney Morning Herald written by two doctors had the following sentence: “There are so many myths about birth order, so much that the decision whether or not to have a second (or third, or fourth) child can be a vexxed one.” “Vexxed”? I thought to myself. Is this a word like “doxxing” that belongs to the Millennial generation? Admittedly the story wasn’t written by a journalist, but the Herald’s subeditors should have picked up the error.

On 27 August at 2.33pm Yahoo Finance Australia’s account tweeted, “@HonJulieBishop taken aim at Donald Trump, Xi Jinping and Boris Johnson over their self-interested style of leadership.” The meaning would have been properly conveyed with the word “taking”.

On 27 August the Sydney Morning Herald put up a story on its website about vlogger PewDiePie that contained this sentence, “By then, his figures had experienced a wild boost – he'd actually racked up more subscribers in the last months of 2018 then he did through all of 2017.” It should be “than”, not “then”.

Errors in punctuation

At 5.14pm on 29 July a journalist with the Guardian in Sydney tweeted, “Text ya friends, see whose keen.” The tweet was in relation to an announcement that he book, a novel, would be released in the UK in the near future. The correct word to use of course is “who’s”, not “whose”.

At 5.28pm on 29 July Business Insider Australia tweeted from its account, “Australians are flocking to Victoria and its got the best economy in the country as a result – here’s how the other states stack up.” The correct expression of course is not “its got the best” but “it’s got the best”. In this case, “it’s” means “it has”.

On 12 August the kicker for a story on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald read, “Financial comfort among working Australians dropped the sharpest with full and part-time workers all registering sizeable declines, new figures show.” It should, have read, of course, “Full- and part-time.” This is a relatively tough one for a proofreader to produce but it seems completely logical tome.

Lack of agreement

Later on 12 August the Guardian’s Dave Earley tweeted, “All departure from #HongKong airport have been cancelled.” He meant to write, “All departures … have been cancelled.”

Polarisation and profitability as media compete for readers

Last week on Friday I unfollowed Greg Jericho on Twitter. I had been a follower of his since about 2009, before he was a Guardian employee. He used to follow me, too, but this circumstance had changed in recent months for some reason. Greg used to be a good journalist and would use lots of figures in his Guardian stories which were, however, often hard to follow. His writing style was not all that hot but he had a reputation for being fair and measured in his conclusions.

In recent times, however, Greg had become more and more polarising online and more and more overt in his ideological preferences. Following Jay Rosen's dictum that journalists should declare where they sit on the ideological spectrum, Greg would fulminate openly about, say, private education or about the use of renewables for energy production. It became more and more difficult to engage with him because of the types of rhetoric he would use to express himself in arguments with people whose views he disagreed with.

In a real sense, the decision to unfollow Greg embodies older ideas of mine about the internet. There is less and less room for debate as people become more and more extreme in their language choices. They do this to get more followers and to get retweets and likes. Funnily enough, on the same day as the unfollow happened I saw a headline from the ABC about media and the profits to be made from polarisation but looking for the story proved difficult after I had briefly seen the headline on Twitter.

Profitability as it pertains to the media is something I am always interested in, for obvious reasons. The Australian reported on the same day I unfollowed Greg Jericho that News Corp had reported 2019 full-year revenue of A$14.8 billion, a 12 per cent increase over the previous year. The Guardian reported that the company globally had reported a profit of A$228 million but said, on the same day, that, “Revenue at the Australian mastheads run by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp fell by 6% last year.” Nieman Lab reported in a story I saw on the same day that the NY Times "now has 3.78 million digital subscribers". "There was [A$165] million in digital subscription revenue, up 14 percent over this time last year." And on 1 May the Guardian had reported, “Guardian News & Media recorded an [A$1.43] million operating profit for the 2018-19 financial year — compared with a [A$102] million loss three years previously.” (For convenience I have converted all the figures into Australian dollars at the exchange rates that applied last Friday.)

The Guardian is one organisation that seems to have taken a leaf out of a book opened by Rupert Murdoch over a generation ago. In her book ‘On Disruption’ (review on this blog on 9 July last year), the Guardian’s Katharine Murphy regrets the polarisation that had started to take over the public sphere but her colleague was now ignoring her warnings having turned the practice into a fine art, one he prosecuted with acid wit.

When I posted about what had happened that morning, one person I know from my childhood, who is also a journalist, commented, “There’s no clicks in balanced. Plenty in outrage, [outspokenness], shock and put downs. Gets 50 per cent of the readers liking you and the other 50 looking at what outrage you’ll make next.”

There’s money in a bad attitude, but the public sphere is being debased because of it. Conversations can only be held with people with views like yours. Anyone else will lose their temper and unfollow you or block you. Or you will do one or the other to them. No quarter is given and people go in hard and fast to avoid similar treatment. The bubbles that people inhabit are becoming less likely to overlap with others, those of people who think different to them. Dialog is difficult and compromise impossible. What kind of government will arise as a result of this situation remains to be seen but I’m not optimistic.

The issue of polarisation is actually a very important one because if you are always unthinkingly wedded to the policy platform of your preferred political party, or if you will only listen to what its spokespeople say when an issue is raised by the government, and follow that lead, then you are going to miss out on the benefit of the good policies from the government that might be proposed. It just doesn’t make sense to always follow the lead suggested by the Opposition, if you are politically inclined that way, as you restrict yourself unnecessarily to a narrow set of ideas and principles that might not, in all cases, be suitable for the production of good laws.

This kind of politics is endlessly frustrating. We need to be able to pick and choose the good policies from both the government and the Opposition so that we avail ourselves of a wider range of ideas and principles than would otherwise be available to follow.

When it comes down to it, your view on any issue will correspond to your values. If your values require that your preferred political party is in government, then you will always criticise what the other party says. This is a kind of tribalism, which is something that is a major problem for people living in developing countries. The difference in a pluralist democracy being that the tribes correspond roughly to political parties.

But if your values demand good governance and the implementation of good policy, then you will cherry-pick from the parties’ responses to whatever issue comes up, and choose the best one. Is winning more important than good governance? I think not.

The reality, however, is that many people find the public sphere too complex to navigate. Surveys that have been conducted recently in some countries, showing that younger people are often in favour of abolishing democracy, point to this fact. Democracy requires that the individual deal with a broad range of issues that are thrown at them constantly, day in and day out, in a busy media ecosystem. Following a political party simplifies the process for people. If people are always being asked to decide where they stand on every, single issue that arises, then the danger of burnout is real.

So party loyalty is a coping strategy that most people resort to in order to maintain their equanimity. Resorting to a primary media outlet that shares the same values as you do, makes this easier to do. People don’t necessarily want the truth, they want comforting verities that resemble it often enough not to worry them.

Complaints about the media on social media

This kind of tweet is so common it’s almost a meme. It usually comes from people on the left side of the political spectrum who want to object to something the government (which federally is on the right) has done. As they are doing so, they also attack the media which, many believe, has been coopted by the right side of politics. This sort of attack often ropes in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), despite other parts of the community (notably people on the right) who think that the ABC has long been coopted by the left. If that all sounds confusing, wait until you read the actual tweets.

This sample is by no means exhaustive or comprehensive, and covers a period of only four days, from 8 July until 11 July (although I was looking for this kind of tweet on only 9, 10 and 11 July; the ones from 8 July were retweets that came into my feed on later days). I could have continued with the exercise indefinitely but I decided, for practical purposes, to set limits. I also decided to anonymise most of the comments but where the tweeter was a public figure or public body I have sometimes given an attribution that identifies them. Most of the comments were published on Twitter.

A lot came with the #auspol hashtag, which is not unsurprising considering their low quality and general lack of factual support. This hashtag is a rich hunting ground for journalists looking for views that come from out of left field but, on the other hand, there are sometimes enough people there with similar views that they can form collective movements in support of single ideas. This is certainly true (you will see if you read on) of people who set out to attack the media.

What follows only catalogues the complaints about the media seen by me, but during the same time period some tweets I saw were in support of the media. Some of these were about how the federal government has been cutting funding to the ABC. One I saw on 10 July in the #auspol hashtag stream was about the ABC’s investigative TV program ‘4 Corners’ and how good it was, this person thought, for the country. There were one or two about a conference on media freedom that a Liberal federal senator for NSW, Marise Payne, was attending in London at the time. And there were some tweets about the various laws that the federal government has brought in over recent years that have functioned to curtail the freedom of journalists.

So, not all comments were critical of the media: some were in fact supportive. This kind of complexity is typical of social media. About most issues there is usually a wide range of different views, not just one, single, monolithic opinion. One thing above all other stood out, however: most people who use social media read a lot of news stories. The relative visibility of journalists and the important role they play in a pluralistic democracy like Australia’s makes them a reference point when conversations get difficult as well as a target for complaints aimed at the powerful generally.

Often it seems that the people who are most reliant on the media are the ones most likely to criticise it. They find themselves in a position of dependence and they react against this situation by attacking the very people who give them the information they crave to sustain their identities. It’s sort of like a junkie blaming the dealer for his addiction except that media products, unlike illicit drugs, are completely legal. The comments included here are in four categories:

• General complaints
• Complaints about the ABC
• Complaints about the Murdoch press
• Complaints about specific stories or issues

General complaints

On 9 July at 10.48am, an account with 15,406 followers that often attacks the media tweeted, “Can anyone believe how quickly [Australian politics are] unravelling after the election? We’re now openly discussing the clear breakdown of our democracy - we’ve no Opposition - & media is focused on itself as the predictable actions of this Govt closes in on them.” At 11.19am the same day another left-wing account, which had 8282 followers at the time I took the snapshot, retweeted the earlier tweet with the following comment, “Aust's 4th Estate abdicated years ago, choosing to die as a prominent propaganda arm of a rising nationalistic authoritarian regime. The regime now turns its eye to that dead 4th Estate, & all so predictably, the ghost cries ‘help’ when there is no one left to help.” It’s possible that the reference to a ghost pointed to Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ (finished circa 1602) but, in this context, what the “ghost” the tweeter wanted to refer to – presumably someone or something in the Australian public sphere – was unclear to me. Was the “ghost” the remains of the mainstream media, given cost-cutting in response to reduced revenues resulting from the emergence of the internet, or something else?

On 10 July at 10.07am a person with 177 followers who joined twitter in 2011 posted a tweet that said, “Highly relevant to the media situation here in Australia and how we're all being sold a pup by our #MSM.” The tweet contained a link to a story on Medium about two Russian news agencies being banned from the media conference already mentioned in the introduction above. The article was titled, “Government That Tortures Journalists Bans RT From Media Conference.” It wasn’t clear from this however what kind of “pup” the people of Australia are being “sold” by the mainstream media (whatever that is). The link wasn’t clear but this is often the case with Twitter. People who post there make connections between disparate things that seem obvious to them but, for other people, need more explaining.

This one’s a bit complex, so bear with me. On 8 July at 9am The Age published a tweet saying, “Federal police demanded Qantas hand over the private travel arrangements of a senior ABC journalist, a request revealing the sweeping nature of their investigation into how the national broadcaster published top-secret government material | EXCLUSIVE.” Then Sally Neighbour, a journalist who works on ‘4 Corners’ tweeted about two hours later, “This is outrageous. We should all be up in arms.” A Brisbane account with 4909 followers tweeted on 8 July at 4pm, “Only IF the whole nation is made aware...by its collective media. Politicisation of govt agencies & parlous state of federal governance happened, because it could. It’s the direct result of fourth estate’s failure to call out incremental decay, with has escalated, unchallenged.” Then on 10 July at 3.10am another account tweeted, “#msmfail are shit. Really really really shit.” And another Australian account, with 748 followers, tweeted on the same day at 9.26am, “Because 4th estate now mostly the propaganda arm of the Murdoch/IPA axis of evil.” Then (I told you this would take some time), on the same day at 10.26am another account tweeted, “Yep, & that includes #TheirABC.” All these tweets were connected by retweets and comments added on for effect.

On 11 July at 9.04pm a Melbourne account with 162 followers tweeted this into my feed: “Don't blame @AustralianLabor for the shit we're in. Labor had good policies but the #sheeple listen to the BIASED media and didn't know what they were voting for. We need to #BiasShame media in 2 reportg facts.” The woman who provided me with this piece of wisdom lives on the Central Coast in NSW and has 4331 followers.

Complaints about the ABC

On 9 July at 10.24am an Australian tweeter with 13,897 followers put up the following comment, “Oh come on, media. Please tell me you're not going to let Morrison and Dutton get away with this.” The tweet came with a link to a story on the ABC’s website that had the headline, “Australian Federal Police accessed journalists' metadata, stoking new media freedom concerns.” Considering that the media had actually written a story about the incident, it was hard, for me, to see what the objection was in this case. Perhaps there might have been grounds to complain if the ABC had not written and published a story about the incident. But, then, how would we know it had happened?

On 9 July at 6.52pm a North Queensland account with 818 followers tweeted, “Dear ABC. If your long game was for progressives to gradually tune out, you win. I refused to let you beat me, but after 6 years of LNP and another 3 to come, the country is in a massive mess and the economy in dire straits. But hey, ‘Labor, Labor Labor.’ I'm done. FU.”

On 9 July at 7.15pm an account based in Australia tweeted on the #auspol hashtag, “Stan Grant talking about 'taking taxpayer dollars ...'  what .. like #THEIRABC and then IGNORE the Charter ....   #thedrum  #AUSPOL  Ohhhh no don't mention those $Billions that we are forced to cough up to pay them.” The comment referred to the ‘Drum’ program that was on at the time the tweet was sent.

Complaints about the Murdoch press

On 8 July at 4.11pm, the Sleeping Giants account tweeted, “Just to demonstrate how Murdoch has already launched the "Kill Albo" campaign Sky News & Paul Murray actually ran with this fairy tale blaming Labor for a $2b cost to the budget. All semblance of truth is dead - its all hands print, online & TV to hold Labor underwater.” The tweet came with an embedded video showing a Sky News presenter talking. A Brisbane account with 11,226 followers the next day retweeted the tweet with a comment, “Has Paul put on a bit of weight?  I'm sure he was only a little bit huge last month. Might be wrong.” This comment was aimed at the Sky News presenter and was rather unkind, I thought, but that’s the sort of thing that happens on Twitter all the time.

On 9 July at 2.50pm an account with nine followers and lots of numbers in its handle tweeted, “Think they tried to in Tasmania, the gambling lobby threw millions into getting Labor defeated. The country is run by the mining council, gambling lobby and Murdoch. We are F******.” The tweet was retweeted by a Victorian gambling harm lobbyist with 31,746 followers at about 4.10pm.

At about 5pm on 9 July on Facebook a woman who is related to me and is a left-wing commentator who usually posts about nuclear energy, put up a photo that read, “I can’t believe Australians are comparing Rupert Murdoch to Satan. Yes he’s evil, but certainly not as evil as Rupert.”

On 10 July at 9.30am an account with the words ‘Stay angry!” in its profile and with 100 followers put up a tweet saying, “Saw two very old people intently reading The Courier Mail with Labor hate pieces prominent. Not many read it these days, just the oldies. They’ve been brainwashed but they’ll refuse to admit it. It’s not news anymore, it’s just a propaganda tool.” This kind of comment denigrating old people – especially denigrating Baby Boomers – is all-too-common on social media. There is a broad perception that Boomers are responsible for most of the problems in the world, and comments like the one shown here illustrate that feeling.

On 11 July at 8.50pm an account with 143 followers tweeted, “Unfortunately when you combine an outright crooked dominant media owner...with an incompetent, incurious, intimidated and underfunded remainder...with a disengaged, apathetic and proudly ignorant electorate...you wind up with contemporary Australia.” This was retweeted by an account based in the Blue Mountains in NSW with 2936 followers at 9.44pm the same day with a comment: “This tweet below was in a thread about the NBN but is so very true of Australian politics in general.” The reference was to the suspicion that Rupert Murdoch had pressed the Liberal Party to water down the National Broadband Network as it competed with the cable TV services he owns.

Complaints about specific stories or issues

On 9 July at 10.50am an Australian account with 5701 followers tweeted within the ambit of the #auspol hashtag, “@4corners Your latest effort, posing as investigative journalism, is an insult to the intelligence. A prelude to Morrison announcing a ‘review’ of [the Murray-Darling Basin Plan] to hide evidence of their corruption. #4corners #GoneToTheDogs.” This tweet referred to the ABC’s ‘4 Corners’ show, ‘Cash Splash’, that had aired the night before on the TV. The program was about what were flagged by reporters as rorting of the system by big irrigators. Cotton Australia replied to the ABC the next morning but the fallout from the program, as usual, was considerable. This tweet, which unusually went the other way, criticised the national broadcaster for actually trying to do its job.

On 9 July at 5.15pm a Victorian account with 3749 followers tweeted, “The media's tax cuts coverage ignored substance and focused on trivia.” The tweet included a link to a story on the Crikey website that was titled “Tax cuts coverage ignored substance, focused on trivia” that was with a story by Bernard Keane, who works for the outlet. The story, which referred to the previous week’s debate in Parliament in Canberra, and in the broader community, about tax relief for Australians,  contained a lot of facts and conveyed the idea that the media coverage of the issue had been mainly superficial and skewed to support for the government. This was not surprising as Crikey tends to skew left in its editorial approach on most issues.

On 9 July at 5.03pm a journalism academic with 35,825 followers tweeted, “How the ABC once again failed to understand a complex policy issue because of a lack of dedicated policy specialists in its news room.” His tweet retweeted also a tweet from the ABC’s ‘7.30’ program that read, “How Netflix and the streaming revolution killed the NBN's dream of super fast broadband on fixed wireless.” The academic’s tweet was retweeted later on the same day by the account of a rural Australian with 3321 followers.

On 10 July at 9.08am an account I follow with 3690 followers and that makes a point of criticising the media (I worked with its holder during the time I worked at Sydney University, which was from 2003 to 2009) posted a tweet saying, “’... set to promise...’ great reporting, can't wait.” The tweet came with a retweet of one by sports commentator Peter FitzSimons who had put up a tweet about the government’s announcement about the Voice to Parliament. His tweet read, “Bravo the Government! Let's all get behind it. If the Morrison Government can achieve that in this term, it will be a great achievement, and a tangible Morrison legacy.” This tweet went with a link to a story on the ABC’s website titled, “Indigenous constitutional recognition to be put to referendum in next three years, Minister to promise.” The deprecating comment from the first tweeter was entirely typical of the person who made it.

On 10 July at 10.18am the Nation Farmers’ Federation posted a tweet that read, “EDITORIAL:  In today's @australian read @afsnsw on Monday night's @4corners & how a pattern of reporting by some quarters of @abcnews on the #MDBP points to an agenda to unravel the Plan &/or agitate for a Royal Commission, @ the expense of enviro, communities & farmers.” The tweet contained a GIF that showed a story headling on the web page of the newspaper referred to in the comment. The headline read, “Stead trickle of fibs on ABC’s Four Corners.” The Murdoch media has a longstanding policy of attacking the ABC, mainly because it competes with it and its editors think, like the Liberal Party itself, that the ABC should be privatised and not funded by the people.

On 11 July at 8.26am a Melbourne account with 10,552 followers tweeted, “Disgraceful of @theage to push this uncritical view of Morrison as a wonderful Christian while innocent refugees are tortured and persecuted under his watch.” The tweet came with a link to an opinion piece titled “PM prays with us and refuses to keep his faith in a box. Amen to that.” The piece had been written by Professor Stephen Fogarty, the president of Alphacrucis College, a Parramatta, NSW, independent school. At 9.20pm the same day, an account with 66 followers tweeted, “Fairfax always kept the balance, so sad to see @theage turn into this crap.” The reference was to the sale of the Fairfax mastheads to Channel Nine, a publicly-traded company. Neither of the people who commencted seemed to realise that the article they were complaining about was an opinion piece that had been labelled as such, with the affiliation of the person who wrote it. But this kind of unthinking criticism of the media on account of supposed bias in favour of the right side of politics is commonplace, as we have seen.

A user guide for journalism

There is an epidemic of aggression aimed at journalists online and this has changed the way that journalists engage with people on social media, especially on Twitter. The flaming, the insults, the mockery, the incredulous sighing, the unwanted advice, and the bad takes, are signs of a public sphere that has ventured, if not completely out of control, then into areas where sensible discussion about issues has become more and more difficult to sustain.

These types of attacks are so common that there should be a name for this kind of dealing with journalists. The epithet “MSM” has become a badge of shame in the feeds of some people who are popular and influential posters of commentary, including retweets of links where they find particularly egregious examples of the kinds of sins they ascribe to the media.

This post is designed to address some of the misconceptions that people have about journalism, and possibly to help pave a way forward. I have my doubts about the chances of success in this latter regard, as people in general do not allow their views to be changed in contests on Twitter with people who have opposing views. They dig in, they hunker down, they resort, often, in the end, to insults and ad hominem attacks when other arguments prove unsuccessful. There seems to be an inexhaustible supply of unhappiness in the world and for many people journalists are convenient targets because they are always there.

The other thing that gives people the idea they can routinely attack journalists is the implied right of political speech that the High Court found is guaranteed for all Australians by the Constitution. This right is not uninhibited, however, and other laws and even the personnel policies of the organisation you belong to can curb it in practice. This means that public servants have, in the past, due to political speech they have engaged in in a public space, been found guilty of breaching their contractual obligations. So just because the implied right exists does not guarantee that you have a right, yourself in all circumstances, to say whatever you like about the prime minister. On the other hand, the implied right to political speech underpins public debate in this country and can be used as a defence against certain countervailing claims, such as one for defamation.

There are eight separate headings in what follows. This list is not exhaustive but these categories by-and-large represent the main articles of media practice that people are having problems with. If you have any suggestions about others you would like see included, I will be monitoring the comments to this post and can add updates later if what you suggest seems like a reasonable addition to the discussion.

1. There are many different viewpoints in the community
2. Not every story has to contain the last word
3. If a politician says something, it is news
4. There is no objective truth
5. The “MSM” doesn’t exist
6. Claims of false balance are often unwarranted
7. Not every hashtag is a story
8. The link between politics and entertainment is real

There are many different viewpoints in the community

Most of the people I follow are political progressives, so I very often see this. When people complain about the media often it is to claim that, for example, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster, has been captured by the political right. People also often have problems with News Corp, which is, it is quite uncontroversial to say, determinedly conservative in its outlook.

With the ABC, the corporate charter says that a wide variety of viewpoints must be expressed in broadcasts and on websites. When it comes to News Corp, things are a bit more murky but it must be remembered that the split between the Coalition and the Labor Party in most elections is pretty close to 50-50 for each contest. A landslide is where the result varies by a tiny amount away from that factor. A 54-46 split, for example, represents a massive win for the party that prevails. News Corp cannot survive without paying subscribers, so if you see a story from one of its outlets you can be sure that there is a part of the community that wants to read it, and that agrees with the editorial position of the editors responsible for the content it conveys to readers.

Another aspect of this characteristic of the community is that because a variety of views exists there will be many different views expressed by the experts journalists rely on to provide much of the content that makes up their stories. If an expert is a political conservative the journalist might take the time to point this out in the story but this is not mandatory. As far as the ABC goes, just because a conservative voice is included in a story does not mean that the broadcaster has swung to the right politically. It just means that, on this occasion, a right-wing point of view was featured in a story. There is nothing sinister to be extracted from this occurrence, it is quite normal.

Not every story has to contain the last word

Just because a story on a particular subject does not contain the viewpoints of every possible expert living in the community who is qualified to comment, does not mean that the outlet in the case has been captured by any specific political party or has failed on account of journalistic rigour. Not every journalist will know every available expert for that issue, to start with. If every possible expert was interviewed for the journalist’s story the story would never be published. Journalists have deadlines over which they have little or no control. There are other people involved in the process of producing news apart from the person who does the interviews, transcribes them into text, and writes the story.

The other thing to say on this aspect of the public sphere is that beat journalism is very expensive. To have one person focused all the time on one specific aspect of the government or the economy costs a lot of money. Some freelance journalists, like Michael West, spend a lot of their time focusing on one thing, such as how much tax corporations pay. The result of this kind of beat journalism is a string of informed stories that add tremendously to the wellbeing of the community more generally. We have to have this kind of journalism but if we want more of it someone has to pay journalists to do it. If you want a beat journalist to cover municipal councils, say, or the real estate industry, write to your preferred media outlet and tell them. Then subscribe to them. If you want more depth, your dollars are the only things that can lead to the kind of content you want from journalists.

Note however the word “string” that is used in the paragraph above. Not every story from your favourite beat journalist is going to say everything that can be said on the subject. When working on a story you have to, at some point, draw the line, stop calling people, and sit down to write. Each story forms part of a matrix of stories and there is even an Australian startup called Write in Stone that displays the connections between individual stories that link up to form a continuum of content on specific issues. It also provides links to source material such as interviews.

If a politician says something, it is news

Journalists are often attacked because they report the words of politicians without additional commentary, as though to do so were to traduce the pact that exists between the writer and the reader. As though to report the words of a politician were not real journalism. But politicians often betray the way they will vote in parliament through their words. What Mark Latham says about immigration or David Leyonhjelm says about section 18c of the Constitution is newsworthy because these men are elected representatives of the people. Their words have more weight, even, than those of an expert on the particular matter under discussion, because they have the power to directly influence the making of laws.

Criticising a journalist for reporting what a politician says is like blaming a novelist for including the dialogue that takes place between two characters at an important juncture in their novel. When you read a novel, you gauge the quality of the characters and you form ideas about their personalities based on their words and actions. It’s the same with politicians. If we don’t hear what politicians have to say how can we know whether we should vote for them or not? In fact, reporting the speech of politicians is one of the most fundamental parts of the journalist’s role. Without this feature of the public sphere, it would be impossible to know anything about the politicians who aspire to represent us in the legislature.

Reporting the speech of a politician does not mean that the media outlet employing the journalist involved supports that politician. in due course other stories will follow, by the same journalist or by a different journalist, in the same organisation or in a different organisation, and these will contain the words of verified experts whose views can be relied on to add to the debate. People are too impatient. You have to wait, sometimes, for a view that consones with your own to appear in print.

There is no objective truth

There are only opinions. Especially with complex matters that are debated in public, often the only way to know what will actually happen in future is to read the opinions of a number of experts. But different experts will be relied on for commentary for any given issue, especially for such issues as climate change, which are in any case hideously complex from a technical standpoint. You simply cannot legislate for truth in reporting. It would be too unwieldy and impractical. Who could say, for any specific issue, that one viewpoint is true and another one is false? How would such people be appointed? By whom?

The state of the art in any discipline is always changing. New research is constantly being conducted into any number of matters of interest to the public and no single person is the font of all wisdom in any case. What the world will look like in 25 years’ time is anyone’s guess, and so far we have not been able to travel in time, so we only know what we know. An expert has an opinion and he or she might be the most respected source of information on their specific field of study, but for many subjects others will be available to challenge their view, it is almost guaranteed.

The need for having a range of viewpoints to reflect the diversity of opinions that exist in the community is more important than knowing what is objectively true about any particular issue. Of course, some outlets are notorious editorialisers on certain issues, for example News Corp on the issue of climate change. But it is wrong to want to silence such views, even if the majority of experts thinks the opposite of what that news outlet says. To silence one newspaper on one issue would just invite the government, at another time, to silence another newspaper on a completely different issue. This kind of interference in the news process cannot, for important reasons, be allowed to happen. That way is the way of darkness. Better to put up with false narratives than to lose the freedom to publish the truth.

The “MSM” doesn’t exist

Every news organisation employs journalists and editors to make the stories that they publish. In some organisations, editors determine the direction the stories take, and in other organisations journalists are allowed in most cases to have their head.

The other thing to keep in mind in this regard is that there is a wider range of news outlets available now then ever before because the internet has lowered the cost of entry for publishers. So you are not obliged to read a news outlet whose opinion you disagree with. You can now subscribe to many small, niche outlets that can give you the kind of objective (or biased; you choose) news you want to read. The range of different structures in the media ecosystem is also very broad and not all media outlets are, for example, owned by a listed company. Some are very small, some are larger, some are very large.

What they all have in common however is the need to produce content that people in the community want to read. If people don’t click on their links, editors will not survive long in their jobs. With the internet, furthermore, editors know exactly what people are reading and so they have more information about reader tastes than they have ever before had in the history of news. In a real sense, readers decide what kind of news they are given. Editors and journalists can come up with good ideas they think will fly, but the proof, always, comes down to how people engage with the story. So in a real sense, the community is now driving the news process. And it’s not just with clicks, it’s also with subscriptions.

Claims of false balance are often unwarranted

This is a particularly pernicious type of criticism and I have written about it before in a post on “whataboutism”, an accusation often used by people on the left when they want to dismiss an argument that has been directed at them. You see this with even some reputable journalists who are on the left, and in recent times the case of One Nation versus the Greens has exercised the minds of many people in this regard. In response to that particular debate I wrote a post about the rise of One Nation that showed that it had, in fact, emerged precisely at the time when the Greens were starting to become a force in the public sphere in Australia. In truth the two parties are but two sides of the same coin. But when some people see this sort of view being expressed they react with such violence and outrage that their manners and even their reason escape their control.

Accusations of “whataboutism” are widespread and they are used in a range of different contexts by people whose arguments are not cutting through. Like an ad hominem attack, this kind of response from progressives is a flag that signals a point has been reached in the discussion that they have not thought beyond. In most cases the accusation is false and the person making it is just giving up and resorting to a kind of attack that has the merit of having no logical, effective response. But the fear and loathing that animates people who use it betrays something about themselves that they cannot express in any other way. Their very identity has been called into question. Perhaps they are not being completely objective in their view? Perhaps they, too, are exposing a bias in favour of one ideological position or another? Perhaps they are human after all, and not a god?

Not every hashtag is a story

A lot of the attacks on what is called the “MSM” arise because people get exercised about a subject as it becomes repeated in some way, often with a hashtag, on Twitter alone but not in the media. If this happens, the popular view is that the “MSM” is failing because it is not equally exercised about the issue. Usually this kind of accusation emerges from a position of ignorance. Journalists are always watching trends online and are aware of things that people post. If a journalist goes away and looks into an issue that has been raised in this way, they might then research a story or they might not. If they don’t write something about it, that doesn’t mean they are ignorant. It just means that they haven’t seen a legitimate story in the matter and have laid it aside.

On the rare occasion that an issue raised first on social media makes it onto the website of a reputable news outlet, it can change the position of the government on the issue. The “watergate” thing that appeared recently is a case in point in this regard (but even here there has still been no confirmed wrongdoing by any public figure). However, for every one of these issues, where the media picks up on a story first broached on social media, there are a dozen others that do not make the grade. People often point to these topics and then point to the “MSM” as proof of a failure to do its job properly, but what it actually means is that the media is in fact doing its job correctly, and other people are mistaking a mere suspicion of wrongdoing for evidence of wrongdoing by someone prominent in politics or business.

The link between politics and entertainment is real

Recently people have been wailing about stories that seem ephemeral and that focus on what a particular politician says in the context of the upcoming federal election. This kind of story, which might contain the politician making an amusing or witty statement, is thought to be a kind of betrayal of the purpose of the media. But the links between politics and entertainment are of long standing. In the 1960s there was even a philosopher named Guy Debord who wrote at great length about this nexus. You can go and buy one of his books and, if you can manage to make any sense of it, you can learn something new about this aspect of the public sphere.

The lure of politics for people who work in the entertainment industry is as old as Ronald Reagan. In more recent times we had Peter Garrett, the front man of 1980s rock band ‘Midnight Oil’, joining the Labor Party. And don’t even start me on Donald Trump. Another fact to contemplate is that the journalist’s union is the same organisation that represents actors and other people who work in the entertainment industry. It’s called the MEAA (the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance) and it has a long pedigree in this country. The role of entertainment in the news business is also underscored when you go to class to learn how to write stories, at university. The media, you are told, has to inform and entertain, and the link between the two things is hammered home when you find out how to put together a news story. Good writing is as important for the story as good research.

So it’s useless to bewail the insertion of entertainment values into the political process, although we would be badly served if all news stories relied on a facile hook to get people to click on them and were all about mere celebrity. The secret is to ignore stories that rely on this kind of lure. Don’t react if you see a headline about Pauline Hanson and her most recent crying jag. Look the other way. Your clicks drive the news business, to a large degree, so you can’t complain when editors push out these sorts of stories in large numbers, especially near elections.

In any case the evidence is that people do like politics to be entertaining. This tweet arrived in my feed on Saturday from a Labor supporter: "I honestly believe Bill Shorten has massively quick wit, and extremely capable of some brutal one liners and reply’s, but he holds back as he doesn’t want to come across as an arrogant smart arse. Wait till he’s PM at the despatch box. He will rip the LNP apart. Keating style." It turns out that politics is often about entertaining the masses. Give us a good orator and we'll follow you to the grave ...

Reality is messier than fiction

On Saturday morning a person I follow on Twitter (a farmer with 2742 followers) tweeted, “Morning gorgeous ones, I’ve had a run, currently enjoying coffee & water. The run took more effort than usual, it’s been 2 days with no running.” There are of course certain things missing from this account. Some of those things are the getting out of bed when it’s still dark, making the difficult decision to put on your training gear, going outside in the cold morning air, and staggering down the drive to the road with stiff joints and wooden limbs. These details are airbrushed out of the account because to include them would turn readers off. You want people to stay tuned, remain connected, and to pay attention to you. You don’t want to put something out there that is just a bummer.

This is what in the 1970s British author J.G. Ballard predicted would happen, though he did not exactly predict the invention of social media. In his formulation, people would sit down at the end of the day with the rushes of video taken during the day and curate them so that the most flattering version of themselves was available for public consumption. Ballard was prescient, though his vision didn’t extend to a text-based communication platform like Twitter. He would probably have been more comfortable with Instagram, which is largely image-based. Here, as on Twitter, people project the most appealing version of their lives in an effort to gain followers and to become, if they are very lucky, an “influencer”. Imagine not working and earning all your income just from posting things online …

We are all potential influencers because we all live by stories. They form the substance of our thoughts and dreams, and they sustain us in those dark hours when everything seems hopeless, the times we never talk about on social media. Language is innate for the species so the making of stories to sustain community and to buttress the ego in adversity is also innate. It’s so deeply ingrained in our psyches that we often don’t know where the story ends and reality begins. And it’s probably best that way. Sometimes life is so hard and we feel so hopeless that the only things that sustain us are images and ideas we have invented to make ourselves feel better.

Journalism is in the business of reality, however, which is why people attack journalists on Twitter so often. What people object to, often, when they moan about a news story or send an insulting message to a journalist is the fact that the news story that they have just read does not conform to the narratives that they believe guide reality in their part of the world. Their ingrained bias has been ignored by the journalist and because of the mismatch between the two versions of reality they are offended. They are angry. They are incensed. It’s perfectly natural, but often their anger has nothing to do with pointing out an error. Often it is because their way of seeing the world has been contradicted by events in that same world. What the journalist has done is like a friend telling a delusional psychotic that what they think they see or hear is a fabrication off their own minds. And so the ill person lashes out, as someone with schizophrenia does who has perversely decided not to take their medication because they think the doctors are trying to control them.

Sometimes there has actually been an error of fact made in a story, but this might be because the source the journalist has spoken with has an erroneous version of reality in their own mind. In this case it is hard to blame the journalist, though sometimes this may be warranted if the source has a view that is so idiosyncratic that this also has to be pointed out as a salient fact in the story. On the other hand, the journalist might be talking with that source because their editor told them to. And their editor might have a biased view of reality that he or she uses to control the story the journalist produces.

Not all news outlets have editors like this, of course, although it would be difficult to know, unless you were watching very closely, which outlets were biased and which were not. In general people support with money the outlets that most closely match their own biases, so there will always be more than one outlet in the marketplace producing stories and animating debates.

You can’t legislate to mandate that news always contains the truth. Who is to say what is true? Is there an official government panel that has opinions on everything from carbon dioxide emissions to the size of a middy of beer, that decides what is true and what is false in all cases? No, it would be unrealistic to have such a body and it would never work in any case. It would be too unwieldly to be practical. The necessity of a free media is far more important, for the protection of democracy, than is a commitment by all media outlets to so-called truth.

The upshot of all this is that the public sphere is a contested space. What it says is that democracy is messy, and so in future we might, in an effort to make our world more closely resemble some imaginary narrative, get rid of democracy altogether. Here’s an example of how this is becoming more likely. On the same Saturday, a person I follow on Twitter (with over 16,200 followers) tweeted, "Anybody who says they aren’t voting Labor cos they don’t like Shorten should have their voting rights revoked for basing their decision on such a stupid & irrelevant criterium. If that’s elitist I don’t care." People saying they don’t like Bill Shorten, the Opposition leader, offended her and so she lashed out irrationally (and misspelled a key word in her haste to get the message out). This Twitter user was so intent on making sure that Shorten wins the May election that she said something outrageous (because the more outrageous the comment, the more attention it gets from people in the community).

Fiction is much more compelling than the complex, difficult, contested, and contradictory stuff that we read in the newspapers everyday. It is neat and compelling and it starts and ends in logical places. It is predictable and comforting. It has pleasing narratives that more closely match the expectations we have in our story-oriented minds than the unwieldy morass of events that actually constitute reality.

Historians well know how hard reality can be, and so it is common for different practitioners of that craft to write histories of the same era that come to different conclusions. Or else they might differ in certain important respects. History is notable because along with mythology is it the first type of storytelling we have. The big difference between the two genres is that history is supposed to be based on fact (although an ancient Greek would have told you that his or her stories of Apollo and Minerva were also true). Of course, sometimes history is written merely to flatter the winner in the inevitable contest that it chronicles (humans are naturally aggressive animals, so wars are also intrinsic to the species). In these cases it is hard to distinguish between fact and fiction.

Today, at a time when we have won certain “inalienable” rights vis-à-vis the people in charge of society’s government, we are more able to see those differences. But still we prefer the story to the history, the mythology to the fact. This built-in tendency is the one thing that might lead to our downfall. Unless we become more comfortable with the complexities of fact, we risk losing the ability to know what is fact and what is mere propaganda.

And how does an historian tweet? Here’s one that appeared on the same Saturday morning written by a young historian I follow who has 1148 followers. His words neatly tie up the two threads contained in this post and he shows that it is possible to engage with others on social media and also tell the truth. “I don’t know how I get myself out of bed at 5am in a Sat morning and start the day doing 70kg barbell squats and survive.” Touché!

Of course if I were writing a short story instead of journalism I would up the farmer’s Twitter followers and push down the historian’s. But life is not fiction, it is very different, always, in many important respects. It is more complex, less predictable, and infinitely strange.