Guess what Janet's crying about this week...

For her contribution to today’s Australian Janet Albretchsen chose a topic she and her fellow conservative commentators rarely canvas in their newspapers columns – ‘the left wing bias of the media’. What next? – Andrew Bolt having a shot at environmentalists? A close look at Janet’s column reveals that she indeed has an odd conception of the role the media ought to play here in Australia and in the United States.

Apparently, parts of the mainstream media (that is, well known newspapers and news channels), are no longer mainstream. This is interesting, as I thought the media was supposed to report important news and information, rather than tell its audience what it wants to hear. Janet thinks that when a (mainstream) reader opens the newspaper, he/she should have his/her world view confirmed. She cites a recent discussion within the New York Times as evidence of the newspapers awakening to this idea…

Last week an internal panel set up at the NYT to "improve our journalism" reported that, among other things, the NYT needed to lift its game on reporting religion in America. It found, as just one example, that its coverage of gay marriage "approaches cheerleading". In fact, the panel even admitted that the NYT needed to "cover the country in a fuller way". Translation: let's try to be more mainstream.

But Janet, perhaps the Times is considering a shift in its reporting towards ‘the mainstream’ out of a concern over a possible loss of revenue – not a concern over poor journalism. Sure, maybe the staff feel they could have presented the gay marriage issue in a more balanced fashion, but does this mean that by extension they must be ‘getting it wrong’ on other issues like the Iraq war etc?

Janet also decides to throw in a bit of argument ad populum…

In 2003 the Pew Research Centre found 51 per cent of Americans believed the press had a left-wing bias…

The blogosphere is also mentioned…

If you don't know what a blogger is, don't feel bad. Even in the media many haven't caught up.

Except of course Janet’s hated “Chateau Fairfax”, which has been running a web-dairy for some time. Oh – but I forgot – Margo Kingston doesn’t like John Howard, so it doesn’t count.

While the quality of blogging varies wildly, the best bloggers, such as Australia's Tim Blair (timblair.net)…

That is, bloggers who agree with Janet.

…are checking facts, reporting news, breaking stories and giving alternative commentary to that found in large sections of the old media.

And if Janet ventured beyond timblair.net, she’d discover a whole raft of bloggers busily checking facts, reporting news, breaking stories and giving alternative commentary to that found in large sections of the old media. But of course, from the wrong perspective as far as Janet is concerned.

She continues…

With much of the blogo-sphere tilting right, and looking - dare one say it - decidedly mainstream…

Got that? If you’re tilting right, you’re looking mainstream. It’s as simple as that – Right = Mainstream. Disagree with that and you must be in that ‘noisy minority’ crowd.

Old media detests the Fox phenomenon and those dastardly "shock jocks" -- you know, those radio broadcasters who often attract more listeners than newspapers have readers.

Yes Janet, we need a lot more of the Fox phenomenon, with people believing that Saddam Hussein was behind September 11, that WMD’s have been located in Iraq, and people like Bill O’Reilly suggesting that illegal immigrants should be classified as biological weapons when analysing their impact on American society. That’s the sort of balance we sorely need.
Notice Janet provides no examples of the media “detesting” talk back radio shock jocks.

That way they might stop missing the big social trends - another tell-tale sign of a media disconnected from its readership. They might notice the rise of evangelical religion, or the swing back to family values, even at the expense of feminist dogma.

Janet should read the newspaper more often instead of hunting the blogosphere for opinions similar to her own – evangelical religion and ‘family values’ are two issues examined at length in the media.

Of course, the biggest test for the mainstream media comes around each election.
Like last October. While most of the media was conducting a love affair with Mark Latham, mainstream Australia spurned him, re-elected John Howard, and handed the Government a Senate majority.

Media take note – if John Howard is re-elected, you need to ignore the other half of the country who didn’t vote for him and become part of the orgy of self-congratulation which took place after the polls closed.

Again, I have to ask. Had the election fallen a few months earlier, when Latham & Co were riding high in the polls, and Australia had a change of government, would Janet be happy to go along with the suggestion that the media is ‘in-tune’ with ‘mainstream’ Australia? I think not. We’d be hearing about the media’s successful trickery and deception of enough voters to swing the outcome, and its contempt for democracy etc.

In conclusion, Albretchsen, like so many other conservative commentators, has an issue with the media because sometimes she reads/hears commentary and news she doesn’t want to read/hear. Because she is of the right, and the right is mainstream, anything she dislikes also offends the majority (silent of course) of Australians. Will Janet ever extend her arguments beyond “John Howard was re-elected” or “According to this poll…”?

Henderson gets Ad Populum

Gerard Henderson made no attempt to conceal his glee at the re-election of Tony Blair in Britain. Like many conservative pundits, Henderson views the election as a referendum on the Iraq war, with Blair’s (and Bush’s and Howard’s) victory signalling a strong ‘YES’ vote for the war from the electorate(s).

That none of them has suffered [Jose Maria] Aznar's fate says a lot about the personal conviction and political courage of Bush, Blair and Howard. But it also tells us plenty about voters in America, Britain and Australia.

Weak and incompetent oppositions do not enter the equation - nor the fact that the war hardly even received a mention in the recent election in Australia.

Henderson suggests that Raimond Gaita, a professor of philosophy at King's College at the University of London and at the Australian Catholic University, is out of touch with reality, and describes his article published in Quarterly Essay as “ritual, and (boringly) predictable, criticism of the Howard Government.” Would it be fair to suggest that Henderson’s articles defending the Howard Government are becoming “ritual, and boringly predictable”?

Henderson closes with:

The recent successes of Bush, Blair and Howard suggest that a majority of the electorate has a better understanding of the complexity and demands of modern democratic governments than the liberal left.

But at the moment, George Bush is suffering some of the lowest approval ratings in history – can I therefore suggest that the majority of the American electorate has a better understanding of the complexity and demands of modern democratic governments than the conservative right? In a nutshell, Henderson (and his fellow Howard loving colleagues), continue to engage in a variation of ad populum argument…

People voted for Bush/Blair/Howard > Bush/Blair/Howard launched an invasion on Iraq in 2003 > People supported (and continue to support) that military venture.