Australia’s not so free media

BY Usha m Rodrigues| IN Media Freedom | 07/12/2007

Elections are in the news. Vladmir Putin’s party just won the elections in Russia, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s attempt to increase his power was defeated, in Pakistan elections are to be held next month, and in Australia the Labor party has just come to power after 11-1/2 years, overthrowing John Howard’s conservative government. But, it is the media coverage of this federal election in Australia which did not gain any kudos, because, for a free press system, the Australian media continues to be bound by many unseen boundaries. Be it the routinization of news coverage where mostly the leaders of the main parties are covered as cult heroes, or the media proprietors’ policy commands which guided the election news interpretations.

Nothing much has changed as far as election outcome predictions by journalists sitting in the capital city Canberra. The press gallery once again did not predict the slow demise of the conservative government correctly. Australia has a strange custom, where once the elections are called, pork barreling starts. Political leaders of the two main parties out-do each other by announcing funding for various programs and, of course, tax cuts in the coming years. So, the media’s election coverage becomes the story of who is going to give how much money for which segment of the population.

Then, there is the coverage of personality politics, where every little faux pas by the leaders is reported in the press. Of course, politicians know this, so they usually make sure that their policy announcements and their visits to schools, shopping centres and hospitals are well covered, with ready photo opportunities of the Prime Minister kissing a baby. And, the opposition leader is seen talking to factory workers because a new legislation, allowing employers to offer individual contracts to workers, has caused major angst among workers in Australia. The minor parties, who may have a full suite of policies, are totally ignored unless of course they have a charismatic leader or a current cause for concern. For example, during this election campaign, the Greens Party received some attention from the media due to climate change concerns. The party even attracted sufficient funds to put their advertisements in the media.

Journalists blame the well-oiled public relations machinery and the government’s secrecy laws for lack of investigative reporting. In the midst of the six-week-long election campaign, came a ‘Report of the Independent Audit into the State of Free Speech in Australia’, lamenting the fact that "free speech and media freedom are being whittled away by gradual and sometimes almost imperceptible degrees". The report pointed to the growing use of spin and growing culture of secrecy and mutual distrust between the government and the media. The report was also critical of the Freedom of Information laws and other regulatory tools for obstructing the flow of information, thereby reducing government accountability to its people.

The general public may have noted these impediments to free and fair reporting, but they also noted the predictable coverage of the elections. As a result, many of them moved to alternative media, specifically the online media to get their information about the elections and the various options available to them in terms of parties and their policies. The credibility of the media coverage was also marred by incidents such as three press gallery journalists releasing information which they had promised to keep ‘off the record’. And, then there was the case of a journalist offering a front page story to a minor party candidate if she recommended her supporters to preference the sitting member of parliament, a rare but stark example of a journalist getting involved in the political process to gain a front page story.

In fact, this election was the first YouTube election where leaders of both parties used the new media chat sites to appeal to their potential voters, in essence cutting out the middle-person in their bid to reach the population. Even the 68-year-old Prime Minister John Howard was uploading his video messages on YouTube and MySpace. The online media was also in use by the bloggers (journalists and non-journalists) to provide their analysis of the political campaign. Web sites such as You Decide 2007 were specifically launched to allow citizens from around Australia to report local election stories. Surprisingly, it was the older generation which used this opportunity to exercise their journalistic talent.

There was also an unnamed blogger, who calls himself Possum Comitatus, who became popular in Australia’s psephological blogosphere, so much so that his election analyses were picked up by mainstream media. Apparently, this blogger is an economist and uses his statistical prowess to calculate who will win the elections. He did predict that the opposition would come to power with a reasonable majority.  

On the election night itself, when most of the free-to-air channels were hosting politicians to analyse the election results, there were hundreds of nerds online analyzing the election results. Web sites such as Crikey.com, Possums Pollytics, The Poll Bludger and YouTube came alive during these elections. In fact, traditional media too jumped onto this band wagon, and offered online space to citizens to comment on election issues. Although the online media has been used before in Australian elections, this is the first time it was so prolifically utilized by politicians (including both leaders of the main parties to deliver personal video messages on the Internet), citizen journalists and non-journalist commentators.