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June 05, 2003
The debate on the bias of the ABC's AM program continues to splutter along. Yesterday Gerald Stone, an SBS board member, a former executive producer of 60 Minutes and former editor of The Bulletin, weighed in. He understands how the media enframes an issue and the bias of the media, and he knows the specific techniques that the media deploys to persuade its audience.
So it is worth while having a closer look at the case he is arguing. Stone says:
"I noted at least 20 instances where, as an ABC news executive, I would have called AM staff members to task for making smug and gratuitous comments blatant enough to bring the program's impartiality into question.That's apart from the issue of what tone of voice they may have used in delivering some of the suspect lines. Inflection or facial expression can be crucial in determining the degree of bias within the electronic media."
Well, we all know that happens. It happens on all the media. Its called rhetoric and it is aimed to appeal to the emotions of the audience to make a case. Lets grant that some of Linda Mottram's rhetoric was badly done in that the quality of her rhetoric was missing on some occcasions. The rhetoric was not as polished as that we see on 60 Minutes.
We move on because the quality of the rhetoric is not what all the fuss is about. Its media bias or the politics of media texts.
Stone does address the core issue. Stone calls it media bias by which he means "reporters using subtle journalistic techniques to push their viewpoints, regardless of the facts." He then usefully lists these techniques:
'What are some of these techniques? Ironically, though biased reporting is notoriously hard to prove, many of its warning signs are easy for the listener or viewer to spot. Here are just a few. Beware of any report that begins with a value judgement before the fact: "The Government suffered a major setback today when the Prime Minister announced ..." Beware of inference-packed words like "admitted", "conceded", "claimed" when "said" is sufficient. Beware of the use of "but" to link a seemingly positive development with a less favourable one that invariably seems to put it in doubt. For example, an announcement of a drop in unemployment followed by the spoiler: "But unions warn of unrest, etc."
Most of all, beware of coverage that continually takes a given fact and immediately overshadows it by raising grave doubts about where it might possibly lead in the future. That was the most frequent "offence" to feature in Alston's litany of complaints."Now that the US has conquered the Iraqi regime, who and where next?" Mottram gloomily asked her listeners.'
This is interesting and informed commentary. What it indicates is the model of journalism that Stone thinks should be done in political commentary programs such as AM. AM is not the news. It is commentary on the news. Note Stone's rejection of using words such as "admitted", "conceded", "claimed" in favour of "said". Linda Mottram is being highly reflexive here as she is drawing the audience's attention to the arguments of those whose position she disagrees with. This is an acknowledgement of the arguments of opponents that is rarely, if ever, made by the Miranda Devines, the shock jocks on talk back radio or the Tim Blairs They mock, scorn and ridicule their opponents rather than engage with their arguments.
Stone is saying that Mottram should report that Downer said X about weapons of mass destruction ie., she is reporting a fact. She should not draw attention to Downer making an argument, responding to arguments made by others, or the plausibility of the argument. Stone then reduces Mottram's work within a rhetorical model of journalism to perpetual sneers and dripping sarcasm.
Yet arguments are being made all the time in the public sphere in which the ABC is located, and the ABC deploys the techniques of rhetoric just like all the other media and political players. The public conversation in the public policy, media and parliamentary is rhetorically based. You have to have these skills to be able to be heard---as Stone well knows.
Stone is saying that AM should not engage in rhetoric and its presenters should not make judgements about the persuasiveness of the arguments of others. It should work with a model of recording the facts. Why? Because he is working with a naive model of realism in which words mirror facts. Stone assumes that the world is as it appears to be, and that it is possible to make bias-free value-free descriptions of the world that are accurate and realistic. If the world is objectively describable, then the journalist's ethical and professional responsibility is to become as transparent as possible so as to allow the reality of the situation to predominate.
What is most suprising is that Stone does not acknowledge the cracks in the mirror given his extensive of how media orgnizations work. The naive realist model was discarded by media organizations long ago, as Stone well knows. He would never have survived as executive producer of 60 Minutes if he had operated that program within the confines of the mirror model.
Nor does Stone argue why AM should adopt the naive mirror model of journalism when he clearly knows that it no longer fits the actual on-the-ground media practices. So why impose it on AM and not 60 Minutes?
Answering that question leads us to the politics of the media, which is what the current debate is really about.
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I can live with the ABC's clear bias in a number of areas. I'd like to see a lot more analysis of material than is the case, but it is [as you suggest] part of the standard way "information" is presented in most of the media these days.
What does irritate me, however, is the manner in which the intellectually blinkered chattering classes refuse to analyse any programme which happens to provide "evidence" for their particular feel good beliefs. What a blessing post modern "thinking" has proved, both for them and their ever increasing band of allies who are sufficiently intellectually challenged to not even be need of the blinkers.