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December 18, 2011
As we know the mainstream media didn't do a good job of informing citizens about the global financial crisis. More often than not they acted as cheerleaders of the boom, free markets and neo-liberalism; and they failed to see what was coming, or even to realize its significance when it happened. When the crunch came the media failed its democratic function and didn't live up to its self-professed liberal ethos.
Many of us weren't surprised as they see the loss of advertising revenue resulting in the media by and large given up its fourth estate role and collapsed into opinion and infotainment in a digital world of online media convergence. As Malcolm Turnbull points out, whilst it is quality journalism that holds the government to account and shines a light on the dark corners of power, it is now a threatened species.
One of those journalists who continues to understand the media in terms of its fourth estate function is Roy Greenslade, and he spells out this function in this way:
We, the media, are the window into the arcane world of finance and economics, and what we report, and how we report it, is hugely influential. People may have all sorts of opinions garnered from their own experiences but when it comes to the esoteric topic of high finance, the vast majority rely on what they are told by journalists, politicians and a variety of talking heads granted either airtime or newspaper space.
For those journalists who are still interested in practising this form of journalism the key question becomes: 'why did the media fail citizens so badly with respect to the global financial crisis?
Greenslade says:
To be frank, most journalists were as ignorant as their readers and viewers of the range of financial products used to sustain the boom. When it was reported that the American investor Warren Buffett described derivatives as "financial weapons of mass destruction" in 2003, it made little impact. Why? Because it ran counter to the ongoing "good news" story, which was the major narrative of the decade. House prices were on the up. Retailers were raking in profits. Obtaining credit from banks was easy. The media itself was enjoying seemingly unlimited advertising revenue.It did not then appear necessary for journalists to get to grips with the credit markets, with their sophisticated instruments such as credit default swaps.
Well, we know that journalists are ignorant about most policy issues (eg., carbon pricing) and they generally cover up this ignorance by just writing about the politics of the policy from a partisan perspective or writing about Kevin Rudd vs Julia Gillard.
Greenslade basically offers a 'we were duped by the market' defence. What Greenslade should say, and doesn't , is that irrespective of the platform many journalists are lazy (they simply recycle media releases and publicity handouts); that many are basically ideologues acting on behalf of corporate interests (eg.,The Australian); and that some are happy to paid to be intense propagandists (eg., the tabloids on climate change). He also ignores the way that owners of the media (in Australia the Packers, Murdochs and Fairfaxes) have all used their media to run political agendas.
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the Nine Network is on its last legs It is not earning enough to service its debt. Five years ago Nine was competing with the ABC to be known as Australia’s national broadcaster. Now it’s a basketcase.