The issue of just how much the media influence people's vote is vexed and far from settled, though it goes to the heart of the ongoing debate about whether given outlets favour one party over another. Clearly, if news organisations are openly biased, and that ends up affecting how people vote, then there is an issue.
Putting that aside, though, there is a related question about how the media do their job. It has to do with the way they create the environment in which politics is shaped and discussed.
The idea that the media "
are just the messengers" is a lie that should be challenged at every point. The idea, often expressed by journalists, that all that is wrong with our politics stems from the politicians obsession with spin and focus groups is similarly misleading. As I've argued at length here and at
The Drum, you can't separate what the politicians do from the way the media reports them.
The example I want to look at is related to all these matters and it has to do with independent Rob Oakeshott.
Until Oakeshott assumed his current importance thanks to the result of the last election, it is fair to say the media didn't give him a lot of attention. Even once it became apparent that he would be one of those who could help decide the government, the media's treatment of him was fairly neutral, even though articles were appearing that suggested that, given the nature of his electorate (deemed by the media to be conservative), he would have to take that into account in making his decision about which party to back.
All of that changed once he and Tony Windsor called a press conference to announce that they would support a Gillard Government.
At the press conference, Oakeshott took seventeen minutes to explain his reasons for backing Gillard. Watching it at home I was struck by two things. First was that it was interesting to hear a politician take the time to explain his actions, especially on such an important matter. I thought that, sure, part of it was pre-empting criticisms he was likely to get in his own electorate, but you cold hardly blame him for that, especially as the media, as I've noted, were already suggesting that backing Labor would cause him trouble in his, allegedly, conservative seat.
The other thing I noticed -- that I think everyone watching noticed -- was the behaviour of the media. As Oakeshott's comments continued, the assembled journos became more and more impatient and then, eventually, openly hostile. They shuffled and groaned and behaved like children waiting to be given some treat. Journalists like Annabel Crabb started tweeting jokes about his long-windedness.
From that moment on, the scene was set. As far as many in the media were concerned, Oakeshott would forever be known as a verbose bore in love with sound of his own voice. The day after the press conference, the tone was well and truly set by
a Mark Davis piece in the Fairfax press. 'Oakeshott holds Australia hostage with self-indulgent theatrics' the headline blared, a headline that accurately reflected the tone and content of the article.
Since then, any number of articles have pursued the theme, to the extent now that it is simply a given in the media that Rob Oakeshott is a long-winded bore, and that no article that mentions him is complete without some sort of reference to this 'fact'.
The most recent piece of this type was in this morning's
SMH, where
Jacqueline Maley builds a whole article about the new rules for Question Time around the meme of Oakeshott's alleged inability to speak in media-approved soundbites:
WHEN Rob Oakeshott gets up to talk, his listeners need to be fully prepared for the experience. You have to think like an Appalachian mountaineer hunkering down for the winter, or a Kansan farmer battening the doors of the hurricane shelter.
It's important to be well hydrated, but not so much that you will need a comfort break any time soon. You need to be wearing comfortable apparel, but nothing too fussy - remember, the temptation to fidget will soon become overwhelming. It helps to pack snacks in case your blood sugar takes a sudden dive.
When the independent Member for Lyne stood up to speak for the first time in this 43rd Parliament, his audience braced itself. We quivered in the memory of the press conference where he famously took 17 minutes to get around to informing the Australian public which party he was backing for government.
On and on it went, with the writer apparently unaware of her own long-windedness and propensity to labour a 'joke', of the fact that she was guilty of the very crime she was mocking Oakeshott for allegedly committing. It was a lovely metaphor for the lack of self-awareness that plagues so much political reporting.
And never mind that in other contexts, journalists decry the fact that politicians speak in focus-group-tested soundbites. Here was a politician breaking out of that mould, and he was still crucified.
Anyway, the point is, this is how the media can shape debate and poison the well of public discussion. The issue here isn't bias, per se: it is an object lesson in how journalists, by the stories they choose, the way they frame information, and the way they let their own unacknowledged biases slip into what they are writing, create an environment that almost forces us to view matters in a particular way.
Rob Oakeshott is a self-regarding bore: it seems impossible that this characterisation will ever entirely flush from the mediasphere and it will, accordingly, colour every article about the member for Lyne, no matter the content of his speech.
As a consequence, the quality of the reporting and the subsequent public discussion is diminished.
