Thread by @Vic_Rollison

No one is saying journalists lost the election for Labor. But what they did do is make it very easy for Liberals and Palmer to win, despite a campaign of lies, misinformation, without policies, and without costings until the 11th hour. A thread👇🏻

Let’s leave Murdoch media out of this discussion as they are not journalists, they are overt propagandists who have given up the pretence of producing news. Note also, these comments are not about every journalist either - some are great, some outlets are better than others.

Rather, these are general comments about the quality of media coverage of the election. I argue this coverage was shallow, focused on theatrics, simplistic and lacking in meaningful policy analysis. Therefore, the Liberal campaign that suited that media style was advantaged.

An article that epitomised this shallow coverage was this👇🏻 from ABC. In a nutshell ‘doing things’ - shearing sheep, picking up carrots and going on show rides is apparently more appealing to journos than talking to workers.
abc.net.au/news/2019-04-2…

This means we had a press pack following Morrison, salivating over his theatrical performance (he was a child actor!), while Labor did what politicians are supposed to do - laid out policy after policy and produced credible costings to back these up.

What the media have done is discourage policy announcements during an election as policies become weapons to be used against you. Great example is Labor’s multi-faceted complex climate change policy.

Labor announced the policy with full transparency. Liberals said ‘how much will it cost?’ Labor said ‘it’s impossible to cost such a complex policy with so many uncertainties so we’re not going to be dishonest and say we can’. What did the media do?

Did they interview Labor spokespeople to learn more about policy and what it would do to emissions? Did they compare it to the Liberal policy? Did they educate the electorate on the outcomes of their comparison and provide helpful information to use in the polling booth? Nope.

Did they speak to climate change experts about the policy and rate its possible effectiveness in meeting emission targets, while comparing it to the Liberals’ failure to reduce emissions? Nope.

What I heard is journalists adopting the Liberal strategy of demanding ‘what will it cost’ every time Labor mentioned the policy. Just one example - Fran Kelly on RN was so aggressive asking Mark Butler ‘what will it cost’, it felt like she was on the floor of Parliament with him

By adopting the Liberal framing, that climate policy is a ‘cost’, the public never got to hear the most important information - what will it cost if we don’t take action? (The earth). No one pushed Liberals on this point. Liberals got away scot-free. Scott-Morrison-free.

Not once did I hear a Liberal pushed on climate during election. So, Liberals were better off having no climate policy - no media scrutiny on it - than Labor who released a full policy which actually would have made sure Australia kept to Paris agreement targets. Kinda important.

The other thing media did to assist Liberals is to repeat their lies. There is no such thing as a Retirement Tax, or a Housing Tax, or a Death Tax. Just because the Liberals lie about Labor policies, doesn’t mean journos have to repeat the lies.

Add to that, journos never called Liberals out for lying. They never made it problematic for Morrison that his entire campaign was based on opposing Labor policies by calling them taxes that didn’t exist. Liberals ran a lie filled campaign and experienced no negative consequence.

In the seat I campaigned in - Sturt in SA - there was at least one lie-ridden flyer posted to the whole electorate every week, usually more than one. Journos knew this was going on, but never put pressure on Liberals over it. Why?

The reason is that they think if they challenge Liberals to address the lies, they’re being too ‘partisan’. So we have a situation where they instead say ‘the Liberals are doing a great job of opposing Labor policies’, but don’t mention this ‘great job’ is a tsunami of lies.

To summarise, Liberals lied throughout campaign, didn’t release any policies or costings and were aided and abetted throughout by a hopeless, shallow, simplistic media who refuse to be the watchdogs on power that we expect and need them to be.

I haven’t quite finished - I also want to mention their coverage of Clive Palmer and his preference deal with Libs. Correct me if I missed something, but did anyone see any mainstream coverage of why this deal was made?

Did anyone see analysis of why Palmer might want to own the Liberals, with the obvious incentive being approval for a coal mine in the Galilee Basin? I saw Chris Uhlmann saying Palmer shouldn’t be able to buy a seat in parliament - but that was AFTER polls closed.

I didn’t see any journos making this point BEFORE 3.4% of the population voted for UAP and delivered govt back to Liberals, nor did I see anyone making a big enough deal about the fact Palmer wasn’t buying himself a seat, he was buying himself approval for a dirty coal mine.

What we saw instead of this useful analysis was vox pops of uninformed voters telling us how they would use their uninformed vote, and chatter about whose theatrics were more effective in catching the media’s attention. Who ‘won the day’ through sideshow.

Journalists are meant to inform the public on their options during an election (hint - POLICY options) AND hold those in powerful to account for their promises and standards in political discourse. Media failed on both these counts during election, and this advantaged Libs. End.