If you are a journalist standing next to a Murdoch hack who clear as day has agenda to attack a Labor Premier and you can’t objectively identify this for yourself and judge it to be illegitimate journalism, what else are you failing to be objective about? Can you see the problem?
How can you tell us you are able to effectively hold powerful politicians to account, when you won’t even hold powerful media colleagues to account? Are you ‘watchdogs for democracy’ or are you just a club of mates engaging in group think?
Why do you think that just saying ‘I’m a journalist’ automatically makes you see the world more clearly and rationally than the audience does? Have you got magic skills? Objectivity is a method, not a state of mind. We see you being subjective and you hate us calling it out.
There is no room for personal attacks on twitter. But there is plenty of room for the audience to scrutinise the media institution which we rely on to learn about politics and other issues such as covid. You are meant to be working to our benefit. How have we become the enemy?
Maybe you would like to believe the media is perfect, you’re perfect, your colleagues are perfect and pure of heart because that makes your day job easier. But there’s no going back to the old days when you didn’t have to hear what the audience had to say about your work.
If you can’t differentiate between personal attacks and abuse (we all get that on here) and genuine legitimate criticism of the work you do, then why are you even on twitter? Why not just start a WhatsApp thread with your journalism mates?
The snide remarks about twitter trolls, hyper partisans and twitterati armchair experts are deeply offensive to your audience - the people you rely on to engage with your work, to share it and to show your boss there is an audience for what you do. You might show a little respect
If the hill the media institution wants to die on is a defence of political journalism so obviously biased and politically motivated that even James Murdoch thinks it’s a joke, while at same time telling audience they’re idiots, the future of journalism doesn’t look very bright.
Having a platform in the media - whether it is social or mainstream media - is a privilege. You have great power to influence, inform and educate. With power comes responsibility. If you don’t like the scrutiny which comes with this power, there’s a simple way to solve that. End.
