Thread by @Vic_Rollison

I see @theage’s Gay Alcorn has written another editorial backing up gross editorial without once showing any sign she listened to criticism and also missing key point: journalists are not experts in health policy. They have no right to advocate for easing restrictions. A thread👇🏻

For those who didn’t read the gross editorial, the key argument it made was that although they (The Age staff) support health restrictions (do you? That’s good of you😳), they want some restrictions eased in Victoria because people have been locked down too long.

I know an editorial is not the traditional form of journalism, and editorials have had a place in newspapers for as long as there have been newspapers. I’ve got no problem with journalists writing editorials. I do have a problem with THAT argument though. And it goes to expertise

The people advising the Victorian government on the level of restrictions required to suppress Delta are health experts, who have decades of training and experience, and access to information and modelling which the public do not have. Good governance is led by expert advice.

Journalists do not have these skills, access to this information, nor the ability to analyse the modelling and impact of changing restrictions. So what right have they got to their ‘feels’ about which restrictions are needed and are not?

You might sense now this thread is not just about the gross editorial. It’s not even just about The Age. It’s about the way almost all journos and commentators have behaved during pandemic. They have abdicated their most important job - collating and providing SOURCE expertise.

Too many times we have seen too many journalists using their own personal experience of lockdowns and other restrictions to decide how they will frame those restrictions in their news articles. This isn’t meant to be how journalism is done. It’s meant to be impartial, independent

Alcorn says The Age hasn’t opposed lockdowns and other restrictions. Well I call bullshit on that. The Age, along with rest of Vic media pack, heckled Premier Andrews every day of 2020 lockdown, demanding to know when it would end. WHEN IT IS SAFE! That’s when. That’s the answer.

And that’s the answer Andrews consistently gave. Because HE was listening to the experts. That’s why the people of Victoria in their vast majority so respect Andrews’ approach to governing. He says ‘this is what I’m going to do because it’s based on expert advice’.

If journos find credible, expert advice which contradicts position a political leader has taken, that’s absolutely legitimate for them to take that expert advice to the politician and ask them to comment on it. That’s not, for the vast majority of cases, what’s been happening.

Instead, we have journos completely disregarding expert advice, and taking the role of experts themselves. For example, Gay Alcorn patronisingly says the gross editorial argued restrictions should ease because of mental health concerns. I’m sorry, are you a psychologist Gay? No?

Let’s talk about mental health. How is the mental health of families who have lost loved ones to covid? How is mental health of people suffering from covid? How about those anxious of catching it, who are in essential jobs and can’t work from home? How will further spread help?

It is offensive to public health experts to suggest that they callously put in place restrictions which aren’t needed to protect people from a deadly disease, and disregard the toll these restrictions have. They put them in place to save lives. Read it again if it doesn’t sink in

Because it was Gay who patronised in her editorial about the editorial, I’m using this as an example of what we’ve constantly seen from many journos and commentators - when we needed their best facts, analysis, expert sources, we instead got personal resentment of restrictions.

How dare a journalist - as Gay says - a whole staff of journalists who came to this ‘position’ in the editorial - how dare they ALL believe they can lecture health experts and the govt making tough expert-led decisions, about what is the best policy to protect Victorians. Wow.

And on top of that galling misunderstanding of what a journalists’ job is, how dare a newspaper publish an argument against restrictions at a moment in time when Victoria is reliant on those restrictions to stop the tragedy unfolding in NSW. Seriously irresponsible.

Gay made point of saying lots of people loved editorial. Did they Gay? Do you think they might be anti-lockdowners and the people fined for not wearing masks? Do you think they might be the people endangering everyone else by spreading covid around because they hate restrictions?

I’ll tell you who else loved the editorial. The Vic Libs who haven’t found a covid restriction they wouldn’t attack for political purposes. Also, of course, Morrison, who famously encouraged NSW govt not to lock down when low and behold this whole covid nightmare kicked off again

The other people who liked it overlap with the anti-lockdown protestors, ‘Shadow Pandemic’ astroturfers and the Liberals, are of course the business lobbyists who are The Age’s core constituency - the cafe owners of ABC’s 730. The Age, and the rest of the media’s favourite gods.

And yet, if a journalist really had the critical thinking skills they need to report in public interest, they would also see that sure, businesses can have a whinge about life-saving health measures, but that doesn’t mean those whinges are VALID health expertise. See above.

So instead of undermining the decisions of health experts, making it more likely people will rebel against and ignore restrictions, instead of mistaking themselves for health experts, how about journos do their job and interview expert sources, to explain need for restrictions?

A journalists’ job is never so important as when a nation, indeed the whole planet, is in crisis. We’ve seen some great journalism during pandemic - data analysis, explainers, comparisons of different policies and their consequences etc. But too many have politicised everything.

The Age’s gross editorial is a symptom of a media class who have almost entirely lost any connection with public good, with their audience, and with key purpose of their jobs. If they don’t listen to complaints, they’ll keep seeing audiences turn off or unsubscribe in disgust.

The Age’s editorial has great power to influence the sentiment of Victorians, community unity, and in this case, public health. With power comes responsibility. If they don’t use power for good, they deserve all the criticism they get.

I’ll finish with this. Gay says the editorial is ‘the position’ of the newspaper. We understood this position because we say The Age opposing Victorian restrictions from this ‘position’. Fine, take the position, and let’s have the argument. Go for it! Bring on debate!

But hang on. @Theage don’t want the audience to disagree. They don’t want our critique. Turns out they don’t even want our comments - Gay’s editorial response was posted with comments disabled. Tells you all you need to know how open the newspaper is to their audience’s views👇🏻

https://twitter.com/theage/status/1434044809329532928

Well, here’s my comment whether you like it or not. Your gross editorial was a slap in the face for every Australian who has either had covid or fears getting it, for every health worker, for everyone doing right thing to try to get through crisis. Thanks for nothing @TheAge. End