I’m a freelance journalist based in Sydney, Australia, writing primarily on international affairs, the Israel/Palestine conflict and domestic politics. Few areas don’t interest me. Sadly, the Australian media is increasingly complicit in the actions of John Howard’s government. Rupert Murdoch owns 70% of my country’s print media, the highest percentage of any Western nation. The alternatives, The Melbourne Age and Sydney Morning Herald, are frequently little better. Fear of seriously tackling governmental corruption and injustice as well as business interests pervades much of the mainstream media. Corporate news values permeate everything and information that slips through is the exception rather than the rule.
Alternative news sources are therefore essential. This blog is but one example. The fight back has begun. It’s time that media existed not solely for the advertising dollar, but for informing readers. Let’s get beyond the Right and Left divide. They exist of course, but increasingly partisan news agendas don’t serve the public interest. I love that the mainstream media is struggling to understand or accommodate the blogging revolution. It’s time they acknowledge that their agendas and angles are no longer the only truth. Far from it. The Iraq war proved once and for all that Iraqi and Western bloggers were the most fascinating source for conditions on the ground, not embedded journalists with the New York Times.
Let’s have a discussion about what media you want, what you dislike, what you think your media isn’t telling you and what perspectives they’re ignoring or highlighting. Blogging allows media to be owned by us, the reader and participant. And that’s the most democratic thing that’s happened to media for a generation.
4 Comments:
Indeed, left and right debate is not how the next generation of readers will see the world.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts aboslutely no matter on which side of the pendulum our representatives are swinging from ...
The leadership is about creativity it is about walking the talk - it is about keeping the head tuned to the music of the heart.
May there be many, many, different voices but one huge, generous, giving, heart!
A blog is an expression of self, of opinion, of passion. The revolution is well and truly here.
As an avid Frontline fan, it could be said that I very nearly distrust the media almost completely. That said, there are facets I accept over others: The Slightly More Subjective Sydney Morning Herald over The Dubious and Doubting Daily Telegraph, for example.
Who knows what the truth is? For one, my realisation of the power of blogs came during the campaign on the Iraqi town of Fallujah in late 2004. One person had published an on-the-ground report of what was happening with the assassination of prisoners.... and shock horror, the same thing had been happening for hundreds of years. The only difference is that the media were sticking their cameras in it, and that's the only reason people cared.
What I'd like from the media - call me a dreamer - is objective coverage from a variety of angles. Tell us what happened, when it happened, who did it, how it happened and ask five people from different backgrounds why they think it happened. It'll never happen, but I'm an optimist.
Meantime, Antony, great blog! Your work on Counterspin was brilliant and I look forward to seeing what you can do without having ties to a newspaper. Keep up the great work!
The SMH is certainly better than the Daily Telegraph, thank God. But I reckon it's dangerous to assume it's much better. Similar news values are still apparent.
I just love the exasperated looks on the MSM faces because blogs are eating into their readership. Poor babies.
Ha! 'Pray, who will wipe up their tears?' The thing I love about blogs is that they're driven more by emotion and personal experience than by a desire for profit. I think this makes them far more reliable, although a lot more open to subjection, but also far more entertaining as well.
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