Sensationalism and a bias to the interests of proprietors and other rich people are long-standing features of commercial media. However Australian media have, over the past few decades, become increasingly biased in news reporting, news selection and commentary. This trend is moving into the realm of overt propagandising and of reporting so distorted and hysterical as to amount to lies.
There is, in fact, a growing nexus in Australian media of fear, hysteria, racism and ignorant ranting.
The Australia Day 'riot' at the Lobby restaurant in Canberra is an example of hysterical misreporting. I happened to see it unfold. It was a rowdy demonstration, but there was no violence and no riot. Security and police were rattled and overreacting. Many people could even see in the footage that the situation was not as threatening as reporters' words were portraying.
The so-called reporting was also richly larded with judgemental words like 'ugly', 'marred','disgrace' and so on. So much for separating editorial comment from reporting.
The misreporting was racist in effect if not in intention. Many editors and commentators shot from the hip in condemning the protesters, and their reaction was more overtly racist.
Now comes the news that Australia's richest person, mining magnate Gina Rinehart, is buying big chunks of our media. Although some are denying that she wants to impose her point of view on our media, why else would she be buying them? Especially as GetUp! has released a video of climate denier Christopher Monckton, whom Rinehart supports, urging just such a strategy. They want hired guns like Andrew Bolt and climate denier Joanne Nova to peddle a mining-friendly view.
Everyone has a right to express their opinion, but when the opinion is ill-informed and delivered angrily it becomes a rant. Unfortunately the ignorant rant is becoming legitimised as proper political discourse in Australia.
It features prominently in talkback radio and online comments. It pervades The Australian newspaper, as evident in its response to Robert Manne's detailed criticisms in his Quarterly Essay 'Bad News'.
The justification for the prevalence of ranting is the right to free speech. However free speech also implies responsibility. One responsibility is not to propagate falsehoods. Another is to reflect before mouthing off; to be aware of one's gut reactions and move through them to a more considered expression. This is known as emotional maturity, an increasingly scarce quality it seems. '
These responsibilities apply particularly to the media and those in the public realm.
Philosopher Karl Popper, writing in the context of threats from both left-wing communist dictators and right-wing fascist dictators, concluded that the most resilient society would be the one most willing to tolerate and cultivate a range of ideas.
The world is always throwing up new challenges. The broader the range of ideas a society can draw upon the more likely it is to meet such challenges and survive. Dictatorship severely restricts the range of ideas allowed currency, and thus limits the resilience of the society.
Short of dictatorship, there are those in Australia who seem to take pride in ignorance; tout their success as proof of its sufficiency, or present themselves as just part of the common ruck. This disdain for being informed cultivates illusion, the comforting belief that the world is as we want it. However an illusion is ultimately a lie, and our media are delivering too much illlusion.
Writer Jane Goodall reminds us that the late Czech intellectual and president Václav Havel pointed to the deeper effects of the oppression of his people. Oppressed people become so used to living in a lie that it infiltrates every aspect of their lives, until they can't deal honestly with each other or with themselves. We are not as oppressed as the Czechs were, but we are fed a manipulated reality.
As Goodall observes, 'An electorate dominated by resentment and punitive impulses can easily vote its way back into totalitarianism.' Havel understood that only if we are willing to speak the truth, to ourselves, to each other and in public, can we hope to extract ourselves from the mire of oppression. He suffered imprisonment and risked his life to do so.
Goodall further notes that 'Havel spoke always from a conviction that civic intelligence is the most valuable commodity in any nation, and its erosion is the greatest danger.'
Media operate only with our permission, explicit or implied, and broadcasting is a great privilege. We need to rein in the increasing distortion of our social and political conversations, and require responsibility as well as freedom of speech.
Dr Geoff Davies is a retired scientist, author and occasional commentator.