Lights – Camera – Bigpictureshit!

Observation 1 – (I will eventually get to the point)

Many Aussies have decided to outsource their thinking to third parties. Consequently, there are an awful lot of dumb schmucks lurking around water fountains. Therefore Trump, COVID, immunisation, immigration, the environment, renewables, and the idea of an Indigenous voice all now provide a pivot for idiots to be idiots. In public. It can be disconcerting.

Now I am most certainly not being all moral. But the right-wingers are. They have been coming on real strong for the last few years. Idiotic stuff that belongs in the last century. In effect, we are seeing the flailing of the boomer generations as they dwindle in import and voting strength (I know I am feeling much less consequential by the minute). So before I tear into aspects of Aussie culture, I want to be careful to say that I kinda like us. I mean, a real lot. We are all grouse. Plus, most people in our country are nice. Not in an old-fashioned sort of way either. We are rightfully viewed as a remarkably well integrated and happy first world country that celebrates a multi-cultural heritage in a sophisticated and proactive manner.

Still, some things about our country are a bit fucked. Worse, we are collectively to blame; I told you this (ie, a rise of populist hate parties masquerading as political movements) would fucken happen; and you all collectively ignored me. We are, therefore, collectively at fault. Maybe you more than me. (Just sayin.)

Nevertheless, there has been a perceptible coarsening in tone and substance in the Australian political debate and in our press. Politeness and decorum seem to have been tossed out with the ‘woke’ and replaced with ten thousand narrowcast ‘facilities for communication’ that are all owned by one or another billionaire.

Later in this piece I will suggest that this transformation in our political proclivities and demeanour is not entirely detached from the substantial alterations we have seen in our domestic press and broadcast television environment over the last forty or so years. Which of course prompts one to consider what has changed and when did this alteration begin?

I will then go on a bit of a rant about how we – as Aussie consumers of the press – are in a diabolical pickle. Moreover, I am going to point a bony finger at some ready targets. I will also consider the recent rise of One Nation in the polls. But I do not want to (just) sound like a kook or an old fogey, so there is a need to first provide a bit more context.

Observation 2 – (I really will eventually get to the point)

I have been writing commentary on the media in Australia for forty years. Way back in the early days the news and magazine print sector included three big players, five or six smaller ones, lots of independent mastheads (especially in the regions) and so employed almost six times as many people as currently work in the industry. It was about the time I was doing a communication course in media in Adelaide in the late eighties that the industry began first bemoaning the looming loss of revenue to the incipient internet threat. Then over the next twenty years the newspaper industry in our country was utterly transformed.

When I first visited the Broadway area in Sydney the whole of the district rumbled gently to the tune of the three massive print mills that were running twenty-four hours a day, while every rabbit-warren building was peopled with a kaleidoscope of journalists, subbies, roundsmen, cadets, editors, and eternal noise and movement. However, the closing stages of the twentieth century saw the death of the old newsprint economic model.

During the nineteen seventies most suburban households in our country received a daily delivery of a near mountain of newsprint. The (2 or 3) weekend newspapers were three inches thick and were broken into four, five or six separate sections, all with reams of classified advertising. Twenty years later the papers were fewer, more homogenous, and one third the size. Two and a half decades later my adult daughter looks at me oddly when I buy a print newspaper – when I can find one.

Which almost provides enough of a context to not sound like a kookie conspiracy nut when I observe that I think that all of this has a big bearing on the recent flood of intolerant language and ideas into our political discourse. First and foremost it is important to acknowledge that eight out of ten of our commercial broadcast and print outlets are currently owned and operated by either a far-right wing commercial operation, or a far far right-wing American outfit. 1984 as a commercial/political operating manual. What could possibly go wrong?

Observation 3 – (nearly there)

I suggest that the story of the rise of populist right-wing politics in Australia is actually a subplot in this larger picture (see 1 and 2 above). You see, in the closing decades of last century all of the big press magnates began eating up each other as their revenue streams began to slide. They argued to the government that they had to be allowed to do this because otherwise all the regional newspapers and most of the newsrooms in the capital cities would be wiped out by the new digital age.

Moreover, our governments, of all stripes, swallowed this whole. So, over the last forty years, we have seen press ownership in our country become ever more concentrated. Until we have arrived at precisely the worst-case situation.

We were promised that vertical and horizontal integration would make for large enough companies to sustain a broad regional footprint and resist the inroads of the turn to the digital environment. But most of the small regional mastheads were bought up and then closed. Our once vibrant and relatively big news industry has been reduced to only three players plus the ABC.

To say that the public interest has not been served is a ridiculous understatement. The public interest was taken out into the public square and auctioned off to the highest bidder. Then it was pack raped by millionaires. Ever since our governments, especially our labor governments, continue to go cap in hand to the masters of our print universe whenever they happen to be in the USA.

A bit more background that is directly relevant (sorta)

I want to circle back to when it seems that the tone of the press environment really changed. Namely, during and after the Voice referendum. Ever since our mastheads and broadcast media has not just been full of silly Trump stuff but also some really obnoxious vibes. Which allows me to quote myself from three years ago. So, I present the following long quote strictly as further context and not as a way of saying ‘I told you all this would fucking happen’.

From The Great Australian Gaslighting September 2023:

The difficulty with political commentary such as this is that it commonly hides behind the proposition that all that is being advanced is merely an ‘opinion’. So, even though the author is presenting puerile and tangibly insulting claptrap which is quite obviously designed to reinforce many of the commonplace lies that are currently circulating within the right-wing media, it is not illegal (even though it is palpably dishonourable and despicable). Nor should it be illegal. What is needed is to address the root cause of this problem, which is that we only have two large media conglomerates in our country, one of which is a right-wing outfit, while the other is a far-right wing organisation that is owned by Americans and is run from America… .

Regulating the minutiae of the press is not an option, simply because it does not work. It will not address this problem. The right wing in Australia know that they are pandering to a racist minority and they carefully, yet quite consciously, craft articles such as that quoted above, which are all dog-whistle and no substance. These many utterly objectionable articles are not being written by fools, nor are they being read by fools. A racist dog-whistle is being sounded gleefully and its meaning is being clearly understood. If you change the rules then the tune being played will simply change – yet the noxious intent and the facility to do mischief will remain. As Marcia Langton observes,

They’re very clever falsehoods. They appeal to the long-held tropes of discrimination. You know, we’ve heard words like ‘squalid’, ‘underbelly’, ‘maintain the rage’ thrown about. It’s as if, you know, the frontier wars were still happening. It’s very disappointing that so many Australians have been deceived…

But I am not as forgiving as Marcia. I know that many of the people who are throwing these racist tropes about are doing so quite deliberately. Yes, many readers are being deceived, but many others are enthusiastic about being given the chance to air their repugnant racist views in public without drawing down upon themselves any well-deserved derision.

Thus, we are all witnessing the Great Australian Gaslighting of 2024. It may or may not be successful.

Very nearly relevant stuff (but mostly more ‘I told you so’)

I suggest that we are now inhabiting that dystopian reality that I have been warning you about for the last fucking forty years. I am pointing my bony finger right at you, my reader. If you have followed me so far then you are likely literate, interesting in a nerdy sort of way, and probably a bit progressive. I have blamed everyone else over the years so now I am blaming you, personally.

Look what you have done to my fucking country, you bloody nerd! Our domestically produced newsprint and broadcast media is now sometimes pitiable, often worse. The main masthead in every eastern state is owned and operated by an American corporation closely aligned with the current White House. We are talking about going into the nuclear sub business with a deteriorating regime that wants to pick a fight with everyone, all at once. We have about three domestic and five regional stations all dishing up the very same nonsense from the only five newsrooms that are left standing. Or a million cable or subscription choices. (Which is why, recently, our domestic media sources have been slowly shedding Gen Z and millennials.)

And stop telling me to calm down. Successive Australian governments have rolled over and allowed the press barons to tickle their tummies, even as they have moved to slowly devour the entire print and broadcast media in our country. And you voted them in. As a result, when the Voice referendum proposition rolled around, which had been a bipartisan proposal from the start, the press barons decided that our domestic political environment was far too peaceful, and left-leaning. So all ethical considerations were suddenly jettisoned to the political moment. Ever since, racist claptrap seems to be mainstream.

I know my demographics. Most who read this will be in their forties or better and so will remember that one of the most reliable yardsticks of our modern press environment (ie, circa late eighties) was that it was generally considered a good idea to not allow bigoted or racist tropes or claptrap to be given much air time.

Then it suddenly isn’t? I keep calling out all of this racist anti-immigrant claptrap because I have heard the likes of Pauline and Clive et al in my ears all my adult life. It is all dog-whistle nonsense funded by billionaire money and informed and defined by an utter lack of ethics. Or, in short, it is right-wing political grifting.

The reach of the FOX brand as Sky News into all corners of Australia has had a discernible impact. A great many Aussies have been deceived into thinking that just a few simple changes will fix some complex and long-standing problems, and that immigration, renewable power, and ‘woke’ are directly responsible.

Consequently, we get booing at ANZAC days, lousy media that is ever further strident and political, a huge disaffected rump of right-wing nonsense, and morning television. Poor fellow, my country.

The conclusion (at last)

Most of our country is peopled by reasonably well-settled individuals who are not startled easily. Some of them are even able to remember recent years and, in rare cases, a few decades. It is two years before a federal election, and the press is collectively demanding that the population rise up and guillotine our political masters.

Nevertheless, when viewed in the broad, from a perspective of decades rather than the political cycle, it is also discernible that as the mainstream delivery systems are simultaneously delivering hundreds of new channels of content, at the same time this politicisation of news and content is driving most of the growing audience segments away from domestic sources. Until we reach the point where today, Alexander Downer was lecturing the populace, on the front page of the Australian, about how the embracing of the idea of ‘multiculturalism’ was actually a dire mistake. Oh dear.

Trump is stumbling over his own feet in the Middle East and promising a quick resolution a squillion times a day while playing the market and hocking watches and phones. Yet our only ‘National’ broadsheet wants to revert to a world without the gay and the sushi, and some old dude from years gone by is warbling about how ‘back in my day’… We deserve a lot better. Sure, but it also means that the circle is turning. The right-wing ecosystem and its baleful effects will fade as their elderly audience fades.

Most importantly you can fix it. Just vote. The young will vote progressively and strive to understand the complexity of the moment. The right-wing will remain fractured and silly, and increasingly irrelevant. It is ever more obvious that the arc of the moral universe swings both ways and is rainbow coloured. WTF. The angry stuff is increasingly irrelevant. So are their stations, newspapers, and broadcasts. Ten more years and the death rattle will be palpable.

I don’t know what will come next but it has to be better than this. If I had been more influential, I would have just been ignored by even more people. If you had voted differently and actually protested occasionally, then the same shit would likely have happened. But I am bitter and angry and it is convenient to blame the progressive left for not giving a damn. Or enough of a damn. And I told you so! (Damn, I promised not to say that.)

The good news is we must have hit rock bottom by now.

Dr JiMM