In between the transmission of Kitchen Cabinet’s special editions featuring the competing party leaders in the 2013 election, it’s an opportune moment to ask: what is it about these human interest-oriented…
- Professor of Journalism, Media and Communication, Queensland University of Technology
The great challenge for the Australian political media this week will not be that of accurately predicting the outcome of Saturday’s election. Rather, it will be to maintain public interest in what has…
The prime minister did better in Wednesday’s people’s forum than in the first debate, but failed to deliver the game changing performance he needed. On the contrary, negative media coverage of his alleged…
The prime minister was right to finally agree to participate in Sky News’ ‘people’s forum’ televised debate, scheduled for this coming Wednesday. It’s good for the media campaign, and voters’ engagement…
Towards the end of Week 2 of the campaign the parties and their leaders have settled into a steady, stoic rhythm. After a spectacular first week which put the media at the forefront of the campaign, News…
Brian McNair & Stephen Harrington Audiences like spontaneity and accessibility in their politicians. They tell us this in the research we political communication scholars do, and one doesn’t need a…
If TV debates were won on the delivery of detail about policy, Kevin Rudd would have won this debate hands down. It poured out of him in long, wordy paragraphs, too fast to really take in. But if presentation…
I wake to the promise of blue skies and 26 degrees in Brisbane this late winter Saturday, and a welcome day of R&R. No rest for our election candidates, however, as they go into the first full weekend…
The first week of what is shaping up to be a great election campaign ended as it began – with the media at the forefront of the agenda. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp Australia has been firmly in focus all…
Two developments this late afternoon of Day 3 - Richo, as his Sky News fans know him (Graham Richardson to the rest of us) tells David Speers on PM Agenda that no commercial media will scrutinise or challenge…
One of the most interesting issues in these first few days of the campaign is how News Corp reports the lack of detail and depth in Coalition policy. You know they want to back Tony to the hilt, but they…
It was a long day, Day 1 of this five week marathon, most of it spent in front of my TV, flipping between Sky News and ABC 24. In the evening I wound down with some trash reality TV - Married To Medicine…
Paul Sheehan’s assertion that Col ‘Pot’ Allan has returned to Australia to put an end to the Rudd government is probably true, but misses the point. I read The Australian. I subscribe to the app. It is…
This election will be one of the most interesting and unpredictable in Australia’s history, and also one of the most important. Two very different approaches to meeting the challenges of the Asian century…
Widespread cost cutting in newsrooms has led to less investigative journalism, more weather and traffic reports and greater opportunities for lobbyists to get their message into the media, a US report…
There are at least two points of convergence in this week’s parliamentary deliberations on media freedom in Australia and the UK. Both are driven by reports – Finkelstein and Leveson respectively – responding…
We live in an era of expanded media and accelerated news cycles, in which citizens have access to more information, and more opportunities to participate in the public sphere, than ever before in human…
Australian print and online news organisations will be self-regulated through voluntary membership of a press standards body, under media reforms proposed by the Federal Government today. The reforms comprise…
Fairfax chief executive Greg Hywood has dismissed the threat from the impending Australian launch of UK media group The Guardian, telling shareholders it is not a strong competitive brand in Australia…
Britain’s newspaper editors met in a London hotel last week in a bid to fend off statutory regulation of their activities. Warned by prime minister David Cameron on Tuesday that unless they accepted all…
Few public inquiries have been so closely followed by the British press, or its findings awaited by them with such nervous anticipation as Lord Leveson’s into their culture, practices and ethics. The waiting…
Communication Minister Stephen Conroy’s recent decision not to impose a mandatory internet filter on sexually explicit content is a welcome injection of realism into the frequently febrile discussion of…
As the BBC considers splitting the role of its chief executive and editor-in-chief, should the ABC give serious thought to adopting a similar model? The ongoing turmoil at the BBC over an ever widening…
To get one Newsnight story about child abuse wrong could be regarded as an unfortunate lapse of editorial management by the BBC. To mess up two such stories in quick succession is much more than careless…
It may just be coincidence that this week’s charging of former News International executives Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks for alleged phone-hacking offences came just days after Rupert Murdoch announced…
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