译者——守望者注：政治评论文章，意在反思媒体在政治报道中所应保持的立场。文中观点来自原作者, Gay Alcorn. 她是The Sunday Age的前编辑，也是The Age的专栏作家。 某些善于撰写悲剧的博客和微博写手着力渲染每个事件，表现得就像媒体巨人们的一个同谋，但是记者不能虚构（工党内部）争夺领导权的紧张局势 吉拉德总理领导的联邦政府已经无法正常运转，判断力低下且定格于民意调查。这是采写联邦议会新闻的记者们得出的结论。 Herald Sun专栏作家Terry McCrann说，吉拉德是“我们国家有史以来领导一个最糟糕的政府的最糟糕的总理”。 于是，我们便得知，公众对此感到异常震惊，以至于不愿意再听到这样的话。 让我们调换一个角度来看吧，如果这是澳洲人在历史上忍受的最糟糕的政治报道呢？水准失常，判断能力低下，迷恋于民意调查，假装关心政治辩论中的毒性。而公众呢，他们已经停止聆听。 如果政治家和媒体让他们口口声声为之服务的公众感到失望，公众就会抛弃他们。事情就是这么简单。 这么说，太尖刻了吗？我不这么认为。在过去的几天里，我们见证了相当一部分记者罕见地反思媒体在上周工党的闹剧中所扮演的角色。这不只是一次性的事件，而是渲染超过一年的所谓“内部消息来源”故事的高潮部分，其故事的主要内容是推断、预测（或甚至是宣告）吉拉德即将消亡。然而，当大幕揭开的时候，人们却发现，故事讲错了。 这不是一个简单的故事。某些善于撰写悲剧的博客和微博写手着力渲染每个事件，表现得就像是媒体巨人们的一个同谋，但是，在我的经验里，记者不能虚构争夺领导权的紧张局势。然而，上周，他们这么干了。 不具名的消息来源对记者（以及公众）来说，至关重要。它可以揭示政治家们堂而皇之的陈词滥调背后可能的无尽黑暗。吉拉德自己也犯了一系列的错误，更凸显了工党领导层内部的暗流涌动。 与吉拉德政府所遭到的抨击一样，媒体同样失去了公众的信任。就像倒霉的政府所面对的那样，媒体也陷入一场危机。Lenore Taylor，作为富有洞察力的记者中的一员，并没有逃避这个问题。他前几天在Fairfax的专栏中这样说：议会以及媒体都是依靠公众的信任而存在，“应该好好地停下来思考一下，怎样才能重新获得人们的信任.....对媒体而言，是时候放低身段来参加会议，并且解释我们如何讨论，我们的责任是提供可靠、内容充足以及有趣和公平的信息给公众。” 这就好像吉拉德跌倒在自己的长剑上一样。总理想“继续前进”，宛如近来发生的事情只不过是胜利大道上的一个令人失望的小插曲。媒体呢，似乎也不愿面对自残造成的伤口：当初，他们是如此一厢情愿，甚至急不可耐。他们月复一月地采用不具名的陆克文支持者的说法，不仅仅只是报道令人瞩目的争夺领导权的暗流，而是煽风点火，甚至捏造。 许多记者确实也权衡过Taylor所说的报道混乱的领导权之争的故事所需要遵从的重要原则，可事实上，他们被领导权更迭即将发生的大量传言所淹没。这使得公众不光是感到困惑，更感到荒谬不可信。 好吧，让我们暂停一会儿，回顾一下往事，再继续。去年2月27日，吉拉德以71票比31票在领导权之争中击败陆克文。而澳大利亚人报（The Australian）在当天早上的报道中说“吉拉德有望赢得今天的工党领导人之争，但是会面临持续的政治动荡，她的批评者们预测工党议员们会在今年晚些时候计划并寻求将陆克文推上领导人宝座。” 在这篇文章发表的时候，工党内部投票还没有开始呢。 稍后两个月，由于糟糕的民调数字和所犯的错误，似乎吉拉德的末日又到了。新闻集团的Niki Savva已经宣布：“对不起，吉拉德，一切都结束了。”然后，许多资深记者，包括The Age的Michelle Grattan都建议吉拉德引退（这真是戏剧性的一步，使得很难不让人察觉他们的立场）。 一位堪培拉时报（Canberra Times）的专栏作家在去年五月是这么谈论吉拉德的：“她所说的或所做的一切，都可以安全地忽略不计，与我们丝毫不相干。因为她在总理官邸（The Lodge）所待的日子将不会是以月为单位的，只是数周而已。” （媒体的）分析几乎全部依赖于民意调查。政府在去年接近年底的时候，似乎有了转机。“吉拉德的民意支持率反弹，意味着陆克文的厄运。”澳大利亚人报如是说。然后，事情再一次跟他们唱了反调。 数以百计的故事被出版和播出，经常是大幅突出报道，很少有质疑，总是来源于”消息“。但是，消息来源们在说谎，在搞宣传，在爆溜须拍马的”独家新闻“，并且总是拒绝署名。在这一点上，ABC的Barrie Cassidy上周写道：记者们应该告诉陆克文，“别再拉扯我们的链子了”。 问题远不止这些。新闻集团的领头羊，如The Australian、Herald Sun以及Fairfax内的一些资深记者都游说反对吉拉德。（在吉拉德上周获胜后，Herald Sun在头版叫嚷着“收拾掉这乱摊子吧”，并要求立刻举行大选。）如果这些媒体的大部分是明显攻击总理的，然后报道“新闻”说，她的领导权受到威胁。这如何让公众相信媒体如Lenore Taylor所说，是“可信且公平的”？ 如果说，吉拉德正面对信用危机；同样，媒体也是如此。如果吉拉德没有发现自己到底哪里做错了就不能“前行”，那些充足了电卯足了劲批判她的政府的媒体也是如此。 The verdict from the parliamentary press gallery is in: the Prime Minister's government is dysfunctional, with lousy judgment and a fixation with polls. Herald Sun columnist Terry McCrann says Julia Gillard is ''the worst prime minister in our history leading our worst-ever government''. The public, we are informed, is so appalled that it has stopped listening. Turn that around. What if this was the worst political reporting Australians have endured in history? Dysfunctional, with lousy judgment, fixated with polls, feigning concern about the toxicity of political discourse. And the public? They've stopped listening. If politicians and the media let down the public they purport to serve, then the public will reject them. Simple as that. Too harsh? I'm not so sure. In the past few days, we have witnessed rare reflection among a few journalists about the media's role in last week's Labor shemozzle. Not that it was a one-off, just the culmination of more than a year of ''sources say'' stories speculating or predicting (or even advocating) the imminent demise of Gillard. As it turned out, they were wrong. It is not a simple story. Some bloggers and twitter tragics interpret every event as a giant media conspiracy, but journalists do not make up leadership tensions in my experience and they didn't last week. Unnamed sources are essential for journalists (and the public) to get a sense, as murky as it might be, about what is happening beyond the bland public statements of politicians. And Gillard has made big blunders all on her own that heightened caucus rumblings. The more substantial criticism of the media is the same as the substantial criticism of Gillard's government - that it has lost the public's trust. It is a crisis just as existential as that facing the hapless government, if only we'd admit it. Lenore Taylor, one of the more insightful gallery journalists, didn't shirk it in a Fairfax column a few days ago: Parliament and the media, both reliant on public trust for their existence, ''should give long pause for thought about how that trust can be regained . . . for the media it now has to come down to meeting, and explaining how we are meeting, our responsibilities to be reliable and informative and interesting and fair''. That is about as likely as Gillard falling on her sword. The PM wants to ''move on'', as though recent events were a ''disappointing'' blip on the road to victory. The media seem equally loath to face their own self-inflicted wounds - how willingly, eagerly even, they were used by unnamed Rudd supporters month after month, not to report significant leadership rumblings, but to inflame them, even to create them. Many reporters did exercise the caution and checking Taylor says is vital to cover messy leadership stories, but the truth is they were drowned out by the weight, placement and sheer volume of stories suggesting a leadership change was just around the corner. It left the public not just confused but cynical. So let's pause for a moment before we move on. On February 27 last year, Julia Gillard defeated Kevin Rudd in a leadership ballot by a thumping 71 to 31 votes. This is how The Australian reported it that morning: ''Julia Gillard is poised to win today's Labor leadership ballot but faces ongoing political turbulence, with her critics predicting MPs will seek to draft Kevin Rudd to the leadership later this year.'' That was before the ballot was even held. A couple of months of bad polls and blunders later, Gillard's time was up. News Limited's Niki Savva had already declared that ''sorry Julia, it's over'', and senior journalists, including then Age correspondent Michelle Grattan, were suggesting Gillard should resign (a dramatic step that makes it hard not to be perceived as having a stake in the outcome). A Canberra Times columnist said of Gillard in May that ''anything she says or does can safely be ignored as irrelevant, because instead of months we can now number her time remaining in The Lodge as a matter of weeks''. The Herald Sun reported that Gillard ''is facing renewed pressure on her leadership with some Labor MPs wanting her to consider standing down as Prime Minister before the carbon tax begins on July 1. Increased chatter in ALP ranks about their dire election prospects even has some raising the prospect of a leadership change as early as next week.'' Analysis was linked almost entirely to opinion polls. Things looked up for the government towards the end of last year - ''Julia Gillard's poll bounce spells doom for Rudd,'' declared The Australian. Then they went south. Hundreds of stories were published and broadcast, often with prominence, rarely with scepticism, always quoting ''sources''. But sources lie, run agendas, ingratiate with ''scoops'' and always refuse to be named. At what point, as the ABC's Barrie Cassidy wrote last week, would journalists tell Rudd to ''stop pulling our chains?'' The problem goes deeper than that. News Limited mastheads such as The Australian and the Herald Sun - and some senior journalists in Fairfax - have all but campaigned against Gillard. (After she ''won'' last week, the Herald Sun screamed ''End This Mess'' on its front page, demanding an election now.) How can the public believe the media to be ''reliable and fair'', in Lenore Taylor's words, if large swaths of it are palpably hostile to the Prime Minister, then purport to report the ''news'' that her leadership is under threat? If Gillard has a credibility problem, so, too, does the media. If Gillard can't ''move forward'' without recognising what's gone wrong with her own performance, neither can those charged with critiquing her government. If politicians and the media let down the public they purport to serve, then the public will reject them. Simple as that. Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion ... .html#ixzz2PCh2I14U |
