GIVE GERMAINE A GOBFULL! urged the Daily Telegraph, after Greer's critique of the late Steve Irwin. The newspaper helpfully published her agent's number, suggesting readers phone in their fury.
HAS REALITY TV GONE TOO FAR? asked a promo for A Current Affair, directing its question at the perceived ethical shortcomings of a rival program. The answer, remarkably, was "maybe".
And it's not only the commercial media organisations that seem to be losing their grip on reality. The ABC's recently rewritten Editorial Policies document warns that, "Staff involved in satirical content need to consider the potential for satire to cause harm to groups or individuals." Er, yes - there wouldn't be much point to satire otherwise. (The ABC axed The Glass House anyway.)
Why do our media organisations now seem so close to unravelling? It's always tempting to search for grand themes that offer a convenient, catch-all explanation. The truth is more complex and scattered. We've come to a point where a handful of powerful yet disconnected impulses are tugging the media in different directions. The brash, self-regarding confidence that characterised so much of Australia's print and electronic output has largely evaporated. The old swagger is gone.
New technology undermines the media's poise because few local editors and producers understand it. The newspapers' embrace of the www world was motivated more by fear of being left behind than by any genuine expectation of journalistic improvements or expansion. Their rush to re-version themselves on the internet came largely without a workable strategic plan as to how the two forms would then support each other as businesses. The more prominent writers were given blogs on which to blather, adding to their workload without adding to the number of people willing to pay cash for a daily newspaper.
Commercial television fears everyone else. Ever so slowly, its audience is seeping away to other forms of communication and entertainment. The many niche channels on pay-TV threaten the networks' audience reach and advertising share; broadcast technology gallops ahead of free-to-air's capacity to adapt. So far, the companies' response has been to use the immense political clout they've accumulated since 1956 to ensure that, whatever might lie over the digital horizon, no government musters the courage to dismantle their monopoly. For its part, pay-TV worries that the growth in subscribers has slowed, while the cost of delivering the service keeps climbing. After ten years, Foxtel has finally crept into modest profit but, divided between Packer, Murdoch and Telstra, the surplus would barely pay for a decent weekend of polo.
Nervousness and insecurity breed weak judgment and anguished introspection. There's been a parallel tone of strident, almost hectoring journalism that reveals a crisis of confidence. This has expressed itself in the bizarre new levels of competitive frenzy within the television industry, and in the newspapers' persistent delusions of editorial grandeur and influence. Australia's media have managed the extraordinary trick of being off the deep end and up themselves at the same time.
Case in point: the national rate of HIV infection is at its highest level in ten years. But when it came to reporting these horrifying results, the ‘journal of record' broadsheets reduced the story to a few short pars. They devoted far more space - on the same day - to celebrating the nominations of their own staff for Walkley Awards. Self-praise effortlessly outweighed the obligation to give significant news the prominence it deserved.
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