The most common defence of ‘he said she said’ journalism is that reporting both sides with wide-eyed ignorance about the merits of their claims is at least ‘objective’ and it’s true in a way. I remember having dinner with some relatives in Italy when a heated argument broke out between a couple who were friends of my rellies – an attractive Italian man and an even more attractive woman. I told them that I could sort out the argument because I couldn’t understand a word of it and so I could be perfectly objective about who won. I picked the woman.
In any event, part of the pathology of current media values is that ‘he said she said’ is really a contest between he and she, so you can also – without offering any evidence or evaluation – racecall the very debate you’re ‘he said she said’ reporting. Yesterday Tony Abbott made a joke about Julia Gillard’s refusal to debate him when she was in front saying that people were suggesting (Julia was suggesting) that “when it comes to Julia, no doesn’t mean no”.
Now there are some people who claim to be offended by this comment – because it makes a reference to a sensitive topic: the idea that sexual consent is not always straightforward. I recall being irritated with that criticism yesterday. I guess some people might disagree, but I thought it was a good line and the mere fact that the expression comes from an area of life that’s sensitive doesn’t mean it’s off limits to a bit of humour.
Given that Tony repeated it several times, and then defended himself vigorously, he presumably liked the idea of this debate and thought of it as a moment he could show himself as the Son of John Howard. In any event the story filed by Kirsty Needham from the Age led “It was designed to be the big day for women” and explaining how this had distracted Tony Abbott’s campaign. Did the writer know this? Nope. She then followed up by reporting that he said that he wasn’t going to cop the smears against his use of the term from the Labor Party, provided no reporting on what the Labor Party had said on this, if anything and then reported that she (a Greens candidate) said that Tone’s comment was ‘inappropriate’.
He said it was OK, she said it was ‘innappropriate’ but the subbie got to sum it all up in the headling.
In all honesty, I associate the phrase “no means no” more closely to admonishing a whinging child, than with date rape.
The whole thing is blown way out of proportion. People can read into it however they like, but it doesnt actually change anything about either Tony Abbott or the Liberal party.
It wouldnt be the first time that Tony Abbott’s remarks were blown way out of proportion, or taken out of context, or said to have some sort of double entendre.
If this is the best that Labor can do, its pretty pathetic.
I definitely support the #hesaidshesaid campaign, but I’m not sure this is an example of it.
I think this is something that’s just as common and much more invidious. I think of this kind of thing as “Cookie Cutter” journalism ie forcing reality through the cookie cutter of the journalists narrative (alternatively could be described as Round Peg Square Hole journalism – same point). As a result, the ‘message’ that the story contains is frequently totally foreign to what actually occurred, or even (as is the case in your example above) the direct quotes used in the story in the story.
You can see why many on the political side of the relationship feel more spinned against than spinning.
dorinny – did you even read Nick’s post? No one on the Labor side has been beating this up. It’s not ‘the best Labor can do’ – it’s not even something that they ARE doing.
I’m sorry, but I disagree that Abbott’s joke was “a good line”, especially given that he repeated it four times in the same interview so it was obviously not just an off-the-cuff expression, and given his history of demeaning women.
Check the Get Up advert: The man is a serial misogynist, and no amount of “taken out of context” excuses will suffice.
BTW, Abbott’s claim of a “typical Labor smear” is entirely unfounded. He said the words himself -four times, each time in his own context- and then it was journalists’ tweeting that established the “gaffe” meme. When Gillard was asked to comment, she wisely did not rise to the bait.
Ozymandias,
Sorry that what I’ve said doesn’t chime in with preconceptions peddled by a Get Up ad.
But as far as what I’m saying it’s not that he was ‘taken out of context’. And not that we should cut him slack because what he said was off the cuff. As I said in my post, though one can’t know, it looks like a prepared comment and I thought it was apposite.
Julia is, literally enough, in a position where she’s saying that one of her ‘no’s doesn’t (any longer) mean ‘no’.
So why is it somehow wrong to say so?
Tim,
Yes, technically this is not ‘HeSaidSheSaid’ journalism. Rather it is some perverted obverse of it – as I tried to outline.
And I’ve thought of another hashtag #RaceCalling. But there are so many pathologies in this carcase called media values that I’m thinking I need a coverall hashtag.
Any suggestions?
Just following my last comment, shorter hashtags are better but maybe #MediaCarcase isn’t all bad.
Tim, my apologies, I meant to say – “if this is the best that the labor-leaning mainstream media can do, its pretty pathetic”.
dorinny, I think you’ll find that the first journalist to run with this story was Samantha Maiden. I think she would have issues if you, or anyone, described her as labor-leaning.
Nick,
My initial reaction to the generic hashtag was #4thEstateFAIL , which is satisfying in terms of snark, but doesn’t really convey a message.
Essentially, He Said She Said, Horse Race and Cookie Cutter journalism are all a function of the same root cause – namely a misguided attempt to avoid perceptions of bias. In he said she said, you don’t make a value judgement, you just report the facts. In horse-race journalism, you don’t say that either party is substantively better or worse than the other, just that they are playing the game better or worse worse than the other (the rules of which are implicitly assumed to be accepted by all sides). And for Cookie Cutter journalism, the narrative that you are trying to make events fit within has been written so many times before that you are so safely ensconced within the media group think that no one could criticise you for being biased (any more so than everyone is).
There’s a fair bit of literature looking at this question (though some of it could be described as being from the field of Media Studies so grain of salt may be required).
So a generic hashtag that didn’t pick up on this common root cause would be a wasted opportunity I think. I don’t have a better hashtag off the top of my head but I’ll think about it through the afternoon and repost at the end of the day…
Cheers,
Tim
Still not inspired. #4thEstateFAIL best I can come up with.
Maybe:
#FailureOfthePress
#UReportWeDecide
#UrKillingDemocracy
#SouffléJournalism
So what’s wrong with #MediaCarcase
Nothing so wrong in my book!
Was just trying to generate additional ideas…
OK – action plan is this. I’m going to do a new post, proposing #MediaCarcase with some of your suggestions in the post, and then I’ll run it up the tweetpole and see if anyone twerps, tweets or becomes otherwise helpful.
[…] comprehend quite a few moves, not all of which fit properly within the HSSS description, and, as my last post on the subject illustrates, sometimes bring on something resembling the opposite of HSSS which is […]
Something I wrote earlier today – and left sitting on my computer – this is apropos Tim’s comment no. 10.
One thing though I think the root cause of RaceCalling journalism is only very superficially the pull of an empty kind of objectivity. After all, they often call that one side ‘won’ a debate or whatever.
I think it’s the push of entertainment. As I’ve written here before, one of the odd things about for profit magazines on consumer issues – take car magazines for instance – is that they gravitate towards football style commentaries in which the centre of the story is not which car is better and why, but the competition between the marques.
If this can happen with cars, where the journos can work out the straight consumer story much more easily and the competition between the marques cannot be personalised or really in any way fleshed out except with formulas (“The General down at Fisherman’s Bend wasn’t pleased at how quickly Ford had copied its rear spoiler on its GT yada yada”) how much more compelling is the ‘contest’ angle in politics.
Perhaps it makes sense to just finish the job — get rid of the journalists completely and just publish transcripts of whatever public speeches and debates come along. It would be a more useful body of work, more honest, and cheaper to produce. Facts sans pretension.
Get google to index the thing, whack a banner ad at the top and bottom of the page to pull in enough to pay for a bit of hosting. You could run a full media empire with half a dozen employees. All the bloggers would want to link to your page so they can cite quotes or whatever to have an opinion on.
I notice that the Age story is followed up by an on-line poll on its website: “do you think Tony Abbott’s comments were inappropriate?”.
Is this an example of “he said, she said, they said” journalism?
Nope, I don’t think it’s an example of HSSS. But it is an example of beat up and triviality.
I get the feeling that the offence at Tony Abbott came first and his use of this phrase gave people an excuse to be publicly offended. After all – there was no offense at Greens Senator Scott Ludlum when he used the phrase.
Besides which I don’t see why this phrase should be inevitably associated with a publicity campaign, however worthwhile that particular publicity campaign may be. Language is for communication first, not commercialism.
Left hatred of Tony Abbott is, potentially, so misplaced and exaggerated that it could end up letting Abbott win – by polarising otherwise apolotical voters, and by encouraging exaggerated responses to minor slip ups, thus averting attention away from more important campaign issues.
This hits me as a win for Abbott.
Once again everyone is slapped in the face with “political correctness” where a sensible comment about a straightforward matter is suddenly twisted and reinterpreted to have some sort of hidden meaning that rules a lot of words and phrases off limits for those who aren’t the illuminated select.
No, the labor party has not been involved, very carefully so. Because they know that this is a subject that people will automatically hand to the coalition, regardless of the facts of the particular case.
Just like the coalition would not want to bring up the subject of, for example, damage to the environment. Voters tend to automatically award that subject to Labor (regardless of the facts of that particular case once again) and so the best thing for the coalition is to not mention it and hope people don’t think about it.