Outnumbered, surrounded. The reporters you’d want in a showdown
They’re outnumbered, outgunned and surrounded.
Daily, they duke it out with MPs and bureaucrats who have raised an army of well-paid, taxpayer-funded spin doctors. The person to the left of them in the media scrum wants to tell the same story, but better and faster. The person to the right shouts over them every time they attempt to ask a question. They require a detailed understanding of policy, but don’t get too comfortable! At the drop of a hat, they may need to sprint through parliamentary halls to a press conference or drive to a ribbon cutting and spar with a career politician dressed like a brickie’s labourer.
Journalists in the Canberra press gallery match wits with seasoned politicians such as Barnaby Joyce.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
It’s a strange life political reporters lead. But consider for a moment, where we would be without them.
Four times this week I was reminded of the necessity of having some of our best journalists reporting on the actions of the people we elect to represent us in government.
The first reminder was our coverage of the Allan government’s youth justice crackdown. As Kieran Rooney, Rachel Eddie, Chip Le Grand and Angus Delaney reported on Wednesday morning, the Allan government plans to appropriate the Queensland Liberal-National government’s “adult crime, adult time” approach to rampant youth offending in Victoria (“adult time for violent crime” is the preferred slogan here). Despite limited time and information, our reporters managed to bring the story to you with a level of context and insight that belied the short notice they were given of the impending announcement.
Premier Jacinta Allen announces her government’s crackdown on youth crime. Credit: Christopher Hopkins
This follow-up story from Le Grand and Rooney the next day is an excellent example of the value talented reporters can add to the “story of the week” when they probe beyond the announcements to find out how and why decisions were made. This is not easy work, given the aforementioned challenges, but Le Grand and Rooney frequently make it look so when they deliver news like this to subscribers with breadth, depth and a few trademark Le Grand flourishes. (If you’re looking for more of those, you’ll enjoy this column about what the federal Liberals can learn from their state counterparts on environment policy.)
Which brings me to the second reminder of the need for skilled political reporting: the federal Liberals’ internecine brawl over a net zero target. It’s a story that could be consequential to this country’s approach to climate policy for years to come.
Age subscribers have been the first to know most of the major developments in this story thanks to the news-breaking talents of our chief political correspondent Paul Sakkal. They’ve had the consequences unpacked and analysed by our chief commentator and press gallery veteran James Massola. They’ve had the Libs’ position dissected by environment editor Nick O’Malley and examined by federal climate and energy reporter Mike Foley.
Our bureau photographer Alex Ellinghausen has captured the drama in an extraordinary series of images over the past fortnight that demonstrate the importance of photography in reporting, while recent Canberra arrivals Brittany Busch and Nick Newling have not missed a beat filing regular news updates and live blogs from every corner of Parliament House. Tomorrow you’ll have all these threads pulled together by one of our Canberra bureau’s best storytellers, Natassia Chrysanthos, so stay tuned for that.
There were two other stories that didn’t receive the same prominence as net zero or youth justice, but which showed the value of having talented and dedicated political journalists on the beat. One was from state political reporter Daniella White. It was a simple yet important example of our duty to hold governments to account for the promises they make. White’s exclusive report revealed a Victorian government move to allow taxes collected from developers in growth areas to be spent elsewhere, raising concerns those funds may not always benefit the area where the money is collected.
The other was from her bureau chief Chip Le Grand, who found the right words to mark a much discussed but genuinely significant milestone for Victoria: the signing of the state’s treaty with its Indigenous peoples.
From left: First Peoples’ Assembly co-chair Rueben Berg, Premier Jacinta Allan, Minister for Treaty Natalie Hutchins and assembly co-chair Ngarra Murray sign Victoria’s statewide treaty at Government House.Credit: Justin McManus
These examples are just a sample of the prolific output of our Spring Street and Canberra teams in the past week. And I haven’t yet mentioned our coverage of local government, an area in which The Age has a proud history of reporting.
All our political journalists play an important watchdog role holding governments and their bureaucracies to account and giving you the information you need to make informed decisions at the ballot box. They do so under extreme pressure and with the deck stacked against them; they contend with efforts to either hide information from them – and by extension you, our subscribers – or to provide information selectively to alter the flavour of their reporting. They are constantly navigating this minefield.
Like so much of what we do under the pressure of rolling daily deadlines, we do not always get our political journalism right. We do, however, try our best to make sure our subscribers are the most politically informed in the country. And in an approach that has become increasingly rare in the Australian media landscape, our stories are selected and shaped using a filter of newsworthiness, rather than ideology.
In that regard, I think our subscribers are in good hands, at all levels of government. If you were outnumbered, outgunned and surrounded, they’re the reporters you’d want by your side.
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