It’s bad enough that Twitter is a putrid trough of polarisation where angry people sup for repeated hits of unplugged outrage. But please, can we keep that trash away from serious newspapers? When former ABC journalist Jon Faine decided to bring the stench of Twitter to readers of The Age, he did readers and the paper a disservice. He let down the best interests of the country, too.
The unstated precis of Faine’s thesis was: Damn Sydney. Damn you for managing Covid differently, doing it better for so long. Damn you for setting up easy and effective QR codes, and having nimble contact tracing systems, and not locking down an entire state. Damn you for having a premier who speaks with empathy, a sense of proportion and common sense. Damn you for being the biggest state economy in Australia where borders are not slammed shut on the whiff of an interstate Covid case. Damn you.
Now you have a “decent cluster”. It will do those “self-righteous”, “smug and self-important” Sydneysiders some good “to be knocked off their high perch”, he wrote. But, hey, “I sincerely hope no one gets sick and no one dies.”
There will always be brutal, even offensive, political disagreements between opposing sides. Without that, democracy would wither. But Faine’s good Jon/bad Jon schtick revealed him as a purveyor of outrage, stoking division and polarisation between two states as millions of people across Sydney and its regions entered a two-week lockdown.
Instead of trying to persuade people with sound arguments, Faine opted to divide, preying on people’s base instincts. Though he made sensible points about the federal government playing politics over Covid when it suits, and its feeble handling of the vaccination program, Faine couldn’t resist undermining himself with gratuitously wicked nonsense about Sydney people needing the smugness knocked out of them.
The Age’s decision to run it is hard to fathom. Did editor Gay Alcorn imagine readers would gain insight from a man determined to paint millions of Sydneysiders as so conceited they deserved a jolly good lockdown? Presumably when the paper baulked at Daniel Andrews trying to hand-pick Faine as interviewer for his political comeback this week, editors judged that Faine wasn’t balanced enough given his other job producing a public health campaign for the Andrews government. Yet The Age published his deranged diatribe, which seemed aimed at boosting Andrews’ political fortunes.
Trying to rationalise this piece on the basis that Sydney deserves some of the flak Victorians copped during their lockdown won’t wash. Bad jokes during Victoria’s lockdown were relegated to the Twitter sewer and other rank social media platforms. To be sure, the Melbourne newspaper can print what it chooses. That’s the joy of free speech and a free press. But critiquing policy, politicians and process is far superior to crapping on an entire people.
The former ABC radio host’s effort has turned him into the poster boy of the #IstandwithDan Twitter mob. This group of sycophantic fans of the Victorian Premier was unperturbed when the Andrews government deflected responsibility for a bungled hotel quarantine program that led to more than 768 deaths, locked down citizens for longer than any state, imposed the most draconian restrictions on them, disrupted the education of kids, stripped income from people’s pockets, wrecked businesses and damaged people’s mental health.
As John Ferguson reported a few weeks ago, Labor hardheads are worried by the unhinged support from this throng. Most likely public servants and others who are unaffected by the worst consequences of lockdowns, the louder they sing Andrews’ praises the more damage they do to the re-election prospects of Labor in Victoria because normal folk may turn away from a premier who attracts such a nutty fan-mob.
Gladys Berejiklian has opted for a different style of leadership to the Victorian Premier. It’s not just a matter of tone, though the NSW Premier has been at pains to assure people that trust is a two-way street and that common sense and proportion must be part of dealing with this virus. Covid management by Berejiklian, along with her chief health officer, Kerry Chant, and Health Minister Brad Hazzard, has focused on ensuring that QR codes are effective and easy to use, that contact tracers react nimbly to outbreaks that inevitably will happen, imposing proportionate restrictions, including local lockdowns rather than statewide lockdowns favoured by other states.
It is not a matter of politics to point out that Berejiklian has set the gold standard for handling Covid, even with this latest outbreak. South Australia’s Liberal leader Steven Marshall, who shut down an entire state on a single case, not even allowing people to walk their dog, is not held up as an example of sensible, proportionate Covid management.
Neither is the Liberal Prime Minister setting a high standard in educating Australians about the unreality of an elimination strategy. Under Scott Morrison, the lucky country has become the prison nation. This derangement continues because Morrison and his cabinet are not speaking frankly with Australians.
On Monday Morrison said Britain has “got over 100 people dying every week … that’s not a situation that I’m prepared to countenance”. It is plainly misleading, instilling fear and continued insularity, to talk about numbers rather than death rates as a proportion of population.
Berejiklian is the only leader in the country who has tried to add a modicum of common sense to our longer-term management of Covid. Given elimination is not a serious policy, she wants the country to stop counting cases and focus on hospitalisations and death rates. That will temper hysteria that leads to lockdowns and more honestly reflect the impact of the virus on the community. Her suggestion landed in national cabinet like a lead balloon.
Scribbling polarising tirades that play to fear, outrage and envy is easy, and best done on Twitter where people expect that tripe. Responsible people in the respectable parts of the media will help Australians, including those who are fearful or angry or envious, come to grips with harder truths. Like other countries, we will experience Covid outbreaks for years to come and we need to manage them without crude and disproportionate restrictions that harm so many people.
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