Journalists speaking truth to power must learn to cop criticism

For all his inconsistencies, Donald Trump has a point about the thin-skinned media. Journalists are not a protected species.

Some media have cast Malcolm Turnbull, left, as a racist dog-whistler.

Newspapers across the US have published editorials reiterating the freedom of the press, restating their missions and condemning what they describe as “attacks on the press”. In a campaign initiated by The Boston Globe and cham­pioned by The New York Times, the widespread complaining does not relate to any new or mooted laws, controls or restrictions. Rather, this is an orchestrated ­defence against words directed at the media by Donald Trump.

The President has decried “fake news” and dubbed its purveyors “enemies of the people” while he shirtfronts mainstream media as part of his anti-establishment crusade. The reaction, from what is supposed to be a robust and free media, is telling. There was precious little self-analysis about whether the media has been covering Trump honestly, objectively and dispassionately, nor is there consideration of how news organisations might regain the trust of the public. Instead, in the way of our age, the media claimed victim status and ­denounced Trump for oppressing journalists. And more than 300 newspapers proclaimed their independence by running similar editorials.

In Sydney last year, US columnist Bret Stephens delivered a thoughtful Lowy Lecture on the “dying art of disagreement” but, in my view, undermined his case with a similarly thin-skinned reaction to his President. “Trump’s comments on journalists and the general effort to poison the well against members of our profession enrages me,” he said. Trump’s ­tirades are aggressive, sometimes wrongheaded and may even be “demagogic”, as Stephens described them — but so what? If a journalist’s job is to speak truth to power then the least they should expect is sharp ripostes. The appropriate media response is more journalism, not reclassifying journalists as a protected species. Could we really empower the press to attack its chosen targets with ferocity yet give it immunity from criticism?

For all his inconsistencies and self-justification, Trump has a point about the media, and it is a noteworthy element of his success. He has harnessed distrust of the mainstream media as a potent political weapon. Disdain for the media is a leitmotif identifying him as the outsider enjoined with the forgotten people in a battle against the establishment. The ploy could never work unless the media was involuntarily complicit through its own failings and prejudices.

Journalism groupthink is often wrong — it has been all along on Trump — and it behoves us to ­consider how this jaundice is not merely a partisan issue but can sometimes work against the ­national interest. In this country most media outlets have been stubbornly on the wrong side of the border protection issue, ignoring facts and spinning arguments through twists and turns over two decades. Likewise, journalists have tended to be in lock-step on climate and energy, spruiking alarmist scenarios, favouring a price on carbon and advocating various ­actions regardless of likely outcomes. As in most liberal democracies, our journalists skew to the Left and, naturally, describe a version of reality they desire.

This is a fact of life fascinating to observe and dissect but often ­inconsequential — voters don’t take their cues from media spin or advocacy, and skilled political prac­titioners should be clever enough to negotiate paths around media traps. However, with our political system persistently verging on dysfunction, we must consider the possible culpability of the media. While we all recognise Trump’s propensity for overstatement, maybe he’s on to something.

Look at the ugly debate over immigration this week. The hard-hearted extremism of senator ­Fraser Anning might be traced to a distorted public debate. The political/media class often brands mainstream politicians such as Tony Abbott, Peter Dutton and even Malcolm Turnbull as racist dog-whistlers simply for being prepared to discuss the ­reality of South Sudanese gang crime problems in Melbourne or enacting successful ­border protection policies. This ­insults people with legitimate concerns, stymies sensible debate on sensitive issues and encourages some of the disaffected to feel ­intimidated, hardening attitudes and responses. Escalating resentment is reflected in frustration with the major parties, increased support for fringe groups such as One Nation and rising intolerance. This is not to excuse people such as Anning mutating mainstream concerns into ­extremist attitudes but it is an ­attempt to explain it. When we can’t deal with challenging issues robustly and honestly in the public square, we squeeze them to the ­extremes: globalist undercutting of national values by the green Left; and ultranationalist intolerance from the hard Right.

This week the ABC invited on to Q&A provocative US pastor Cornel West, who suggested Trump could be on a trajectory to becoming another Hitler or Mussolini. Host Tony Jones did not challenge or admonish him. Contrast this benign acceptance with reactions to the appearance of neo-Nazi Blair Cottrell on Sky News and the offensive maiden speech by Anning. Both incidents deserved repudiation, to be sure, but the reactions lasted days, seemed hysterical and (probably driven by the virtue-signalling ­intentions of the critics) over-inflated the importance of Cottrell, Anning and their views. (Imagine if Trump banned a TV station from train stations.) Our ­national parliament spent the day denouncing one of its newest, least representative and most unlikely members. The morality circus was complete when even Pauline Hanson said she was “appalled” by ­Anning’s speech, describing one of his staff as too “extreme right-wing”. Please explain.

The media zeitgeist lapped this up. Network Ten/ABC journalist Hugh Riminton was one of many who revelled in the cross-party, multi-ethnic parliamentary condemnation of ­Anning, tweeting; “Maybe we’re better than we think.” Well, no. This is where we see the assumed moral superiority of the media ­diverge from mainstream reality. Diversity and tolerance are the daily lived experience of most Australians. Ignorant words from a senator most people had never heard of were not reflective of this ­nation. Australians know racism exists but is kept in check by the overwhelming majority. They don’t need weeping politicians and sanctimonious media to affirm all that.

While journalists pontificated and picked over Anning’s speech for days, most media ignored the actions of NSW’s first Muslim MP who banned a Jewish representative from a multicultural meeting. Labor’s Shaoquett Moselmane hosted the Labor Union Multicultural Action Committee launch, to which Jewish Board of Deputies chief executive Vic Alhadeff had been invited by the ALP and union movement. But Moselmane refused him entry. Even Mosel­mane’s Labor colleagues described his action as “stupid, malicious and vindictive”. This was a nasty incident smacking of a worrying new standard that embraces multiculturalism except for Jews — precisely the sort of creeping intolerance that must be exposed and nipped in the bud, not ignored.

On terrorism, too, the media shapes debate. A special report posted on the ABC’s website last month downplayed the threat of terrorism, suggested Islamist terrorism is exaggerated, drew false equivalence between terror ­attacks and deaths from military campaigns targeting terrorists, and portrayed Palestinian terror groups as akin to freedom fighters. Listing proscribed terror groups, it said: “Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad have been desig­nated for their continued resistance against Israeli occupation.” After complaints, the report was edited and now says these terror groups “have been designated for their attacks on Israeli citizens”.

It is hardly surprising that voters and politicians might become fed up with deceptive activism from the media. Rather than bristling at the term “fake news”, media outlets might do better to ensure the charge could not sensibly be levelled at them. And for all the stridency of phrases such as “enemies of the people”, we can see clearly how this sort of media indolence can work against the interests of voters or their country.

Take the climate and energy debate that is so volatile it could yet destroy Turnbull’s prime ministership and/or the Coalition government. Vast sections of the media — the public broadcasters, most of the Canberra press gallery and so-called progressive websites — are an easy touch for climate alarmists and portray the issue in false binary terms of action versus denial. The scientific and economic facts about the futility and costs of Australia’s emissions ­reduc­tions effort are seldom ­relayed or discussed. Perhaps journalists convince themselves the complicity of the major parties on this issue excuses their incuriosity. But if both the Coalition and Labor have an interest in avoiding the fundamentals of the debate then there is all the more onus on media to seek and discuss relevant facts.

Media outlets are players on the major issues confounding our nation. When they steer debate in flagrant and counter-productive ways, it must be called out — even by politicians and presidents. Self-evidently, this should not amount to an attack on the freedom of the press. But it is essential in holding a free press to account.