This post was part of the Media 140 Australian Politics of which I was kindly invited as a guest blogger. The focus on the afternoon panel is because this was the specific session I was asked to cover by the organiser, Julie Posetti.
After an election what panelist and political cartoonist First Dog on the Moon
described as “three months of despair” a review from a panel of cartoonists,
photographers and other outliers of the Australian political journalism was always
going to be well received.
First Dog’s comments showed the general despair by the electorate at large towards
a bland performance by both major political parties, particularly in their use of new
media tools.
The rest of the afternoon panel on “alternative views on political news” shared First
Dog’s general attitude, but luckily they made up for that despair with an entertaining
and funny take on the election and pricking some of the pomposity that can surround
the social media communities.
Malcolm Farnsworth (@mfarnsworth) put this best when he described much of
Twitter as “ego, brown nosery and wankery”. Surprisingly this was taken well by the
room.
His point is valid though, we need to keep in mind that one of the attractions of social
media is we can choose our own friends, particularly in Twitter where we can restrict
our social circle to those we like and agree with.
A few of the questions from the floor recognised this as did Julian Morrow
(@moreoj) with a shameless plug for The Chaser’s iPhone App. In an earlier session
Claire Wardell had shown how new media isn’t just Twitter and tools like apps and
clever websites can drive the political discourse just as well as a witty tweet.
Julian also showed how The Chaser crew were ahead of the curve with taking a
failed newspaper empire online in the late 1990s. Although his line about Twitter giving “the monkeys the typewriters” also betrayed a Rupert Murdoch style bitterness towards
new media.
To further move the issue from social media, Peter Bowers (@mpbowers) raised
the issues of photographers’ rights and payments, citing the Hudson River plane
crash as a good example where an agency snapper would have received some
large rights payments for the early photos of the aircraft floating down the river.
Peter moved into another aspect of social media and the perils for photographers
when talking about Parliamentarians taking photos from the floor of the house. In
the Australian Parliament, there are strict rules about the use of images and he had
once been bought before the Privileges Committee for breaching the rules with the
possibility of gaol time for contempt of Parliament.
What this illustrated in Peter’s opinion was how laws haven’t kept up to date with
technology. We could also say it’s another example of how people don’t understand
the real time consequences of seemingly trivial online actions.
As one of the final sessions for the day, the session was good opportunity to liven up the room with some funny, out of the box and thinking that shot down the thought that the day would be a Twitter love-in.
Overall, Media140 was a success in examining how the new online tools are changing
politics and the reporting of it. Having Claire Wardell’s UK perspective and Jeffrey
Bleich’s view from the Obama campaign showed just how far Australia has to go with
these tools.
Probably the biggest message was from the journalist participants – it’s clear many are
uncomfortable with the public being able to work around the gatekeepers and some
are downright scared of the abuse they think they receive from the community.
“It’s all about getting paid” one journalist said. You can’t help but think that was the
same thing bleated by the loom weavers of 200 years ago.
What we saw from the OzPolitics Media140 is a community and society in great
change: The political parties, media and the electorate are working through how these
tools are going to change the way we vote and how our governments work.