BOB BURTON, A respone to: Why there was no doorstop
Matt,
You raise a number of important issues which I’m happy to respond to and I’m glad that Tasmanian Times exists as a forum where a debate like this can occur.
In summary, you defend the idea that it is perfectly reasonable for the Premier to make major policy announcements and avoid taking questions from journalists. You also make a number of points about my initial report and my background going as far back as 29 years.
1. Perhaps the most substantial point of difference between us is over whether leaders of political parties should take questions at major announcements and speeches.
You explained that the reason you advised David Bartlett against taking questions after his speech was that the week before “Will Hodgman took media questions that succeeded only in having him deny he was trying to poach Green votes. The denial became the story. He allowed the media to bend his message – and they did not hesitate.”
I can’t say that I followed the coverage of the Liberals conference all that closely, but how Hodgman’s response to questions was reported is beside the point. The point is that Will Hodgman was prepared to front up to journalists and take questions while David Bartlett wasn’t.
David Bartlett has repeatedly stressed that there is a need to “strengthen trust in government” and that this requires improved transparency and accountability mechanisms.
Does David Bartlett avoiding taking questions from journalists on a speech in which he made major policy and budgetary announcements strengthen or diminish trust in government?
Having him avoid questions may be effective in skewing short-term media coverage to his advantage, but I don’t think it strengthens trust in government.
2. You state that I “failed to disclose that journalists were formally advised in writing the day before that the Premier would not be doing interviews following his speech. Therefore, those reporters who attended did so with a clear understanding of what would occur.”
Well, as far as I know, I was sent no such prior notification of your ‘no questions’ policy.
You also wrote of other journalists who apparently were informed prior to the conference of the ‘no questions’ policy that “none raised any objections. Perhaps that’s what is really troubling Mr Burton.”
As I wasn’t aware of the ‘no questions’ restriction before the conference, that could hardly have been the motivation behind what I wrote. But you are right, it is “troubling”.
It is one thing for a premier to avoid questioning on major announcements and another for journalists to either voluntarily go along with it or fail to mention that questions were not allowed.
Most citizens, especially those with ready access to the Internet, can easily spot the all too common similarity between press releases and a news story.
If there is little difference between an online transcript and a media report of it other than the length, why should citizens pay for a newspaper or bother watching the news? Or think that journalists add anything useful to public understanding and debate?
2. You complained that in what I wrote there was “no serious mention of the commitments made by the Premier in his speech – a fairer deal for Aurora PAYG customers, a commitment to concessions on new water and sewerage bills for low-income earners, new targets for achievement in education, irrigation, renewable energy and broadband delivery. Nothing on road safety reform, either.”
You are right that I didn’t go into the details of Bartlett’s speech. But that was simply because there was no opportunity to ask questions about some of those very topics you identified.
If I’m going to take the trouble to write something, I prefer to add something beyond what readers would get if they read the transcript of his speech.
As it was, I supplied the editor of Tasmanian Times with the web link for David Bartlett’s speech which he duly appended to my original post.
4. My background: Yes, as my bio on the PR Watch website states, I worked for the Wilderness Society between 1979 and the mid-1990’s.
So was it sufficiently relevant that who I worked for 15 years ago be disclosed in a brief post on Tasmanian politics? I don’t really think so.
The British Medical Journal, who I have written for over recent years, use the standard that past employment considerations extend back only as far as 5 years. The Media Entertainment Arts Alliance code of ethics is silent on the matter.
But I’m happy to be guided on what is an appropriate standard by the editor of TT.
I assume, Matt, that you would also want other Tasmanian journalists and columnists to adopt the same 15 year disclosure standard too, given that there are some that have worked for political parties, government agencies, private companies, PR firms and industry associations.
But to jump from my past work for the Wilderness Society in the 1980s and early 1990s to claim that I am now an “advocate for the Wilderness Society” is silly in the same way that it would be silly for me to state that you are an “advocate” for The Mercury or Paul Lennon because you once worked for them.
