OVER the next four weeks, not the least fabulous aspect of this election – announced this morning for March 20 – will be the reporting of Tasmania media, particularly multi-awarded Mercury Chief Reporter Sue Neales.
Hag’s attention was drawn to this important issue by today’s Mercury report of a Nick McKim “tirade”. On reading the paper – it doesn’t seem to be online – there did not seem to be much of a tirade about it.
This is an incredibly important election and we need our readers’ help to monitor our media …for example help us tabulate how many times Sue and other journos and media use the following words to describe Premier David Bartlett: Clever, popular, young, likeable, visionary. Did someone once use funky to describe his thumb ring? Other helpful epithets for McKim could be angry, ageing, cruel, power-hungry …
Casual epithets create impressions of leadership. Let’s have election reporting; not election commentating in news reporting.
Readers please help us Media Watch …
PS: Always one to take power at its own estimate Hag can today reveal the composition of the focus group reported by Sue as reviving Labor’s fortunes (Dr Kevin Bonham’s analysis, HERE).
The focus gorup comprised David Llewellyn and Lara Giddings, Hag reliably is told.
