As Tasmania’s massive political spending promises continue unabated, with seemingly no sense of an eventual reckoning, PECM is doing just as well on the publicity meter. That’s “Premier’s Exposure Courtesy Mercury”. Every day in different ways we see Premier Bartlett getting his face in our local daily newspaper. It seems almost to be a mandatory requirement that smiling David should be photographed out and about in the run-up to March 20. Has there ever been an exposure like it!
The paper’s Sue Neales had something to say on the subject in last Saturday’s Merc under the headline “Shocking publicity stunts”. She began: “The things that politicians will do during an election campaign to get their picture in the paper or on the TV news”. But she later went on to say that Will Hodgman “could do worse than to take a leaf out of Mr Bartlett’s book when it comes to keeping the media happy and content with plenty of photo opportunities”.
Pardon? Is keeping the “media happy and content” really a prerequisite for newspaper coverage of an election, particularly when such pictorial exposure amounts to little more than boosting the incumbent? And let us also ponder this: the constant presenting of one political face to the public in such a way can be counter-productive, to the extent of disgruntled readers tossing their Merc aside with the complaint: “I’m tired of seeing his mug in the paper every day.”
