It’s now four years since the US journalism academic Jay Rosen decried at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival about the “cult of savvy” in political journalism and the treatment of politics as a game for insiders. What’s changed since?
Not much, going by the hysterical coverage of the leadership change in the Australian Greens. In what may simply have been a case of a party leader deciding to quit politics because 25 years was enough, the hacks fell over each other looking for the cute angle.
For the ubiquitous Annabel Crabb on the ABC, the Greens’ change from 62-year-old Tasmanian environmental warrior to Christine Milne to little known 44-year-old Melbourne doctor Richard Di Natale had a “whiff of Moscow” about it.
Annabel’s witty knack for comparing mainstream Australian political parties with murderous 20th century totalitarian regimes had us recalling fondly her hilarious “Valkyrie” reference to the failed February putsch against Tony Abbott. Or maybe not.
By the way, it’s hard not to conclude that ABC ‘personalities’ make smart-arsed references about the Greens because the party is a soft target for public broadcasters. You impress the major party playground bullies and there’s little chance of your funding getting cut.
Of course, if the safest sport at the perpetually obsequious ABC is taking cheap shots at the Greens to curry favour with their fickle funders, the culture war cranks at News Corp …
