Alternative media is the only way forward

In Australia, blog penetration isn’t at the same level of the US, but already partisan point-scoring is becoming all-too-common. These are individuals, of the Left and Right, who blindly support John Howard or his opposite and spend their days throwing mud at opponents. It’s tiring, predictable and likely to lead to the situation in the US where bloggers are increasingly pressured to remain in one political corner, facing online retribution if they move away from the party line.

Blogger Kevin Drum of washingtonmonthly.com told The Australian in February that blogs might be going the way of tabloid journalism and talk radio. “It seems that the thing the blogosphere is becoming more famous for”, Drum said, “is figuring out new and better ways to hound people out of their job.” He may have a point. The strongest Australian bloggers aren’t officially or covertly tied to any particular political stripe, rather simply disseminating information and critiquing the foibles of Left and Right. After all, why read a blogger who sings the praises of John Howard without acknowledging his fundamental faults and then associating these problems with a Left conspiracy or campaign? Have we not reached a stage in our political development whereby commentators don’t imbue every comment or sentence with arguments for or against the ongoing culture wars?

Blogs are of course only one form of alternative media and many are increasingly far from independent. Last September a group of entrepreneurs launched a new publication in Adelaide, a city long captured by Murdoch’s The Advertiser. The Independent Weekly aims to provide a different approach to South Australia. It’s been a modest success thus far, proving that there are enough people in a city such as Adelaide who want to read news and views not filtered through the Murdoch perspective. Perhaps this newspaper’s example will inspire others around the country in believing that a media stranglehold on a city can be broken.

To be free of corporate or governmental restraints is difficult to achieve but we need to think of ways to bypass the established method of disseminating information. I once hoped that our local mainstream media would widen its gaze to the world outside (and recognise the existence of Africa and South America), or perform their duty of questioning institutionally accepted norms. No more. Newspapers like to see themselves as bastions of truth and fairness, passing through various filters to ensure truthfulness. Bloggers regularly self-publish. There is a middle ground. In South Korea, OhmyNews website claims 33,000 citizen reporters, many regularly writing news from their area, keeping tabs on ongoing stories and proving that individuals from all backgrounds can break the back of long-cherished journalistic ideals, many of which were designed to exclude the humble reader.

During the 2004 Federal Election campaign, the major political parties showed their general contempt for online media. Only the Greens utilised a blogger on its website and when I asked the ALP and Liberals why their online presence was so dismal, they responded that their policies were easily accessible, so what else did I possibly want?

The mainstream media is currently under attack from all sides. Nicholas Lemann wrote recently in The New Yorker “the danger of these ongoing assaults is a general public that 'don’t believe in us [journalists], don’t want us, anymore'.” It’s hard to feel sympathy for this position, especially in Australia. Reliable and unfiltered news is essential in a functioning democracy and publications will always been needed to provide it. Views, however, are cheap and the online community now throws up literally millions. Experts in particular fields are what distinguish the trite from the terrific and insightful. The Australian media moguls and wannabes have clearly expressed their vision for the future and we should be aware of their Orwellian doublespeak when they talk about wanting alternative voices amongst the more established ones. These voices are already finding it difficult to break through the stranglehold of the mainstream’s reliance on the familial. I started my own blog to bypass the acceptable routes of publishing and I hope to build a regular readership keen to discover that there is a world beyond Tony Abbott’s love-child.

Andreas Whittam Smith founded the UK Independent newspaper. The notion of independence, he wrote, “doesn’t mean an absence of strong opinions, or the perfect balance of arguments for and against this or that. It’s doesn’t mean a particular system of ownership. It’s simply a promise to readers. That everything you find in the newspaper represents the editorial team’s own agenda and nobody else’s; neither the advertising department’s, nor the owner’s, nor any particular political party’s, nor any business interest.”

The only way to ensure this in Australia is to build alternative sources of news and views. The challenge has begun.