Look, I think we all knew the Australian media landscape was bad. But it’s still quite sickening to realise that Piers Morgan is covering Palestine more honestly and responsibly than all our ‘serious’ news publications & broadcasters. One big flaw that has really jumped out in the past few weeks is the idea of neutrality. A lot of Australian news outlets say they operate from a neutral position, that their job is to simply present the facts of what has happened… But it’s a bullshit claim. So let’s unpack it, with examples.

What is neutral?

There’s a famous journalism quote (apparently by British professor Jonathan Foster) that is kinda corny but sums up the job well: “If someone says it’s raining and another person says it’s dry, it’s not your job to quote them both. Your job is to look out the fucking window and find out which is true.” To be neutral is to commit to publishing the truth (i.e.: whether it’s raining) no matter what.

But I find most Australian news outlets have this idea that a statement is itself a factual thing that must be reported on. That it’s good enough to share what an important individual has said, verbatim. I very rarely see Australian news outlets try to assess the validity or accuracy of the statements they report on.

Here’s the example: On Wednesday night, the ABC 7.30 Report interviewed former Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. On the show, Olmert says that everyone killed when Israel bombed the Jabalia refugee camp was a member of Hamas. This is not true. The host Sarah Ferguson does sort of correct him – she follows up with “despite what you’re saying it’s been obvious that there are very high civilian casualties in Gaza.” But when the ABC promotes the interview on social media, they leave out Ferguson’s correction. They share only Olmert’s lie. For a news outlet to widely share a statement they know is untrue (or at the very least misleading) is not neutral. To publish Olmert’s lie anywhere without a clear correction is deeply unethical.

This is not exclusive to reporting on Palestine. In 2018, all news media reported when Peter Dutton said Victorians were afraid to go out because of “African gang violence.” But the ‘gangs’ were actually not gangs but groups of teens, and the stats showed no spike in youth crime. Publishing his comments without a fact-check is far from neutral, and it’s certainly not journalism. This is basic, basic stuff, right?

It’s the same with drier news about policies and legislation too. When Labor initially proposed the Housing Australia Future Fund as a solution to the housing crisis, they said that it would build 30,000 affordable homes. Australia currently needs 400,000 affordable homes – so every single news outlet reporting on this policy should have also clearly stated that the policy would not work. It is not neutral to withhold that piece of information from the audience, because it is simply the truth.

Who is ‘neutral’?

From a business standpoint, media organisations have values that guide editorial decision making. That’s bias, every single journalist and media outlet operates with bias. At Zee Feed we make decisions based on intersectional feminist beliefs; at The Australian they do so based on conservative values; Crikey’s guiding ethos is to apply criticism and skepticism those power and money. Can ‘neutrality’ be a guiding editorial value? I don’t think so.

I find journalists and media outlets that take pride in being neutral usually have centrist beliefs. Centrism ≠ neutrality. It is still political ideology, the cliche of being ‘socially liberal and economically conservative'.

There is nothing wrong with a journalist or media outlet operating from centrist beliefs. What’s bullshit is using ‘neutral’ or ‘unbiased’ as a label to avoid being transparent about those beliefs. It’s the so-called neutral news outlets that are refusing to use the term genocide, even though international law defines Israel’s actions as such; who are happy to share statements without fact-checks as part of their daily operations; who will claim they are letting the audience “make up their own mind”, without disclosing the political point-of-view they are filtering the information through.

– Crystal
Founder & Chief of Everything at Zee Feed
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Good stuff on Zee Feed rn:

Channel 10 and Network Seven don’t want the broadcast rights. MYER has ended its 40-year Fashions on the Field sponsorship. Influencers are asking not be photographed at the races. This isn’t just about animal cruelty anymore…CLICK HERE TO READ.

Smart stuff on the Internet 💭

All the stuff I found on the web that made me think, smile, or have an ‘aha!’ moment. Spend your Sunday reading them – you'll be better off for it:

Listening to the Voices of Young People From Gaza on TIME
"‘We are alive’. But what conditions are you alive in, I wonder. What destruction do you see around you, are other family members and neighbors alive, can you sleep at night with the bombs overhead, how are you handling your fear, do you have water and food?"

A Cease-Fire in Gaza Can End the War on Civilians. A “Humanitarian Pause” Will Not. on Jacobin
“At first glance, it’s not clear why this should bother us. “Cease-fire,” “humanitarian pause” — don’t these phrases mean the same thing, just expressed in different words?… [It] doesn’t mean an actual pause in the war, but the cessation of attacks in only some parts of Gaza. Those “pauses” could, in practice, be mere hours.”

The people who ruined the internet on The Verge
Hilarious and insightful piece about SEO consultants. “As I spoke with more SEO professionals around the country, I began to think that the reason I found them endearing and not evil was that while many had made quite a bit of money, almost none had amassed significant power.”

Should we include trigger and content warnings as a feature on Missing Perspectives’ articles and social media content? on Missing Perspectives
Very interesting discussion about the use of trigger warnings from a journalism perspective. Even though the research shows these do not work, readers still want them. Worth reading in full!

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