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November 22, 2005
News: a matter of interpretation?
According to Jason Koutsoukis and Garry Barker, who shared a byline on the page 3 lead of this morning's Age, "Federal Treasurer Peter Costello has refused to publicly endorse Telstra chairman Donald McGauchie's continued tenure on the Reserve Bank board."
Turn to Stephen Bartholomeusz's column, however, and we learn that Costello "issued a statement yesterday that described McGauchie as a valued member of the RBA board and that his value 'stands on the strength of his contribution to that board and is not assessed by reason of other directorships'".
Confusing, huh?
According to Bartho, "Costello, more than any other member of the Government, would have realised how destructive it would be to link McGauchie's tenure on the RBA board with his advocacy of Telstra's interests". He opines, therefore, that "Donald McGauchie can now probably plan on having his term as a member of the Reserve Bank board extended."
Koutsoukis and Barker also quote Costello's apparent endorsement of McGauchie: "Can I say Mr McGauchie is a member of the Reserve Bank board. He has made a very valuable contribution to the Reserve Bank. His contribution to the Reserve Bank is measured on that position. It is not measured by reference to any other directorships that he holds, and we keep these issues quite separate."
There are no further clues in the Koutsoukis-Barker story as to how what appears on the face of it to be a public endorsement of McGauchie's RBA post is, in fact, quite the opposite, and "Mr McGauchie is facing the axe from the RBA board when his five-year term expires next March," because "senior Government ministers appear to have lost confidence in his corporate governance capabilities in the fallout over a stoush over regulation affecting Telstra."
Bleeding Edge is of course aware of the fact that what the Howard Government says, in many cases bears absolutely no relationship to what it intends, and eventually does. But when senior journalists on the same publication can, in the same issue, come up with two precisely contradictory interpretations of the same statements, we suggest that either the practice of politics in this nation has become utterly byzantine, and therefore no longer a viable instrument of democracy, or journalism, as a medium for conveying objectively verifiable information, is broken.
What we seem to have are two levels of "fact": what one might call "surface fact", which in this case we presume Bartho is commenting on, and "deep fact", which (principally, given his position in the Canberra Press gallery) Koutsoukis is apparently interpreting.
Shouldn't we be giving the reader some better navigational aids? Even, perhaps, a policy? Or should there be a public education process so that we can all learn, in this Howard-Costello era, how to re-interpret English?
Posted by cw at November 22, 2005 08:38 AM
Comments
Hi Charles, thanks for the links, very interesting.
As to the apparent "cognitive dissonance" of the two reports this is surely a good example of (a) why good reporters have a case for writing more than "just the facts" and (b) how the press becomes part of the story.
Seems to me that Koutsoukis-Barker were picking up the omission in the Costello statement and noting it (perhaps on the basis of background that should, as per Washington Post links, have been mentioned). They are noting this as a sublte but deliberate message of warning being sent by the government. Thus revealing that the government was playing heavy with Telstra wherever it could. Something the government would not want to admit and that should be exposed.
Whereas Bartholomeusz is pointing out the important fiction that must be maintained re the Reserve Bank Board, that people are not on it because of the interests they represent, though they are, and that somehow those interests won't be reflected in their participation. Moreover, once the media had drawn attention to the possibility that the government knew this wasn't the case, and was willing to use its power to appoint to influence a company, the government would paradoxically therefore have no choice but to re-appoint to maintain the fiction.
Byzantine? Yes, on one level, but revealed as Byzantine because, despite considerable erosion over the last ten years, the tattered structures of liberal democracy, with its commitment to transparency and accountability, still persist. But with new sedition laws, and media ownership laws change coming, the structure looks like taking even more of a beating. Oriental despotism anyone?
Posted by: tflip at November 22, 2005 11:08 AM
It's called dissembling, Charles, and George's dodgy flunkey and his obsequious followers are masters at it. Not that I could care less what happens to millonaire 'cocky' McGauchie as I recall only too well his role in the Patrick/waterside workers dispute.
Posted by: Justin at November 22, 2005 12:03 PM