Albanese Calls for More Nuanced Reporting on Politics, Laments Short-Term Media Focus

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during interviews at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, on May 15, 2024. Tracey Nearmy/Getty Images

“If you are not with me, you are against me” has become the standard of debate over politics, according to Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who says the superficiality of the media is partly to blame.

Reflecting on two years in office, Mr. Albanese told the Australian National University’s Democracy Sausage podcast that people seem to feel that, for example, they have to be “pro-government or pro-private sector, pro-renewables, or nothing—and the debate, and need for reform, is far more nuanced than that.”

He said many in the government were “somewhat perplexed” that reporting suggested the Future Made in Australia Act came about “last month in a speech I gave in Brisbane.”

The prime minister said it had been one of five things he had been speaking about as Labor leader.

“In last year’s budget, we set up the Net Zero Authority, [which was only one of] a range of measures, but it’s as if it was only when we made the announcements in the lead-up to the budget that we'd have a Future Made in Australia Act [that people realised],” Mr. Albanese said.

The prime minister said part of the problem faced by governments wanting to engage the public on complex issues was that “so much of journalism is about the immediate story or news that lasts for a short period of time.”

This was as opposed to questions like, “‘How do we plan for what the economy looks like in 10 years time, let alone 20 years time?’ ‘How do we make sure we have the skilled workforce to fill those jobs?’ ‘What are the implications for the cost of living?’ ‘How do we have long-term measures to drive down our emissions and to meet those targets?’”

Getting that longer-term perspective into stories was a challenge, but Mr. Albanese was sympathetic with those journalists “who are doing their best, I’m sure, to try to convey serious news and serious information to people.”

Long-Form Content Disappearing

There were very few opportunities for journalists to write long-form pieces, Mr. Albanese also said.

“Years ago people like [columnist] Alan Ramsey wrote one column every Saturday, and then had a smaller one on a Wednesday, and it was a detailed piece of research ... Some journalists do that now too, but it is far less frequent.

“And I think one of the things that that means is that for some of the publications, you look at the page and say, ‘That’ll be gone tomorrow because there isn’t substance to it.’

“I’m constantly surprised now by some of the lack of follow up. I can do a press conference even with the federal press gallery and [even with] what’s been a front-page story—that you would think was significant because it’s been placed there—there’s no follow-up at all. It’s gone in five minutes.”

The logo for Channel Nine adorns the side of their building in Melbourne, Australia on July 26, 2018. William West/AFP/Getty Images

A photo of the outside of the headquarters of News Corp Australia in Sydney on May 28, 2020. Peter Parks/AFP via Getty Images

Journalism has become more difficult, he conceded.

“Journalists are under enormous pressure to produce things almost instantaneously. On the tax cuts, if you go back and have a look at the front pages of the newspapers over the first 48 hours after we made that change, and I announced it at the National Press Club ... I gave media conferences and media appearances day after day after that announcement [and] they’re not talking about any of those issues.

“Now, I think if you showed it to some of the journalists, they might be embarrassed by some of the commentary that was there. Sometimes the articles are essentially about clickbait.”

Sometimes, the writing was accurate, but the headlines were not.

“These days, their media organisations are under pressure, so you have quite dramatic headlines, and then you read the articles, and the articles can be reasonable, but the headlines you do have a blurring of news from opinion as well,” the Prime Minister said.

An Australian Financial Review, next to another Farifax paper, The Sydney Morning Herald, is taken from a newsstand in Sydney on Aug. 23, 2007. AP Photo/Rick Rycroft

Criticises Partisan Nature of Media

He was also critical of what he perceived to be the unquestioning approach taken by some media outlets to covering the federal opposition, calling them “more stenographers ... than actual journalists.”

And in some sectors of the media, the bias was so acute that the Leader of the Opposition was agreeing with media figures rather than the other way around, he said.

“They’re a cheer squad. Some of the transcripts that you read from Peter Dutton, essentially, is him just saying, ‘Yes, I agree with particular radio commentators or TV commentators’, and I think that it is unfortunate.”

The problem was made far worse by social media, Mr. Albanese said.

“I worry about the state of the [media] business and polarisation, which is there, and that’s backed up by social media, which, through the use of algorithms, will push people towards more extreme positions.

“Because if you look at some of the commentary, someone will think that everyone thinks ‘X’, whether it be a left- or right-wing view, and they get a shock that everyone doesn’t think the same. But they’ve been pulled down that rabbit hole, whereas previously, I think people shared some of the same experience. They read the same newspapers, they watched the same TV news, and that is being lost.”