Lost in Reality

I used to be an avid consumer of National Radio news programmes like Morning Report, and have been so for decades. 

I liked that it was ad-free, felt balanced, largely stayed away from the sensationalistic, was prepared to give meaningful airtime to a broad range of opinions, showed some expertise in analysis, and clearly identified the affiliations of who was talking about what.

But, over the last few years: what on earth happened? 

The presenters have become ever more breathless and focussed on inserting opinion in to the narrative - what feels like a shift to undeclared gonzo journalism - and making themselves in to part of the story.

It doesn't help that some of the reporters are now actually annoying in their presentation: pauses like 'um' and 'errr', and emphasis words like 'mate!' and 'eh!' are not reasonable for scripted news from reporters on air with our national broadcaster. Being articulate is literally their job, and repeatedly yelling the same over-simple question at someone isn't an interview.

Journalism is also not a procession of vox-pops, talking heads and opinions from 'experts' whose affiliations are undeclared, so their agendas are therefore unknown  - but it's become that way.

Reporting seems ever-more inward looking as meaningful international news feels ever more strictured and lop-sided as local events are given precedence, apparently no matter how trivial and agenda-promoting. The job is to report the news, not provide a delivery channel for manifestos that line up with what now feels a lot like a progressive editorial policy (and this from someone who has always been mildly to the left). 

When they get reported on, the few things about which I do know something often contain basic factual errors, and much of the reportage looks innumerate. Poorly constructed statistics are quoted like they are holy writ as no questions get asked about things like: the base rate of something to know if the change being quoted is large or small, if the sample size is meaningful, how the data was collected, and control of confounding variables so we can have some chance to work out if it's cause or correlation. These are basic and simple and it's not being done.

No wonder our trust in the media is tanking: how has reportage become so inept, so fast?