As the dust of the Victorian election settled, and Daniel Andrews had successfully claimed another majority victory, knives are out in the opposite camp in the Coalition. In the coming weeks, it will be just about who got smeared, who had scandals and who stepped over Matthew Guy’s political corpse to ascend to the Coalition throne.
However, what made this Victorian election stood out most was the toxic smearing and disinformation ditched out by the right, and the cover up efforts of the same media outlets to boost the credentials of the Coalition.
I understand that, when you believe in something, you want to sell it to others. Politics is the modern religion. It does not require a lot of logical thinking but completely banked on emotional triggers.
However, what we saw as a huge danger of this Victorian election to the Australian political landscape was the reshaping and normalisation of lies, misinformation and disinformation across the media sector. This election is less about policies but more about dirt digging and name calling or smearing. The fact that something that was settled over 10 years ago, and then again twice a few years ago was dug up again by the right-wing media whose name is not even worth mentioning, signifies that how much power the same media group has, and how far it is willing to go to change the political landscape in Australia. All they needed to do was threw out a sensation headline that was completely out of context, to conduct an interview that was completely out of context, and to further trigger the rest of the media packs to ask questions out of context. The wolf packs of the so-called Australian media fell for it and like blood to sharks went for the bites. Daniel Andrews did not fall for it, but nonetheless his campaign was wounded. The exact result this right-wing power wielder wanted.
This normalisation of out of context stories and disinformation had become more dangerous as compared to the federal election earlier this year. Scott Morrison had completely destroyed himself while he was still trying to play an unqualified god. His brand name was so bad that unless you are the die-hard right-wingers, nobody wanted to touch him. The fact that even his running mates tried to avoid him in their campaigns was a good representation of it. However, in the Victorian election, Daniel Andrews was a much-loved Premier, and he steered the ship through the stormy seas of the pandemic. The hard-right hated him, but then the hard-right hated everyone except for the hard-right. But the danger was that the general right, who just wanted to amplify this hatred to bring Daniel Andrews down. The fact that they don’t care about the right or wrong, as long as it is right leaning, and tried to capitalised this for a Victorian Liberal leader whom is far from qualified for the job – no costing for any announced spending, cannot understand basic financial and economic structure, and got basic historical facts wrong, plus failing to identify corruption right under his nose within his inner circle; had become a worrisome trend in the Australian media. The desperate need to sell a story and click bait readers had accelerated the tabloidization of journalism in Australia. The frequent appearance of the hashtag #ThisIsNotJournalism across all media outlets is a reflection of the discontent of this tabloidization by part of the Australian public. With the economic environment getter harsher and harsher, it became more apparent that readership, fake or real, triggered by sensational headlines that had nothing to do with the contents, and the contents that had nothing to with the facts, will become more and more important for these outlets.
At the same, time, these outlets have developed conscious or unconscious hatred towards out media who were willing to dig into stories with their investigations. The recent firebombing of FriendlyJordies home was a perfect example of the current Australian media bastardisation of anyone who is not one of them. The constant description or painting of FriendlyJordies as a controversial YouTube personality, had completely ignored that fact that he had uncovered stories that the current Australian media, mostly controlled by the Gang of White Old Man, were unwilling to cover. By using words like ‘controversial’ and ‘YouTube personality’ they had discredited the investigative journalism FriendlyJordies had conducted and brought to the public attention. The fact that he had such a following was already sufficient for the mainstream media to hound him. The publishing of his address and the focused of questions about whether he had angered people because of how controversial he is, instead of whether his investigative journalism was the result of this attack, had completely packaged him as just another YouTuber that people should not be paying attention to but the media is happy to take down as an eye-catching story. For the current Australian media landscape, John Barilaro’s deeds for the job in New York are not controversial, what FriendlyJordies uncovered about the ClubNSW is not controversial, what Peta Creditless said without prove and disguised informed / misinforming personal opinion as journalism is not controversial. But, when someone broke the news that these same media would not investigate, this same person is controversial.
Of course, there are ways to change this trend, but that will require both the government and the audience aka the people of Australia to both act in a concerted effort. But would the current Government willing to act – considering the wilderness we have been travelling with them in the Federal ICAC legislation, or would common Australians be willing to call out lies when being told some? That is something we cannot tell.
The Victorian election seemed to be a win, but the undercurrent that is eroding our society’s integrity and standard had become quick sand in the surface world, and they are everywhere. How to navigate the field of quick sand known as the Australian media is up to us.
You can either be drowned and zombified, or you can choose to fill them up with truth and set up more solid grounds for others.
The choice is yours.
