Fair dinkum, I bet they're spewing in Macquarie Street right now

In June this year Bazza O’Farrell severed the link between the salaries of state and federal backbench pollies – in the past the base salary of a NSW MP was aligned with a Federal MP minus $500.

So in 2011 those pollies in Macquarie Street are sitting on $139,544 as annual salary plus an electoral allowance, with only the hope of a capped 2.5% increase next time the Parliamentary Remuneration Tribunal considers salaries and allowances.

While down in Canberra……..

“FEDERAL MPs are set for a massive pay rise - taking a backbencher's salary close to $200,000 a year…..”

The new NSW Nats MP for Clarence is going to have to hustle hard for a lucrative parliamentary committee chair or two if he's to live in the style I hear his trouble n strife is expecting. He may actually have to work in the job, which might come as a bit of a shock to someone used to cruising on autopilot when he was in Clarence Valley local government.

Daily Departures: Who will tell us when our friends are having their funeral?

Today's print edition's of The Coffs Coast Advocate and The Tweed Daily News are collector items. After today, both papers will become mere shells of themselves despite bells, whistles and hoopla coming from various APN sources about new, improved online news for readers interested in local news in the Coffs and Tweed local areas. This reader hopes APN keeps its promises and The Daily Examiner and The Northern Star  improve their coverage of the Coffs and Tweed areas.

A correspondent to the Tweed Daily News (you've just gotta luv such dear souls) points out the impact the demise of his Tweed daily will have on "oldies".

Tweed 'infrastructure' lost

Thank you for allowing me to express my views at the local level for the past 12 years.

Along with many others who have spoken to me about your restricted publication we will all miss your Daily News.

Your much read local news and local history is now lost to the Tweed as we grow.

Very few of us "oldies" will follow you on the computer that many do not have or want.

On a very personal note, a number of my friends have asked: "Who will tell us when our friends are having their funeral?"

Part of Tweed's infrastructure has died and we will be lost.

Maybe your Saturday edition needs a section called: "Seen in hospital last week".

Thank you again.

Laurie Ganter

Coal seam gas mining catastrophe

The Coffs Coast Advocate made its final appearance today as a 'daily' ... sad news indeed. Read The Advocate's Belinda Scott tribute to the paper's last edition here.

The letters section of final edition carries a timely reminder of the catastrophic impact of coal seam gas mining - see below.

Coal seam catastrophe

Wake up, Australia. Gas coal seam mining will ruin the land, foul the underground water, foul surface water, degrade the soil and the atmosphere and generally bring about ruin to the families that own property that is subject to a mining lease.

I have recently viewed a documentary on this type of mining and the after effects on the countryside in the heartland of USA, mass destruction of the environment both above ground and below ground, plus the health and well being of land owners, all for the sake of the almighty dollar.

Thousands upon thousands of wells across America from Texas through to New York state.

Toxic chemicals into watercourses, private water wells, soils from one end of the country to the other and all this in a space of 10 years, unrepairable, with the mining companies never admitting liability and as a result little or no compensation for the injured parties.

Government agencies entrusted to monitor the industry in the early days, had no idea what was being used in the fracking process, so that when problems started to surface, government did not have a clue what they were dealing with.

Listening to our NSW and Queensland premiers, doesn't this sound all too familiar? They are so strapped for cash that they are prepared to sell the future of clean, clear water, viable food production, health and well-being of landowners for a miserable short-term dollar return.

Repeal the legislation and nip this in the bud before it becomes a major environmental disaster.

My simple logic tells me that it is going to be impossible to repair a fracture in the rock strata that allows toxic water and chemicals to reach an underground water reservoir, possibly 2000-4000 feet underground, through a six-inch pipe.

Are the miners going to send in trained mice armed with super glue to repair the fracture?

Once the damage is done it will be too late.

What is more important? Water, food, health, land or dollars?

I hope that the people of NSW and Queensland swamp their local politicians with questions regarding this stupidity that they appear to endorse.

M I Randall

Climate Change: lifting the lid on Australia's media

On 1 December 2011 the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism* released Part One of a two-part study called A SCEPTICAL CLIMATE: Media coverage of climate change in Australia 2011 which confirms what many may have suspected about the state of Australian journalism today.

You can download the 70 page PDF, but here are some of the highlights:

There are few media stories in which there is such an obvious public interest as that of climate change. There is no doubt that the subject has been well covered by the media.

In 2009 no topic occupied more media attention in Australia (Media Monitors, 2009) and in 2011 climate policy has again been very high on the Australian domestic news agenda. The quantity of the coverage, however, tells us little about the quality of that coverage.

COVERAGE OF CLIMATE CHANGE POLICY

• Overall, negative coverage of the Gillard government’s carbon policy across ten newspapers outweighed positive coverage across ten Australian newspapers by 73% to 27%. (Note: After neutral items were discounted). (See page 32)

• All papers contained some positive and a substantial amount of neutral material. The highest level of neutral articles was found in The Age and The Hobart Mercury, the lowest level was found in The Northern Territory News and The Daily Telegraph. (See page 32)

• After neutral items were discounted, negative coverage (82%) across News Ltd newspapers far outweighed positive (18%) articles. This indicates a very strong stance against the carbon policy adopted by the company that controls most Australian metropolitan newspapers, and the only general national daily. (See page 33)

• By comparison, Fairfax was far more balanced in its coverage of the policy than News Ltd publications with 57% positive articles outweighing 43% negative articles. (See page 33)

• The Age was more positive (67%) rather than negative towards the policy than any other newspaper. The Daily Telegraph was the most negative (89%) rather than positive of

newspapers. (See page 33)

• Headlines were less balanced than the actual content of articles. (See Figures 7 and 9 on pages 29 and 30).

• Neutral articles were more likely to be headlined negative (41%) than positive (19%). (See page 34)

• Readers relying on metropolitan newspapers living in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane received more coverage of carbon policy issues than readers in Perth, Adelaide and Darwin. (See page 25)

• The Australian gave far more space to the coverage of climate change than any other newspaper. Its articles were coded 47% negative, 44% neutral and 9% positive. When neutrals were discounted, there were 84% negative articles compared to 17% positive. (See page 32)

It is hard to influence public policy if you do not have a voice in the media (Thompson, 1990; Ericson 1989). At the heart of journalism is the relationship between journalists and their sources (Ericson, 1990; Cottle, 2003; Roberts & Nash, 2009). The inclusion or exclusion of sources is one significant way in which media exercises power. An analysis of quoted sources is therefore an important way of assessing the nature of coverage.

More than 11% of stories had no source at all and another 30% of the rest of the articles had only one source. This indicates the one-dimensional nature of many stories.

While some will justify a negative approach by appealing to the important role of journalists to scrutinise government, 31% of news and feature articles with no more than one source indicates that many sources are in fact not held to account. This may in part be due to the lack of resources in newsrooms under stress from a loss of advertising. However, as other media research has shown, this opens up possibilities for well-resourced interests to gain high visibility for their views through press releases including commissioned research and consultants reports tailored to the news cycle. Private power as well as government power needs to consistently scrutinised by journalists.

Political values and support for political policies are embedded in journalists’ reporting either implicitly or explicitly. It is clear that The Age is a more progressive than The Australian but there is no evidence in this study that The Age engages in censorship. Indeed it appears to be considerably more balanced than any News Ltd paper. All papers in this study strongly represented business sources and if any sources were shut out of the debate, it was civil society sources and scientists who supported the policy.

To be positive or negative towards a policy does not imply that a journalist loses impartiality, fairness or a critical approach. Columnists such as the News Ltd.’s Mike Steketee, Fairfax’s Ian Verrender and Peter Hartcher wrote a range of incisive pieces making critical points about both sides of the carbon policy debate. The SMH’s Lenore Taylor held Abbott’s policy and the claims of industry up to scrutiny more consistently than nearly all other journalists.

Just twenty years ago, a Parliamentary Select Inquiry investigated the Australian print media and found that while the media was highly concentrated and this had an impact on diversity, the Inquiry could find no evidence that the media, in particular News Ltd was biased.

Yes, this report has established that the reporting of climate change in sections of the Australian media has been far from impartial, fair or balanced. Is it in the public interest for a media organisation that dominates the market to ‘campaign’ as The Daily Telegraph and The Herald Sun have done, on an issue which a huge majority of the world's scientists have found threatens the lives of millions? In what circumstances does a lack of diversity and balance, represent a threat to democracy?

Evidence in this report suggests that many Australians did not receive fair, accurate and impartial reporting in the public interest in relation to the carbon policy in 2011. This suggests that rather an open and competitive market that can be trusted to deliver quality media, we may have a case of market failure.

* The Australian Centre for Independent Journalism’s research work on climate change is part of the Global Environmental Initiative (GEJI), a partnership of nine tertiary institutions in Australia and Europe working on research and teaching about the environment and media.