May 15, 2003
MIRANDA DEVINE attended an American
MIRANDA DEVINE attended an American J-school. She remembers:
At journalism school in America, we used to crowd hopefully around a notice- board that listed internships at the end of semester. The prized mastheads for starry-eyed graduates in that cutthroat job market were The New York Times and The Washington Post, but I knew there was no point even looking at their ads, because at the bottom, in fine print, were always the words: "Minorities need only apply." And I knew Australians didn't count.
UPDATE. Robert Blair (what is is it with all the Blairs these days?) writes:
Posted by Tim Blair at May 15, 2003 11:31 AMI thought this bit of Ms. Devine’s article was the most interesting:
”But another reason for disillusionment of the public in journalism comes from the leakage of opinion and comment into news pages, and the kind of crusading journalism which used to be confined to editorials and opinion pages. While this may not be obvious to the journalistic or ‘chattering’ classes, it is obvious and repellent to the general public, who do not share their progressive views.”
The general public just doesn't take our broadsheet journos anywhere near as seriously as they think. If they did we would never have seen a Howard government, there would be no refugee detention centres, and the GG would be long Gone-Gone.
I think the net, and the explosion of alternative sources and views (which are now open to a significant percentage of people) is part of it. People are aware that there is a whole world of news and opinion that doesn't gel with their daily - they still read the daily, out of habit, it’s easier to access, and has the footy and cricket - but they simply don't believe the opinion articles, and increasingly not even the hard news stories.