April 6, 2001

"We'll all be rooned", said Hanrahan, "before the year is out". Federal Employment Minister Tony Abbott used the line from the famous poem to underscore his theme in a recent speech that we as a nation are suffering from "roonitis".

I couldn't agree more. A major factor in this pessimistic attitude is the pernicious outpouring from the merchants of chaos, the purveyors of doom and gloom: the Australian media.

The media believe, rightly or wrongly, that bad news sells. There is little balance in their reporting. In fact much of it is not reporting. It is pontificating, criticising, lampooning and character assassination.

The politicians cannot win. If they stick to a course of action they are "arrogant" or "out of touch". If they change direction they "do a back-flip" or "cave-in".

Note the powerful negative verbs used by journalists: "sparked anger", "threatens", "sent shockwaves", "shattered", "pummelled" were a few of the terms noted in the media in the last few days. Were they reporting on renewed violence in the Balkans or the Middle-East? No, most of the epithets were directed at the Australian dollar for falling (plummeting) below US 50 cents, and at the Howard government for allowing it to happen.

To some degree the falling dollar has been a self-fulfilling prophesy. There is so much doom and gloom in the media that consumers and small business operators have, according to recent surveys, historically low levels of confidence in the economy. And yet Australia's economic fundamentals are quite sound.

A lot of the blame must be sheeted home to the talkback shows. The shock jocks are particularly virulent in their doom and gloom messages. It seems their researchers start each day by dredging around for a bad-news theme, or a politician to attack. Then they launch in, starting with a hard-hitting editorial followed by interviews with one or more attackers. This brings out the whingers and the programme is off and running.

All of this media-inspired pessimism and negativity seems to be turning Australia into a nation of whingers. Listen to the talk-back callers and the general knockers. Every government project is criticised because "they should have spent the money on hospitals". It seems equivalent-hospitals has become a new monetary measure. The great belltower beat-up is a case in point.