Do we still have trust in traditional media sources, or do we know better than that now?

In a world of global information flow and almost organic interconnection, the influence of traditional ‘government’ may be on the wane. For now, this spreads a sense of disconnection. Distrust. A lack of faith. It may soon resolve into a sense of great opportunity … a way, at last, to make politics and government truly responsive to community sentiment and need.
For now, this protracted election campaign of 2013 has pushed these issues to the foreground.
Jonathan Green uses events of the campaign and elsewhere in current Australian politics to examine this time of change we are living through and the ideas nibbling at our traditional political structures.
It started with the oft replayed ‘misogyny speech’ where the mainstream political media insisted on an interpretation that conformed to a narrative thread of its own making ... the rest of us, quite suddenly, knew better. The press gallery emerged battered and confused, but resolved to carry on. Regardless, sticking to its version of the political story.
Have we seen the end of ideology? Does truth matter in politics? Do we still have trust in traditional media sources, or do we know better than that now? What do leaders do again?
Green unravels these issues of the moment in the real time of the 2013 electoral race.

Jonathan Green has been a working journalist since the late 1970s. This makes him both very old and reasonably experienced. After an early degree-ending flirtation with public radio, the bulk of Jonathan’s career has been spent in newspapers, beginning with a cadetship at the Canberra Times and taking in a small Cook’s tour of Australian dailies: the Melbourne Herald, The Herald Sun, the Sunday Herald, The Sunday Age and The Age.
The Age was a settled patch, 15 years in which Jonathan worked as a senior editor, night editor and section editor, spent three years writing a daily column, joined the Fairfax team covering the Athens Olympics, and edited The Sunday Age.
Proof that old dogs can be made at least passingly familiar with new tricks, Jonathan left The Age in 2006 to work for the first time online as editor of Crikey. After three years there and having gained a nodding familiarity with the ways of the internet, he at last found his way to the ABC as foundation editor of ABC online’s The Drum.