Peter Dutton has put Australia’s traditional media in a tough spot — how are they going to get through this generational culture war?
The opposition leader seems to have figured there’s still enough life in the old, white, settler vision of Australia to get him through to at least a respectable loss at the next election. Maybe.
But for big media, it’s a touch more existential. They’ll be recognising that their future depends on pivoting to a newer, younger, more diverse, better educated, post-Mabo Australia. And their greatest threat in reaching that audience? Being caught out being ambivalent over the Voice.
Dutton’s pre-Easter decision to lock his parliamentary leadership in with him on HMAS Old Australia saw the nation’s institutions spend the long weekend edging sideways step by step, frantically looking around for the lifeboats before it’s too late.
In the wake of the NSW election, the Aston byelection and the Dutton announcement, plenty of commentary has been banging on the door to warn of icebergs ahead: it’s the diversity of multiculturalism, wrote George Megalogenis in the Nine mastheads; it’s the rising millennials and zoomers, says Kos Samaras; in the US, Nate Silver says, it’s education (true here, too).
It’s not even smart politics. As Peter Brent tweeted: “The last three federal opposition leaders to successfully oppose constitutional referendums were rolled by their parties the following year: Howard 1988-9, Peacock 1984-5, Sneddon 1974-5. People think it’s a political ‘win’ but it’s not really.”
Within 24 hours, the Uluru dialogue leadership was pricing Dutton’s No, with Noel Pearson on morning radio accusing him of “chucking Indigenous Australians and the future of the country under the bus so he can preserve his miserable political hide”. On evening TV, Professor Marcia Langton eviscerated Dutton’s position, saying it “relies absolutely on deceit and misrepresentations — and, I have to say, a great deal of ignorance”.
On Sky News on the weekend, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese kindly pointed out another iceberg: all those corporations and institutions — sporting and cultural — whose future depended on reaching those younger, diverse audiences, and who are already signed up to support the Voice.
Even the News Corp tabloids got the hint: “Stars To Sell Voice”, said the front page of The Sunday Telegraph; “Yes Vote Star War”, according to the Herald Sun; “Spirit of the Voice”, imagined The Courier-Mail.
It’s not news for old media. While Australia’s conservatives have spent the past decade milking every lost vote out of old Australia, media (other than News Corp, of course) have been frantically trying to break into the audiences of the future.
It’s not just Australia. Over the weekend, the World Association of Newspapers put out a teaser for its forthcoming World News Media Congress, with an almost plaintive “What to do about Gen Z?”
It reckons there are three options: change the journalism (give them stories they want), change the product (to where Zoomers are, like TikTok), or stick with the traditional media strategy and change nothing (and just wait until they grow up and settle down).
Even The Australian, caught between the culture wars of the masthead’s locked-up aging demographic and the interests of the rising generation it so desperately wants to plug into, has taken a shot at building a younger audience with its short-lived The Oz — before it stumbled.
Now, suddenly, by politicising the referendum, by trying to make it an essentialist choice about what sort of country Australia should be, Dutton has tripped up Australia’s media.
Political reporters could live with — even admire — Dutton’s tactical game-playing, like his look-over-there hand-waving over “details”. As long as the campaigners for No were fringe and disorganised, media could weave through with their standard play-it-safe, both-sides reporting.
Now, on the fly, journalists have to make big decisions about how to get amplification right and who’s on which side — and just what, if anything, they represent. Given the stakes, there’s not going to be much tolerance for when journalists get it wrong.
Fortunately, there’s some good news. New digital media (even not-so-new like Crikey) have greater reach. The major traditional media, like the ABC and the Nine Network, have been preparing for the moment, building up their internal expertise and strategically privileging non-political — largely Indigenous — voices in their approach.
News Corp, meanwhile, will be busy heating up the passions of No, tossing briquettes of compressed resentment to keep the steam up in the boilers of old Australia.
