The task of keeping the bastards honest is becoming easier.
Well, perhaps it is impossible to keep the bastards honest, but at least the task of pulling them up for dishonesty, inconsistency and broken promises is getting easier. We no longer have to rely on the Democrats or memory. Electronic databases are making it far easier for journalists and political opponents to drag up precisely what was said in the past.
The electronic versions of Hansard and newspapers are especially valuable in dragging out what was said in the past to see if what is being said now or done now is consistent.
Of course, it was always possible to search paper versions starting from the rough recall of dates and events in the human memory. And so there has always been some accounting. But this does not match the power of electronic searching. Search for: “”Howard” and “”Medicare” or “”Keating” and “”deficit”. Out comes the litany of inconsistency and unfulfilled promises. (The J-curve, bringing home the bacon and the effervescent economy.)
These electronic databases are only slowly being built up. Most newspapers do not go back before about 1993. But old, pre-computer printed texts, including Hansard, are slowly being scanned.
One effect is that because so many consistencies are being shown, consistency is no longer paraded as a virtue. To the contrary, both Bob Hawke and John Howard, for example, have made virtues out of their transmogrification from ideological fringe-dwellers to reasonable centrists. The journalistic chase to expose inconsistency is no longer a favoured past-time. Paul Keating is no longer hounded with his youthful, maiden speech about keeping women at home.
But broken promises are still on the agenda and electronic aids to search them out are being used more often.
It may well be that we are seeing an information transition that will affect the way politicians behave.
In the early years of democracy, when life was simpler, it was easier to monitor both promises and performances. Then as life got more complex, journalists started to get snowed with paper. It was all right for academics with plenty of research time, but for journalists who are required to turn material around fairly quickly, politicians seemed to be able to get away with it more often.
But now, they are literally under electronic surveillance.
The other day, for example, it was very easy to search and find past examples of Labor announcements about tax avoidance to contrast that treatment with the treatment in this election campaign. It would have been nice to search back further, but that meant going to the paper files. Unless you have a fairly good idea of when and who as a starting point it is often too difficult to do in the time available. In the past 10 years newspapers have become very large and the file clips have become immense; it is difficult to see the forest for the trees. Electronic searching is coming to the rescue.
We are seeing journalists … and, indeed, politicians’ helpers … extracting the past more frequently. It is evolutionary, but it is happening.
There has been a snag. Often newspaper reports are in indirect speech. Indirect speech lacks force when it comes to pointing out a broken promise. It is not a new problem, any library search … paper or electronic … reveals how papers have been using less direct speech, and more indirect speech, comment and waffle. However, it may be that with more electronic searching journalists will have a keener sense of the historic record and use more direct quoting.
In the lead up to an election, of course, the leaders of the major parties do not look beyond election day and are willing to stretch promises with that day in mind. Voters may not believe the promises, but the 1993 experience shows they prefer to be promised the world than offered the uncomfortable truth. Voters do not appear capable of keeping the bastards honest. Moreover the Democrats in the Senate can only block; they cannot force the honest fulfilment of promises.
No; it is up to the media. And pollies should realise that the days of weak research forced through deadlines (the days when they could feed the chooks) might be coming to an end.