It started a couple of weeks ago with Ian Warden saying the Letters column should be abandoned. He argued that the scribblings of the readership were often ill-informed, not witty, poorly argued, show little insight and so on.
He then added a provocative bit that the Letters column was taking precious space from paid journalists whose work was of far better quality.
John Cleland of Latham responded in his inimitable way. He “”agreed” with Warden. Tongue firmly in cheek he denounced the ramblings of the letter writers. In these days of information overload, why couldn’t the editor run a quick summary of the opinions? The column should be abolished, said the inveterate veteran of the column.
Outrage ensued. How could John Cleland say such things, other letter writers wrote. Cleland must be off his tree to think the best part of the paper should be abolished.
Warden’s point was proved. Half of the respondents to Cleland did not have the wit to see the sarcasm. Indeed, it is a courageous letter writer who engages in sarcasm or parody. Other letter writers take you deadly seriously.
Warden is right up to a point. The paid hack will do a better job. The hack has more time and more space than the letter writer. But many of our letter writers have expert knowledge, especially in this town. The place is dotted with hundreds of retired experts who sat silently for a career of years unable to voice their opinion. Then with retirement they could speak. One of the few outlets, though, is the Letters column. Sometimes, whole debates rage in the Letters column with nary a word in news pages.
DOT POINT BREAK
This week a letter writer queried the role of the “”spokesperson”.
“”Over recent months, the spokespersons for the Chief Minister and other ACT ministers have shown considerable flair for sneering comments and general invective. A pity, then, that these persons cannot be given proper credit for their skills, because they remain anonymous,” Stephen Brown, of Forrest wrote.
The word is very old, dating to the beginning of the 16th century, but its meaning has changed. In 1828, Carlyle said Goethe “”made himself the spokesman of his generation”. That reveals a different meaning from the presentday “”spokesman for the Chief Minister”. The modern political spokesman developed with the electronic media, particularly in the early 1970s. At its most benign the spokesman, or if you prefer, the spokesperson, is available for comment when the person they are speaking for (the politician) is not available. The spokesperson is generally across the issues and can speak for the minister on most things and can clarify things for journalists.
But it is not always as benign. The spokesperson can be a shield and a sword. If the minister is in strife, the spokesperson can take some flak. Of critical importance, the words of the spokesman can be denied, clarified or refined later by the minister without political fallout. If a spokesman for Paul Keating had said the tax cuts were L-A-W law, the phrase would not have gone into the Australian political lexicon. That is why spokesmen spawned with the electronic media. A politician can always deny he or she said something reported in print. It is not possible to deny the voice and vision of radio or television. Typically, a spokesman or spokesperson, never announces good news. The politician always does that directly. There is always time to do that.
The spokesman as a sword is not seen in public. Typically a minister’s office has a press officer and one or more senior advisers. They can play favourites. They can turn on the news drip or turn it off. They can reward journalists or punish them. It happens at both territory and federal level. Ultimately, though, there is a symbiosis between politician and political journalist. They cannot live without each other, even if a politician can sometimes play one medium off against another or one news organisation against another.
In America and Europe the spokesman has done what our letter writer desires. Fanning the world wire pops up many named spokesmen, such as Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Vladimir Rakhmanin and US National Security Council spokesman P. J. Crowley. And there was James Brady who took the flak literally for Ronald Reagan. And who can forget NATO spokesman Jamie Shea with his bovver-boy accent gilding the lily of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and the State Department spokesman James Rubin with the bow tie doing the same thing? If they are named do they behave better, at least in public. Certainly they don’t engage in the invective that offended our letter writer.
DOT Break
Lastly, a mea culpa. On Tuesday evening the night news editor rang to point out that the Saudi Bill court story had an obscene-language problem. I logged on from home and called up the story. The copy read “”c – – – ”, exactly like that. The dashes had stood out so I focused on that word and ok’ed it, reluctantly, in an electronic message to the night news editor. Alas, I completely missed the fully spelt-out f word in the story. It should not have appeared. It was unnecessary in the circumstances and it is not The Canberra Times style to do that on Page 1. I am sorry.
It’s moments like this that I need a spokesman.