Media/Current Affairs
Book Details

The Media We Deserve

Underachievement in the Fourth Estate

David Salter

The Media We Deserve is about the major entities of the Australian media, their roles and influence in our lives, and the issues of journalistic practice that shape their content.

Opinion

“[The Media We Deserve] is passionate, usually well argued, and packed with rich and apt example. For anyone hoping to understand what the tools of print, radio and television mean for Australian society, David Salter has provided an excellent point of departure.” Richard Begbie, Canberra Times, 15/09/2007

“Salter understands all the arguments about journalism in the public interest, and illustrates them from experience. And he criticises his profession for seeming acceptance of self-regulation, which has proved an inadequated system in improving media standards. It’s a feisty book, and he gets stuck into people who deserve it, such as Alan Jones and Gerard Henderson. Not surprisingly, as a former insider, he’s good on the strengths and shortcomings of the ABC.”
John Button, The Age, 29/09/2007

About this Title

Australia is fortunate to have media that are generally competent and occasionally very good indeed. But the print and broadcast material we consume every day can also be perverse, shallow, illogical, infuriatingly opportunistic, crassly commercial, insufferably pretentious and rarely witty.

We hold journalists in particular contempt and believe they deal in prefabricated versions of reality--false assumptions of habitual values rather than open-minded observation. It’s a unique form of media-manufactured mediocrity.

The public distrusts their media but continue to use them. They have little choice. We get The Media We Deserve.

About the Author

David Salter is one of Australia’s most respected independent journalists and television producers. He was Executive Producer of ABC-TV’s Media Watch program, and writes regularly on media affairs.

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978-0-522-85420-6