Free press not keen to discuss itself

23 February 2007

Re another Mark Day story on regional radio:

Regional radio, regional papers, TV licenses - worthwhile subjects and your cover them extremely well.

And examining the media is vital in principle too.

But surely the Australian media topic of the decade is how our media was gulled - and subsequently gulled us - into supporting an illegal invasion of a sovereign nation, on the grounds - frequently propounded by the likes of Greg Sheridan and Paul Kelly - that that country had weapons of mass destruction, and would be returned to democracy by virtue of our occupation of it.

What happens with regional radio, etc, has consequences, sure. But all the subjects you have covered in the last year put together have not had the consequences of that invasion. An estimated 655,000 people are dead for starters - and that's just the Iraqis. The prestige of our strongest ally is damaged, perhaps fatally - to say nothing of out own. An unstable region has been made far more unstable; and a brand new factory for international terrorists has been established, with an already impressive production rate. The whole disaster could not have occurred without the media.

This is not worthy of discussion? 

Can I politely suggest that examining that would a bit more central to things than regional radio licensing?

If it cannot be discussed because some of the Australian's own columnists would come out of it so badly, what happened to the notion of a free press?