MELBOURNE, VIC. — Victorian state and federal politicians often refuse to engage with local journalists (qualified journalists, not ‘influencers’ or ‘commentators’) when we send them requests for comment, try to arrange interviews and the like.
Whilst it is an ethical requirement that once ‘writs are issued’ for a (Victorian) state or Federal election, journalists must give all parties and candidates equal time, whether that is 2 minutes on-air, such as radio, or 500 words each for example.
It’s not unusual for local journalists to call the office of politicians and nine times out of ten, the first question their receptionist asks (politicians themselves rarely answer a telephone, that’s beyond them) “Who do you work for?” and if you don’t work for the MSM, well, they just don’t bother responding.
Yes, we even tested our theory. We called first, legitimately, and identified ourselves as VicNews. Days went by, no response. So a few days later, we called back, and, yes, we lied and told them we worked for the Herald Sun. Within minute,s we had a response and the politician calling us.
Once the politician called VicNews, we disclosed that he’d ‘been had’ and revealed who we really were. He was rather pissed off, not at the fact I played a trick to test a theory, but that he’d call VicNews and now had to answer our questions.
However, in our years of suburban and rural reporting, we noticed that candidates for both the Labor and Liberal and Liberal parties would only engage with and respond to requests for comment from MSM journalists, whilst ignoring local journalists.
But these politicians only ignore local journalists until the writs for an election are issued, then they do answer enquiries, they suddenly do respond.
First-hand experience in Kinglake, when Cathy McGowan ran for office in the Federal seat of Indi, she would answer enquiries. McGowan continued to do so, and respond to requests for comment and interview requests after she defeated Liberal incumbent Sophie Mirabella.
Helen Haines continues that tradition today.
So, what VicNews has decided is this. The ‘equal coverage’ rule does not apply to ANY politician who has refused to respond to requests for comment and interviews in the past.
If you couldn’t be bothered to this masthead until the writs were issued for an election, why bother now?
This is a notice to ALL politicians that, if I’ve sent you an email, called your office, knocked on your door, and you have refused to respond because ‘not from the majors (MSM)’, then the same applies in reverse doesn’t it?
Any politician that this masthead has sent requests for comment or interviews to who has failed to respond, will not be engaged in any way during any election campaign, you will be ignored.
Other independent journalists who publish their own news sites, local newspapers, community radio, and the like will be doing likewise.
This masthead, in conjunction with others, is compiling a database of all politicians who fail to engage with suburban, rural and regional qualified journalists, nor answer any requests for comment into a database.
The database will be published when a (Victorian) state or Federal election is called. All politicians on that database will not be engaged with in any way.
If you can only be bothered engaging with local journalists when you’re looking for votes at election time, but can’t be bothered engaging with us once you hold power, then we can’t be bothered engaging with you either. Simple as that.
We also acknowledge the cold, hard fact that independent polticians and ‘teals’ do engage with local journalists, and not just at election time, and that is a fact. The major parties? They don’t bother until election time.
Ask yourself, why is this so?
We’re an Australian local masthead, and it’s our job to “tell ’em to get stuffed.”
