Vanna – your comment suggests academia is a bunch of cynical elitists – which does confirm the behaviour of some self – professed “academics” who do, from time to time, post here

I suppose what this Lindsay Tanner book is saying really is “I don’t find the media sympathetic with my view, therefore the media must be dumbing down their readership.”

Of course, if a socialist ever had a view which was worthy of being read or listened to, instead of their predictable pretentious / elitist claptrap, they might find a greater take-up in the press but with the performance of the Krudd and Gillard governments profligate squandering, it should be as no surprise to anyone that the socialist monocular views of the way things have to be, fall on deaf and disinterested ears.

Of course, if Tanner really wanted to read he is free to grab on to the UK Daily Telegraph… they have really wide coverage of everything written by articulate people who have been around, honing their craft for years….. although he might feel the DT is dumbing things down too…

Mind you it will require that a socialist come to grips with computers.... a difficult ask for the "cognitive challenged".

The real problem is Lindsay Tanner is just dumb and reading his book and articles merely confirm the sad reality.

Sad, but true.

This concisely written article made me realise that I too have been dumbed down. Successfully manipulated by Tony Abbott's many media appearances in factories/meatworks etc, all screened in 30 second video portions by ABC news as much as the commercial stations. Subtly, making me think that Tony Abbott and the Liberals will represent the true heart of working Australia more than Julia Gillard and Labor.

You know, it's still quite likely that I will conclude that they will.

But not without being more cynical about the strategic "positioning" used by all politicians to appeal to our dumbed down media-manipulated society where the "image" (visual) has triumphed over the "word" (verbal - rational). The journalist, Neil Postman wrote a great book about this process: it's title: "Amusing Our Selves to Death"

Reading this article made me feel sad.

I am a well-educated person.

But subtly, I have been taken in by Tony Abbott's media strategy.

Tony, I'm going to look closer at your policy and your actual words now - not just your media posturing.

But hey, I gotta admit, you sure know how to to that media posturing.

The opinion polls are going in your favour.

And its even been working on ME.

Col ruge
The website mentioned is being sponsored by some of the top universities and research centers in Australia including the Australian Group of Eight universities (ANU, University of Adelaide, Monash University, University of Melbourne, University of New South Wales, University of Sydney, University of Queensland, and University of Western Australia) plus University of Technology, Sydney, CSIRO, and the Australian Science Media Centre.

However the website has gradually deteriorated in time, and now most of it is mindless pap, with little reliability in any article in the website, perhaps culminating in the article by the university lecturer with the line that males have "have one brain in their head and another in their abdomen.”

Therefore I don’t think the media per se is to blame for declining standards or any dumbing down of the public.

Some of the top universities and research centers in the country are also a part of the dumbing down process and production of unreliable information.

vanna "Therefore I don’t think the media per se is to blame for declining standards or any dumbing down of the public. "

nor do I

but it is the sort of lazy excuse you would expect from a socialist politician

I thought that Tanner and Forkbender stated they had left politics to “spend more time with their families”?

Are we to read into recent events that what they actually meant was, “I’m leaving this party and public office because I’m sick of the structure of the ALP, the members, the caucus, the trade unions, the ministers, how they treat each other, how the formulate policy, the cabinet process, the divisive policies themselves, the damage they are doing to Australia, the 32% of Australians that still vote for them and their loss of sense of smell that prevents them from recognizing the cadaver they call a government”.

Sounds like a great basis for yet another to blame someone other than ourselves!

The tend towards infotainment is an interesting one. I wouldn't be alarmed by it if 'information' was readily available without the 'entertainment' added in, but that seems to be slipping away. Even 'hard-hitting' journalists function as entertainers: I suspect that many focus more on making their interview subjects squirm than on revealing information. That isn't a new trend - even Jana Wendt, who was considered a 'serious' journalist in her heyday, seemed to know what she wanted her interviewees to say and focused purely on getting them to say it, preferably through the most painful methods.

As for those sensible shows in the ABC and SBS - the ones that apparently challenge politicians in serious debate - well, they seem to run a similar line. Sometimes I'm surprised the pollies don't get up and slap the interviewers for being so impertinent. Interruptions, redirections, 'hard-hitting' questions that are really thinly-veiled personal attacks ... it's all a sorry sight in my opinion. At least shows like The 7PM Project openly admit what they are. Others could follow in that lead, or (even better) try to be what they claim to be.

Vanna, your link to The Conversation is interesting. I've been following that site as well and, in the main, find it interesting. After your comment, I dug around and found the article referring to mantids. I found it interesting, and didn't really find the quip about male brains to be a denigration of men. I did, however, find it to be an unnecessary addition that weakened the scholarly seriousness of the piece. While I'm sure the target audience is educated enough to be aware that men don't have brains in their abdomens, and has read enough to recognise an attempt at humour when faced with one, I'd tend to agree that it is unnecessary. I have confidence in the reliability of the actual information in that article, however I am left wondering what other reliable information was left out to make room for the author to insert some personality.