Headlines help sell papers and online subscriptions. They're just clickbait you might say but they shouldn't be dismissed so easily.
A recent headline in The Age is an example of what should not be done. The headline reads "Is this the first animal to become extinct on Tanya Plibersek's watch?"
You can't help but think Plibersek is getting mud chucked her way. Sadly, humans like to have someone about whom they can vent or complain about. A place to drop the blame.
Having located "she who should be blamed" we can smugly fool ourselves we have contributed to outing a wrong, hopefully therefore righting it.
Except that's just a rubbish opinion. It appeals to pompous, pontificating creeps who want to blow up their own importance by directing our anger at others.
Instead of focusing on her, focus on the organisations funded to do something. What are they achieving?
Plibersek knows I'm never going to vote for her or her mates. So what. She has always struck me as a smart, committed, decent person. And she's not chock-a-block with self importance.
She's in a political party that just doesn't get the primary point about having money to build schools, universities, protect the environment and so many other great things.
The primary point is you will not have the dollars to do it if business isn't employing people and making a worthwhile buck.
Her bad luck is she's the federal minister and thus an easy person on whom the ignorant or lazy can lay blame. Humans like to apportion blame because as you do it you're confirming you are blameless.
On seeing the headline it's obvious to someone with a modicum of brain matter that a fish does not arrive at or near extinction in a short period of time.
Thus it's stretching more than a bow to use the headline.
No doubt the sub-editor will point out the wording doesn't actually blame her. Cute. What is designed to do? I've had plenty of articles that dumped me in the proverbial and effectively said at the end "we are not inferring that (I) acted improperly".
Journalists can be brave with the headline and words at the front of the article and cowards by grabbing some protection for themselves near the end. That's the bit a lot of people don't get to.
There can't be much honour or respect conducting yourself that way but that doesn't seem to matter. Plibersek gets some faint praise (near the end) but the true culprits get off scot-free.
It certainly doesn't give a hint of when the problem started, who was responsible or what has been done so far.
Nor incidentally does it mention that over $10 million has been committed in the last few years to try and save these fish. You might think that was relevant. We should be told how it is being spent. What do the not-for-profits who are complaining say about that money and its effectiveness?
And what do the people spending it say? That's relevant because it's the effectiveness we needed ... not just the announcement.
That would be a truly environmentally concerned story, not just a call for more money. The headline gives no hint at just how much the Commonwealth has put in to try and save these fish.
Put more succinctly: to clean up after stupid moves by stupid people in state government. You could read The Age article and have no idea anything much had been done.
Who the federal minister is today is irrelevant. But it feeds a blood lust to offer up someone lazy and ignorant can throw stones at. What we got was just a call for more money.
The article does at least tell us that the poor fish at risk may not have innate predator warning sensors when introduced trout are out and about in the way they do have for native predators.
Nature apparently didn't equip them to spot an enemy that wasn't originally there. Dopey fish? Dopey Mother Nature? No, dopey us with introducing species.
MORE AMANDA VANSTONE:
Why not detail why the non-native species are in the waterways in the first place? The answer is pretty clear.
State governments, otherwise sometimes described as shameless re-election societies, have been sucking up to voters, recreational fishermen in this case, and heaping these trout into the waterways.
Perhaps they have done a mea culpa but this article doesn't give a hint as to their culpability. It is still happening but that bit is not reported.
If you're concerned about the fish, recognise the invasive species problem and want something done why not target the state governments concerned?
This is a good case study in lousy headlines but it also highlights how rarely we get given the full picture. We need to put a much greater focus on the states.
Look for example at their failure to have really effective planning laws, failure to provide effective transport to cater for the urban sprawl, failure to manage state hospitals, failure in Housing policy ... it's a long list.
Federal governments aren't perfect by a long shot but they seem to always get the blame for ineffective state administrations.
There's another area to scrutinise before we take the lazy road and just go after a federal or any minister for that matter. We should be focusing on public administration and in particular whether the policies of respective governments have been effectively implemented.
Government spending decisions are a million miles away from the day-to-day spending on the ground. Billions of dollars of government spending goes through public administration more than across the minister's desk That's where the rubber hits the road, where the effectiveness will ratchet up or spiral down.
One of the great pleasures in being a minister is working with top public servants. They are good at their work. It's a magical experience.
They spend billions of your dollars every month. How it's spent and monitored is vital. The good and bad of public administration could fill news bulletins every day.
We would be an even better country if we gave it the credit and when appropriate, the shame it deserves.
The article does point out a number of bodies set up by governments to work in this area.
That in itself begs some questions. It's no doubt great to have a job helping save the world from a not-for-profit set up by government.
You can sit around and point the finger without answering to the public.
But when they point the finger they might look in the mirror.
Ask yourself how effective all these organisations are, do they co-ordinate well, are they answerable to anyone?
What are the outcomes expected from their work. Once again, looking at the administration of the work at hand ... that's the key.
- Amanda Vanstone is a former senator for South Australia, and a former Howard government minister. She writes fortnightly for ACM.
Amanda Vanstone
Amanda Vanstone is a former senator for South Australia, a former Howard government minister, and a former ambassador to Italy. She writes fortnightly for ACM.
Amanda Vanstone is a former senator for South Australia, a former Howard government minister, and a former ambassador to Italy. She writes fortnightly for ACM.
