I wish I could humourously insert "Brandis-hing" into this title, but I couldn't think of anything...

Didn’t catch much of last night’s news offerings, but what I did see seemed to be a mix of the Brandis issue and the Scrafton issue.

The novelty of seeing Howard and Latham sharing official duties at the return of the Olympic athletes and the farewell of the RAAF squadron also seemed to attract press coverage (it would have been interesting to see one of the journalists pick up on the increasingly hysteric idolisation in Australia of Olympic athletes on the one hand, and the somewhat neutral attitude towards defence personnel on the other, in the context of this neat coincidence of events).

The Herald this morning leads with news that:

“strong spending by debt-laden households has ensured a 14th year of growth,
bolstering the Coalition pitch that it is the best manager.”

Now, I am the world’s least qualified person to comment on economic policy, but it just doesn’t seem right that a situation in which a majority of the country is in debt but still spends highly, without any Government incetives towards saving, qualifies as ‘good management’. I’d better leave it there before I further reveal the extent of my ignorance on this issue.

I’d just like to point out however, that I’d like to see some discussion in major media outlets of economic issues that don’t centre around mortgage repayments!

Check out Crikey for some info on the negotiations for coverage of the leaders’ debate. It’s a revealing article, but I reckon some depth could have been added with a discussion of just what the Government is trying to achieve by demanding there be “no broadcast of audience response.”

I kinda hope Channel 7 does go ahead and use the ‘worm’ to give us an idea of audience response. I mean, that’s why we’re having an election, isn’t it? To find out what we all think? This is exactly the kind of thing I was thinking of in my earlier post in which I foreshadowed my interest in the Liberals’ dealings with the media.

Over at Backpages (what a popular blog that is, and rightly so), you can find a revealing account of one man’s run-in with Max Moore-Wilton (in the context of Scrafton's evidence yesterday to the Senate Committee outlining his experience with Moore-Wilton). Very much worth the look, just for the jaw-dropping factor.

Also, I recommend you check out John Quiggan’s blog for commentary on the media’s portrayal of the Greens. This might be something to keep an eye on, just to see how long it takes for the coverage to go from ridiculous to pure farce.

Expect to see News Limited hosting public burnings of Greens policy documents, Federal inquiries grilling private citizens and public figures about their links to the Greens, a national competition to 'green' the phrase "reds under the bed"...