Problems in getting to the story and getting it out - continued

The most recent variant - flogging off the slums of the future as sure-thing tax effective investments - has been running strong since the early 90s. Governments effectively took no action until aggrieved investors started heading seriously for the courts and the media took a concerted interest in the issue.

With The Australian on the case, a junior minister conducted investigations and held consultations and took a package of reforms forward. The process was always at risk of being derailed from pressures being exerted elsewhere in government and the reforms were extensively watered down in the usual way to avoid offence to developers and floggers of property generally.

Then the Courier-Mail's talented Hedley Thomas picked up the issue and most importantly kept at it. The government was spurred, remarkably rapidly, into action from the boss down which was surprisingly intolerant of industry whiteanting. Another pronounced bout of Courier-Mail interest would now probably be sufficient to produce a model compliance regime.

Great influence, whether sought or not, does carry some corresponding obligation of responsible exercise. And, indeed, as editors and journalists are often painfully aware, the paper is often berated around town fairly and unfairly for various alleged sins of commission.

It is harder, of course, to get a handle on sins of omission. But what is not poked into or written about or followed up may well have a greater significance. In the example above, the Courier-Mail can fairly be criticised for not picking the issue up more effectively much earlier. But, going further, unchecked marketing abuses can be shown to have had disastrous consequences on the reputation, landscape and future taxpayer liabilities of south east Queensland.

These underlying issues have received scant attention, even when the media has run hot on the marketing issue. On analysis, the articles have been about victims, villains and fumbling governments.

The largest area of omissions concerns issues and processes. The media is geared up to handle people and events and think in those terms. Covering issues and processes is hard work, and a lot of the invitations and opportunities to do so end up being consigned to the fairly sizeable "worthy but dull" receptacle that hangs somewhere around the back of every newsroom - usually somewhere near that too hard box.

But when government says one thing while intending to doing another, or more usually, do nothing, the feat is usually achieved by devising some process which will produce the desired outcome. This may well involve finding people with the necessary competence, amenability or, even, incompetence to do (or not do) the job. Much of this vital activity goes on under our radar screen but, even if it is noted, we media often lack the necessary techniques and outlets to tell the world.

12. Tied up in balancing

What we in the media are concerned about are allegations of bias or imbalance. Fairness is all, but the attaining of a position of perfect balance between two positions on an issue is something else entirely. The pursuit of balance has lead to vast slabs of inadequate copy that can be characterised as "he said-she said" journalism.

This holds that the story is adequately handled if you go first to one side then the other and line the comments up side by side. What might be said might be highly misleading or completely untrue or just meaningless drivel but who cares - journalism is about collecting and collating opposing comments.

There are a myriad of difficulties with this approach. Who said there is only two points of view to most issues? Usually in the political arena, we go to the so-called conservatives and the so-called socialists for our views. But if our party system is a Tweedledee and Tweedledum affair of two sides equally and mutually scared of upsetting the same bunch of horses, the comments can usually be predicted pretty perfectly and won't amount to much anyway. The usual suspects for comment will be those with their hands up, and those least likely to have anything new, different or challenging to say.

The alternative view is that the story is not done, unless you are telling the punter what is really going on. Simply collecting and collating the he saids and she saids won't do that, but requiring comments to be meaningful and challenging those that are untruthful might. This usually implies going to he and she for their comments after a bit of basic digging into the story, rather than going there first and only there.

Journalists strapped into a he said-she said straitjacket are fairly easy to manipulate. What if one side just won't come to the table? It often happens and it often just kills off the story. Manipulation without effort.