Politics with Michelle Grattan
News:Politics
Geoff Kitney fell into a career in journalism, and rose from reporting the local footy in Western Australia to covering many of federal politics's biggest stories and serving as a foreign correspondent based in Berlin and London.
Arriving at parliament house in 1975, Kitney reported on the dramatic Dismissal. Later, the relative decorum of the Canberra press gallery contrasted with the danger and adventure of war reporting.
During the Kosovo war, he was sent to Belgrade, travelling there in a bus with a crowd of Serbians.
"It was very, very strange bus trip because we'd passed houses with MiG fighters parked in the driveways ... [Slobodan Milošević] was trying to stop NATO destroying his airforce. So he put the MiG fighters next to people's houses so that they wouldn't hit them, which meant that he couldn't use them, but at least he still had them."
In Kitney's new book, Beyond the Newsroom, based around his decades of reporting and analysis, he also has some sharp observations about what's happened to the media.
"Advertising started shifting to social media. Newspaper budgets got tighter and tighter. Staff started being cut. We've now had years of redundancies."
"We had specialist reporters covering all sorts of issues, digging down, getting out into the bureaucracy ... finding what's really going on. Now ...there aren't enough people to do that."
"And the pressure, for Twitter for example, is to be noticed. And it seems to me that people think the best way to get noticed, and probably this is true, is to have strong opinions that people react to. And so opinion becomes more important than actual information."
Politics with Michelle Grattan: Bill Shorten on making the NDIS fit for purpose
Politics with Michelle Grattan: Chris Bowen’s struggle to promote consensus on climate action at COP28
Politics with Michelle Grattan: Greens Barbara Pocock on the quest for greater transparency
Politics with Michelle Grattan: James Paterson on the High Court’s decision on detention and rising anti-Semitism
Politics with Michelle Grattan: Former climate minister Greg Combet on Australia’s mission to reach net-zero
Politics with Michelle Grattan: Economist Chris Richardson on a likely interest rate rise and the fall in living standards
Politics with Michelle Grattan: Don Farrell’s high noon for European free trade deal, and hopes for lobster exports to China
Politics with Michelle Grattan: Kim Beazley on Albanese’s US trip, Biden in the Middle East, and the Voice’s defeat
Politics with Michelle Grattan: Middle East expert Ian Parmeter on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict
Politics with Michelle Grattan: Greens Jordon Steele-John on the disability royal commission and Bill Shorten’s NDIS reforms
Politics with Michelle Grattan: Treasurer Jim Chalmers on jobs and work
Word from The Hill: Assessing Daniel Andrews, the extraordinary Pezzullo story, senators give Qantas chiefs a hard time
Politics with Michelle Grattan: ANU Vice-Chancellor Brian Schmidt on the challenges universities face
Politics with Michelle Grattan: Asia expert Richard McGregor on Anthony Albanese’s coming visit to China
Word from The Hill: Danielle Wood to head Productivity Commission, Alan Joyce bows to public anger, PM jets off again
Politics with Michelle Grattan: Battle of The Voice - Yes23 campaign director Dean Parkin and former deputy prime minister John Anderson
Word from The Hill: Date for Voice referendum to be announced on Wednesday
Politics with Michelle Grattan: Labor president Wayne Swan on the party’s coming national conference
Word from The Hill: Double dissolution hot air, PM dodging Treaty question, Morrison hit with counter punch after Robodebt speech
Politics with Michelle Grattan: ‘yes’ campaigner Thomas Mayo and ‘no’ advocate Derryn Hinch on the Voice
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