Communications Minister Stephen Conroy. Photo: Dean Sewell
Should we be surprised when it comes to media reform that most of the protagonists are working an angle? Probably not, but some decoding might be in order.
Let's start with the government.
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has been working up a response to a couple of landmark reviews about media policy for the best part of a year, on and off. Given the hell likely to break loose with any incursion into the commercial interests of the big media players, and the propensity of the cabinet to leak when there's contention or dispute, most of this work has been very tightly held.
Last week, it was finally on. The package dropped into cabinet without warning, and was endorsed and pumped through the caucus. Not exactly a high point of public policymaking; unlikely to serve as a case study in a textbook on government administration. Bit of a bloody shambles, to be frank. But not unexpected, given everything.
Deprived of an opportunity to leak the details of the media reform package in advance of an announcement, cabinet-level sources then leaked retrospectively about the abuse of process. The ramming of sensitive material through the cabinet was thus promptly referred to as a ''test of the Prime Minister's [wobbling] leadership''. Handy that, coming just before the publication of Monday's Age/Nielsen poll, the incendiary precede to the final sitting week before the budget. Does that leak serve anyone's interests, do you reckon?
Then we have Malcolm Turnbull, the opposition's communications spokesman, using the opportunity to lay down some philosophical markers about the importance of free speech and market solutions.
Resolutely on the Coalition's song sheet, of course, absolutely within his portfolio, completely beyond reproach - but handily eloquent on brand Malcolm. If you were inclined to listen carefully, you could almost detect a sonorous homily about the benefits of progressive, modern, centre-right leadership as opposed to, say, an alternative who isn't really huge on markets or on freedom - who, in fact, in his heart doesn't mind a spot of government intervention. Tony Abbott, anyone?
Then there's those crossbenchers, affronted by ''take it or leave it'' deadlines from Conroy - ever the blunt instrument. What if we leave it then, Stephen, seemed a temptation too good to miss.
So here we all are on the latest Canberra episode of Who Dares Wins - an increasingly brutal political reality show. There was added piquancy from an elephantine stakeholder - the media - which is both a player in and a chronicler of the transaction. Some outlets didn't even bother to feign disinterest. The mask dropped entirely. One newspaper compared the Communications Minister to murderous dictators of history, including Joseph Stalin.
The justification? Our right in the media to be provocative - and never mind the audience, who might have wondered absently over their corn flakes who is this weird-looking bloke in the picture, and has the revolution come?
Speaking of the audience, let's consider them as we consider the merits of policy change to media regulation.
I won't defend for one moment the government's sub-optimal internal process, the fact it took far too long to respond to reviews that actually require a considered, well-thought-out policy response. In terms of the fine print, the package reads like mild chaos and extreme compromise.
But the principles guiding the proposed changes? Let's look through the static and consider them.
There are two: that concentration of media ownership in Australia will not get any worse than it is now. Not any better, mind you - just no worse. And that self-regulation - a principle that newspapers have rightly fought for and defended - should be made to actually work; that people who are the victims of intended or unintended abuses by media companies have their complaints properly heard.
The principles in this package are, in fact, the challenges the mainstream media must meet in order to survive the transition currently upon us. We in the media must renew our mandate with audiences by innovating and moving beyond the strictures of the old masthead and network models, and by being accurate and reliable.
We can pretend the only player here with an existential trust problem is the Gillard government, and wilfully ignore our own parallel universe: the evidence that audiences don't trust us either.
We can comfort ourselves in self-delusion, and strut and fret. Or we can spend less time swaggering and railing against our enemies and more time renewing the mission of contemporary journalism. We are tellers of truths, news breakers, curators and contextualisers; and at our best and bravest, we are people who write things that someone, somewhere, does not want written.
The only people who can save or destroy journalism are journalists. And we will save it only if we exhibit courage and humility, not manufactured conflict.
This is my last weekly column for The Age. I cannot express what a pleasure and a privilege it has been. I wish Age readers, treasures that you are, the very best.
Katharine Murphy is national affairs correspondent of The Age.
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