Manne, Robert (ed), Do Not Disturb: Is the Media failing Australia?

Abstract

This collection of 10 essays documents the role of the media at a time when John Howard has produced the most ideological government in the nation’s history. In the absence of a comprehensive account of John Howard’s media management techniques, Do Not Disturb offers the next best thing: some of the most thorough minds in the country with considered perspectives on the complicity of the media as Howard radically narrowed the national vision. While the subtitle is tentative (‘Is the media failing Australia?’) and the back page blurb polite (‘the mainstream media has failed to notice …’), the text systematically excoriates the Australian media to reveal the active participation of right-wing proprietors and journalists in Howard’s agenda and the failure of the rest to insist on rational debate and common decency in our national politics.