Insiders is the point where politics and the media meet and we see how truly indivisible the two are. For an hour on Sunday those of us who aren’t insiders are granted a rare insight into how our mighty political journalists process the big stuff in Canberra. These are the special people who have a forever backstage pass. They know how the sausage, which they are part of, is made.
I’ll confess that I, like many others, have drifted away from Insiders and its special brand of clubby closeness. But after a long break, and after reading scarifying social media reviews, I watched it closely on Sunday
By all accounts David Speers is a nice guy, but that’s not why we’re here today. David Speers is the leading political correspondent on what is hopefully the leading network in the country. It’s a serious job. And yet what the viewer gets is choreographed theatre which serves the interests of its participants who also seem to know each other well.
David Speers has a highly developed sense of the gotcha moment. His interviews are akin to a shark in a fish tank. There’s a degree of circling of his prey – in this case it was Senator Bridget McKenzie – before he senses a vulnerability and then needles it. Speers appears to be in constant search of a headline above all. And thus begins the tedious dance. McKenzie is the shadow minister for transport. She did not want to be cornered on how she would make Australia’s domestic airlines cheaper. A couple of weeks ago McKenzie had copped a public beating for suggesting the government should have breakup powers to make the airlines more competitive. Speersy wanted her to say it again. McKenzie had a pat answer to avoid it and she stuck with it until Speersy eventually gave it away as a bad job.
These moments yield almost nothing in terms of informing viewers. For insiders, though, they represent a goldmine of journalism cliches. They can lead to the “backflip” or the “gaffe” or the “doubling down”. These are the currency of how a politician or an opposition or a government is faring. It’s the last thing a politician wants. It’s the only thing some political reporters want. This game is well understood by both parties. (Treasurer Jim Chalmers was at the centre of the same game last week as journalists demanded to know whether or not he had sought advice on negative gearing – thus reducing a vital debate to a catch and kill moment.) What’s the point?
And then there was Greg Sheridan. Oh boy.
It is genuinely difficult to know why the ABC feels it needs to include a prominent Murdoch opinionator like The Australian’s Greg Sheridan as a guest on its flagship political program. In days gone by ABC managers saw strategic value in including some of the big Murdoch names. It was a way of appeasing News Corp and Coalition governments who would forever claim the ABC was a left-wing echo chamber. And despite these goodwill gestures the attacks from both News and the Coalition have only become more vitriolic.
In some ways Greg Sheridan is a pantomime villain for progressives. He has been on the scene for a very long time now and has alienated many with his defence of the late Cardinal George Pell and his support of hard right Catholic positions. With his ageing white bloke vibes he has become known derisively as The Cardigan.
What I saw on Sunday though was more of a sad clown. Greg is a man of a certain age – an age where it looks unnatural to have a mop of rich dark hair on top, combined with greying stubble on the jaw. It sends a mixed message, I’m sure you will agree. Of all people one might have hoped that Greg would stick with the naturally greying colour God gave him – unless of course his forever dark locks are a miracle, which can’t be ruled out.
Anyway, look, it’s a cheap shot. What matters is what he says as an “insider” (though of course Greg is not part of the Canberra pack).
To give him his due, on the topic of Israel’s deadly attacks on Hezbollah, Sheridan’s analysis reflected the orthodox view that Israel was changing the power dynamic in Lebanon to its north and that it was re-establishing deterrence in the mind of enemies such as Iran after the events of October 7 last year. But then Sheridan added his own special take: he asserted that Israel bombed and killed the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nassrallah at this moment in order to “lock in” presidential candidate Kamala Harris, given that she was no Joe Biden when it came to supporting Israel. Sheridan’s analysis in The Australian is that Harris has many failings “both Trump and Harris lie fluently, smoothly and routinely, without it seems the slightest hesitation” he wrote and that she and Trump had fought out a “mediocre, low quality draw” in their presidential debate.
But it was to get even more obtuse.
Greg had his own take, too, on the question of the ACCC’s pursuit of Coles and Woolworths, with the consumer watchdog alleging that supermarket duopoly made false or misleading representations to shoppers about the prices of 266 products between September 2021 and May 2023. The supermarkets have allegedly been putting up the prices of common items before then reducing them and calling that a discount.
It might sound like the big guys dudding the public. For Sheridan though the story was really about the ACCC going all populist and beating up on successful companies. For Greg the moral of the story was: more fool you for believing retailers when they say a discount really is a discount.
Thank God the Guardian’s political correspondent Karen Middleton was on hand to put Greg in his box.
Insiders was established in an era when both Nine and Ten had their own Sunday morning political/media programs. It was intended as a competitor to Nine’s Sunday program where press gallery doyen Laurie Oakes, clipboard on lap, would quietly shred Canberra hypocrisy and double speak and often break some news as a lead in to the week.
But the current spectacle of meaningless journo-politico tangoes, starring ageing Newscorp stars, just doesn’t cut it.
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