Let’s call it as we see it – nothing new about that.
There is an exquisite – and for media outfits like ours – painful dichotomy under way. The whole world has suddenly realised the planet needs urgent saving. Sustainability, buildings, the works.
So marketing departments and “content” writing companies everywhere are paying big bucks to the kind of journalists that we need.
Suddenly we’re no longer among the few news websites asking skilled experienced writers who care about the planet to write for us – we’re competing for skilled, experienced writers who need to feed their families and pay the rent.
It’s simple: fair pay for fair work. Nothing wrong with that.
What is wrong is that our source of funds hasn’t expanded in parallel to meet the bigger need.
We can’t match the salaries offered by the deep pockets who fund marketing outfits or those of the handful of big independent media – both of which increasingly control the narrative. Of everything.
We don’t want to think about nearly 15 years of building a good brand in The Fifth Estate that over the space of a year or two is knocked sideways by the mega powerful giants who now dominate what we read, what we know and eventually, maybe, even what we think.
We believe that what we publish is really important. (It’s why our small team works so incredibly hard, and for not much above subsistence level recompense.)
The stories that make us proud are many. This issue it’s Zach Greening’s story about COP 28 in particular.
Zach’s take is at vast odds with this government’s recent proclaiming of what a victory the COP was. Zach calls it FLOP28. And has a huge amount of evidence to back up his comments.
For instance, the insistence from COP28 president Sultan Al-Jaber that stunned the audiences with his “oxymoronic nuggets of wisdom such as: ‘I am here, factual, and I respect the science. And there is no science out there or no scenario out there that says that the phase out of fossil fuels is what’s going to achieve 1.5 degrees’.”
It gets worse when he’s up against former Irish President Mary Robinson at a panel themed on Women & Climate and Robinson criticises Al-Jaber’s “blasé approach to decarbonisation, saying,
‘We’re in an absolute crisis that is hurting women and children more than anyone … and it’s because we have not yet committed to phasing out fossil fuel. That is the one decision that COP28 can take and in many ways, because you’re head of ADNOC, you could actually take it with more credibility.’”
And Al Jaber responded by accusing her of reading her own media: “I am telling you I am the man in charge,” he says. [Listen to me!] We don’t want to be alarmist and “return to living in caves”, he chides.
(Caves might soon be the only safe place to find uncontaminated boiling air soon. Just sayin’)
And then there is the unabashed championing from almost all media on Western Australia’s new determination to slash “green tape” for major developments. Now for green tape read environmental protection.
We searched extensively for “balance” to that story but all we found at least so far was unabashed championing of Gina Rinehart and pals now that the Cook government had “cooked” greenies. How freaking chuffed those headline writers must be with themselves.
Even the ABC went to great lengths to explain what the Environmental Protection Agency is and why its advice was just advice that didn’t need to be acted on and that the government and the mining industry said was simply holding up decisions on big developments.
“I think most would agree that an international backpacker travelling through Exmouth shouldn’t be able to appeal a proposal in the Pilbara and hold up an assessment,” Cook was quoted as saying, adding that he believed that some environmental groups were fomenting divisions among Aboriginal people.
Well, imaging that! Were Aboriginal communities were previously all of one mind – united in every single thought, feeling and political persuasion that can be imagined? Maybe Cook was suggesting that they were previously not Indigenous but homogenous.
There was a kind of subtext that emerged above the parapet just a bit to suggest that now that the Indigenous community has lost the Voice to Parliament and now that the annoying Joe Aston had finally left The AFR, not so long after his searing attack on Rio Tinto for blowing up the Juukan caves, miners and cave detonators will never again have to weather that kind of brouhaha.
But there’s more to consider and closer to home for our “latte sipping greenies” who are increasingly vilified for caring about the environment or heritage or anything all it seems (other than the holy dollar.)
In Sydney the rise of the YIMBYs – yes in my back yard – group that has flared up in a matter of months and gathering support from all sorts of quarters call for “abundant housing”.
If they said “affordable housing” we wouldn’t be so suspicious of their development lobby provenance. It’s like the Pied Piper has captured all the young people and leading them away, away….We wish these energetic and inspired young folk who are being called on to attend local council meetings to shame the babyboomers and planners who want balance in the way we develop would focus on shifting the tax agenda.
With that head of steam we reckon they’d win. And put Bill Shorten and the Labor Party to shame for nearly getting tax reform on housing over the line a few elections ago.
Seriously folks, “abundant housing” can be had tomorrow if the industry was willing to build into this crazy market. The approvals are there. No problem. Read Tim Sneesby and Cameron Murray to see the flip side of that media landslide debacle – group think to make Donald Trump proud.
But we love the YIMBYs’ attitude and energy and sheet it home to the indefatigable talent of that rising star the Greens’ Max Chandler-Mather who was probably the first renter to gain political prominence. Wonder what he thinks of how his agenda is panning out. Some people have called him “mad”. We think he’s just highly politically skilled at knowing how to get cut through. Watch that talent!
It takes all kinds to make a revolution or evolution if you are a bit on the squeamish side. Essentially it’s a bell curve. You need the crazy vanguard at the front who break the ice (if any ice can be found these days outside of the shrinking arctic poles); you need the sensible middle with all the data and evidence to make the case and you unfortunately need to drag with you that bunch at the end, who don’t know/don’t care.
And it takes a lot of forward surges to finally break through the seawalls of same-same.
Because those sea walls are made up of big heavy weight establishment figures who can afford the most talented people on the planet to sing their song.
And they’ve got very deep pockets.
There was a little quip on one of Kara Swisher podcasts the other day by her co-host Scott Galloway who said the most powerful thing on the planet right now isn’t a political party but money.
So you can see where this is going.
The way we see it, we may have lost the battle to keep to 1.5 degrees warming but we can win the war to keep things as best as they could possibly be for as many people as possible.
We’re pivoting to more education that hopefully masses of you will be happy to pay for as it’s a business tool that’s tax deductible.
But even so with the cost of journalism skyrocketing – along with other salaries these days – it’s an increasingly precarious thing to bring you independent news.
If you can spare $10 or more a month, if you have advertising or partnership budgets you’re planning for the new year, then how about digging deep to keep our small but (we were told “loud”) voice as part of the mix?
It’s amazing how much even a drop of ink in a bathtub can colour the water.