AD talks to Brett McCarthy, Editor of the West Australian

Today the Aussie Democrazy students were very lucky to have the opportunity to interview the Editor of the West Australian, Brett McCarthy. The boys asked questions about the role of a newspaper editor and the role of newspapers during an election.

AD: First of all, we’d really like to thank @brettmcarthy for speaking with the @aussiedemocrazy team at such a busy time!

AD: As the editor of a newspaper, do you ever struggle to fill an edition with news and opinion?

Never struggle to fill the newspaper it’s harder to decide what to leave out

AD: As the editor of a major paper, what are the challenges of deciding what goes in from a legal point of view?

Complicated defamation laws. Luckily we have great lawyers who sort most of that out for us.

AD: How do you find out what the community wants your newspaper to report on?

We do a lot of research. We also listen to our readers through letters, emails and phone calls.

AD: It’s near the election – do you have to be careful of bias when reporting on the campaign?

Yes but we try to be careful all the time. We are much more aware of it at the moment. We are trying to be fair.

AD: Does the election mean more work for newspaper staff? Does it have an effect on you?

A lot more work for our political reporters. The ones following the leaders are doing it tough but they’ll survive.

AD: Do people ever come to you not wanting stories run? How do you deal with that?

Yes all the time. I just judge the story on its merits. If it’s worth running we do. If not I politely decline.

AD: What kind of sources do your political reporters use – it is just material from the parties?

Not just the parties but a lot of material comes from them. Many other sources inside the public service and other areas.

AD: As an editor, do you see stuff about polticians that you’d like to run, but can’t?

I can’t really think of anything recently but it has happened in the past. We need to be able to prove it is true. Lawyers!

AD: What made you want to become the editor of a newspaper?

I started as a reporter straight from school. As I worked my way through the ranks I thought I’d enjoy the editor’s role.

AD: What are the skills that a good newspaper editor needs?

Ability to think about lots of different things at once. Good organisation, good people skills. Care about good journalism. Also need to be happy working strange hours.

AD:  Is there an ‘equal time’ rule in the media when covering the parties?

There is no rule but we’ve tried to do that during this campaign. I think we’ve got it mostly fair.

AD:  Do you think that print newspapers will be around in 10 years? Will that change things?

I think print will be around in 10 years but things will change. We will still deliver journalism but on different devices.

AD:  What are some of the hobbies you enjoy when you’re not editing the paper?

Lots of time with my kids. I’m a member of Cottesloe Surf Club and I’m into ocean swimming. Tennis and golf as well.

We thank Brett for his time and wish him the best during this final week and a half of the election!

AD talks to Peter Veness, reporter on the Gillard Campaign.

 This week we were very lucky to be contacted by Peter Veness, who has been following the Gillard campaign around the country for AAP. We shot him some questions that the class thought up, and he responded. What follows is an interesting glimpse of the life of a journalist during the chaos of a federal election!

AD talks to Lin Hatfield Dodds, Greens Candidate for ACT Senate Seat.

This afternoon the Aussie Democrazy team had the amazing opportunity to interview the Greens candidate for the Federal ACT Senate seat, Lin Hatfield Dodds, about her life, the campaign trail and her hopes for life as a Senator. We were lucky to be able to use Twitter as our interview tool. Here’s our conversation.

Aussie Democrazy: Our Key Demographics

This week, having released our first poll, some people asked us what our demographics were. They asked this because they were wondering whether it might have skewed the results heavily. Yesterday I had Stephen, Nathan and Troung surveyed a group of classes within the St John’s Campus of our school. This may give you a better idea of what kind of people we are – perhaps you can tell us how it might have had an impact on the results!

Approximately eighty students were surveyed, across five classrooms.

DEMOGRAPHIC DATA LINK (Excel Format)

AD talks to Andrew Greene, ABC Political Correspondent

Over the course of the Federal Election, Aussie Democrazy has been hard at work trying to understand the process of electing a new Prime Minister. One of the most important aspects of any political campaign is the role of the media – without their work, we would not know the events of parliament, or the movement of politicians. Aussie Democrazy’s Daniel, John, Vikram and Jack talked to the ABC‘s Andrew Greene over e-mail about his work, reporting on politics.

What needs attention?

What’s needs attention this election? Is is border security? Is it the environment? Do you think we need to get more young people into trade schools or TAFE courses? Year 8 wants to know! Fill out our poll and we’ll be using the results in our work!

Aussie Democrazy Release Their First Poll!

Last week during our Civics class, students were selected to poll a number of classes regarding the Federal Election. Polling is an important aspect of any election campaign – it allows the candidates to gauge how they are doing in their attempts to convince the voting public to vote for them. With polls being undertaken every single day, political parties can change their message to suit what is happening.

The question posed to the students was the following:

If you were granted the right to vote, and the election was held tomorrow, who would you vote for?

The students were given five options – the Australian Labor Party, the Liberal Party of Australia, the Greens, Family First and ‘Other’, encompassing groups like the Democrats and independents. Four classes of boys and girls were surveyed, but some results were rejected on the grounds that the same students may have been asked twice. This is what we call a ‘learning experience’ – next time we will be allocating clear areas for group of students to poll!

Here’s what we got…

As you can see, the ALP are clearly in front with 38 votes. There could be a few reasons for this. The incumbency factor, meaning that sitting governments always have a slight favour in the polls, unless the government has been performing disastrously, could be having an effect. The fact that our school is located in the ‘very safe’ seat of Gellibrand in Melbourne’s West, a traditional Labor stronghold (or area of very strong support) may be another reason.  The Greens are running in second, with 4 votes, beating the Australian Liberal Party’s 3 votes. Could this bode well for their campaign in the adjoining seat of Melbourne? Family First and Other got one vote a piece.

We will be holding another poll next week, using the same question and adding a few more to get a general sense of what students are feeling about this election. We’d like your suggestions. What questions should we be asking in the next Aussie Democrazy Poll? Reply as a comment or use the #aussiedemocrazypoll hashtag. We’d also like to hear your response to the poll – what stands out to you?

Reaching Out!

Today’s a big day! We’re starting our first outreach to politicians with some of our questions. We’ll be using the Rumble In The Jungle forum, created by Helix Digital as a springboard to ask some initial questions about politics and the work that politicians do. If you check late in the day, you should see that we’ve posted some of our questions. If you like the questions we’ve asked, vote them up by clicking on the green icon at the top right-hand side of the comment. Within the next week we should start to receive some of those answers and we’ll post them here on the blog.

As the campaign heats up, we’re very keen to talk to as many politicians and journalists as we can. If you are interested, please e-mail us at m.stuchbery@cccc.vic.edu.au or you can reach us through Twitter at @aussiedemocrazy.

Next week, hopefully, we’ll be featuring an interview with a candidate for the House of Representatives – Adam Bandt, the Greens candidate for the Federal Seat of Melbourne. It’s going to very exciting to talk to a political candidate about the experience of campaigning during an election!

Why do you <3 Politics?

It’s at the core of what Aussie Democrazy is all about: why do you love politics? Why care about preferential voting, party whips, senate chambers and the Governor-General? Why devote part of our education to learn about the wqy our country is run? It’s unlikely any of us will become Prime Minister, or even run as an MP, so why bother? That’s what we’d like you to answer for us. As we stated in a previous post, you could write a comment, post a video reply or respond to us on Twitter with the hashtag #whyilovepolitics.

Silly Pictures?

One of the key features of the campaign will be political cartooning – we’re going to see very colourful depictions of Jullia Gillard, Tony Abbott and Bob Brown over the coming weeks. However, political cartooning in Australia is hard a new thing. Even before Australia became a federated nation, people were poking fun at the figures in power. It seems that is very important for the Australian people to show their leaders in silly ways. Perhaps in doing so, we’re able to more easily reveal some key truths about and characteristics of the people who want to run the country?

Today, we’d like you to answer the following questions, to help us guide our research:

Who is your favourite political cartoonist?

What is your favorite political cartoon?

 

You can respond in a comment, or by replying to the @aussiedemocrazy Twitter account with the hashtag #politicalcartoons. Thanks for your help!