Get the inside track on the media and government

On Saturday, 13 September 2008 Ad astra wrote: ‘This is the first posting of The Political Sword blog. Its focus is Australian politics. It is intended to give expression to those who have opinions about contemporary political events. In particular it will provide a forum for exposing deception among politicians, bureaucrats and commentators.

‘The people deserve to know the truth about political decisions, how and why they were made, and about those who made them. They are entitled to know if political commentators are truthfully representing the situations they are reporting, and that they make clear what is fact, and what is opinion. They owe it to their readers to validate the facts they report and reveal their source.

‘By challenging politicians and commentators to stick to the truth and to justify their words and actions, it is possible that the quality of political discourse in this country might improve. The Internet provides ordinary citizens with the opportunity to influence political behaviour between elections, rather than only at election time.

‘Politicians, journalists and academics read political blogs - they are bound to be influenced by them, at least to some extent.

‘Al Gore said that political blogs have become a significant new force in political debate and decision making in the US. The same opportunity exists in this country to put politicians and commentators to the verbal political sword.’

Over six years later, the words apply even more than when they were written. Blogs and social media now do impinge on politicians; sometimes the politicians do hear what the ordinary person says and sometimes they do respond. But their honesty and their transparency has not improved; indeed it seems to have deteriorated, most noticeably since the 2013 election.

When in September 2013, at the same time as Lyn, who provided TPS users with comprehensive links to political material day after day for many years, Ad astra decided to step back from TPS, Janet (jan@j4gypsy), not wanting to see it disappear, moved in and organised a team that has maintained the site ever since. In Ad astra’s words: “Her organisational skill, and the dedication of TPS team members have been outstanding. They have authored, sought other authors, reviewed, edited, and coded countless pieces that have appeared week after week on TPS.”

Over time the nature of our author contributions has evolved. In recent months, the emphasis of most pieces has been on the philosophical aspects of politics, with a focus on economics. The pieces have been learned treatises on the chosen subject, well researched and referenced with many links, fascinating and valuable reading that has evoked reflection and deep thought about the matters that influence politics profoundly. Because these matters are seldom addressed by politicians in their discourse with the public, and are usually neglected by mainstream media journalists, the electorate has been left to flounder in a sea of inconsequential superficiality, devoid of thoughtful consideration of the central issues that influence, and indeed mould our democracy. So important have these pieces been, that it is planned that such contributions shall continue to be the solid base upon which TPS will continue in 2015. You can look forward to more of such pieces from our talented authors.

Casablanca took over from Lyn, and since then has supplied a continual stream of links to important material from the media. Her dedication and perspicacity in selecting relevant items is deeply appreciated. You can look forward to her contributions in 2015.

As we enter a new year and contemplate the 2016 election in about eighteen months, as the substandard performance of the Abbott government continues, and as its leader’s performance declines by the day and his public approval sinks to greater depths, the need has become more and more pressing for incisive commentary on the government, its leader and its ministers, as well as on what the other parties are doing.

TPS Extra

To this end, TPS has added another component to its repertoire: TPS Extra. Older readers will remember how curbside paperboys in another era shouted: ‘Extra, Extra, read all about it’ as they spruiked editions of their newspaper that contained startling news. TPS Extra is TPS’s attempt to bring you the startling — in political commentary. We will not be generating news; there are countless news generators, and we don’t have the resources anyway. What we will be doing is dissecting the contemporary news from many sources, analyzing it, looking for meaning in the events, and interpreting what they might imply. We will provide links to the news sources and will often quote from them. The pieces will therefore be opinion pieces. They will reflect the opinion of the author, and they will invite your opinion.

It is our intention to post such opinion pieces on TPS Extra. There may be several in one week, or none at all, depending on what is happening politically. You will be able to read these by switching from the main site, The Political Sword, to TPS Extra. 'Buttons' have been provided on each site to enable you to switch from one to the other and back again as often as you wish.

Our Webmaster, who goes by the nickname Web Monkey, has skillfully designed the new site and the transit buttons. We are deeply indebted to him for his stylish design.

TPS Extra is now live at http://www.tpsextra.com.au. There are several posts there: four prepared last week to trial the new site, and one added this week that comments on Australia Day . You may wish to read them, comment upon them, and rate them. Commenting and rating are done just as on the main TPS site.

We suggest you make the original TPS site your default, and switch to TPS Extra as the desire takes you.

We trust you will enjoy the variety now offered by The Political Sword in its two forms.

While the main TPS site will continue to focus on more in-depth analysis of political and social issues, we are also making some minor changes in our approach for 2015.

A call to authors

The Political Sword will be accepting shorter pieces from authors for posting. Last year, our posts were usually around 2000 words (give or take 200‒300 words) but this year we will accept shorter pieces, anything from 400 to 1000 words. So if you have been reading our posts thinking you couldn’t write longer pieces like that, now you don’t have to. When we receive shorter pieces, we will attempt to put pieces addressing the same topic together and post them together: so instead of a single article constituting a post, we may have two, three or four articles.

To help you, we now also have a list of themes. This doesn’t mean that they are the only things we will post about but we do hope to address a number of them during the year and your pieces, both short and long, will help.

Our current themes are:

In addressing the themes, we will not only be looking for critiques of the current approach taken by the government but alternative approaches that may actually help improve the situation or approaches that you think Labor could take into the next election. Of course, some of the themes can overlap.

And, given our authors’ statement of beliefs (see below), there is also scope to ask them to expand on some of those beliefs and explain how they see our society achieving the ideals they have listed.

About our authors

We are also introducing a new feature: ‘About our authors’, for both TPS and TPS Extra. We all have our beliefs, our vision of the sort of country in which we want to live, and of course our biases. So that you can see where our authors are coming from as they write, a short bio and a longer statement of beliefs will be provided for you to read about each of them, all at the click of your mouse. To read about our authors, click ‘About our authors’ which you will see in the left panel immediately below ‘AA's Top Political Websites’.

During the year, each author will be asked to provide a short ‘bio’ and a statement of beliefs. A short ‘bio’ from each author will be necessary, but the statement of beliefs is optional, although we do think it adds to our readers’ understanding of the author’s position and approach.

As always, your feedback will be welcome as regards both TPS Extra and the approach on TPS.

The TPS Team

Be sure to come back on Sunday evening for our first main post of the year: ‘We’re all in this together’ by 2353.