The last Essential Report asked about people’s satisfaction with the media reporting on the election.

The results are not good news for mainstream media outlets, or the journalists who covered the election.

I would say that most consumers of media are not overly concerned at the biases of the person creating the media. In most cases, you watch a TV show, soap, sit com or morning show without considering who produced it or who wrote it.

When it comes to news reporting, many people reading or watching the news would consider the news they consumed to be straight “reporting”. That is, a fairly mechanistic affair – something happens, so the journalist tells us what it is. There wouldn’t be much consideration of why certain events are reported and others aren’t, or the tone of the reporting. It’s fair to say most people in Australia just don’t think about it.

It’s only when the reporting jarrs with something that the media consumer believes or knows. Or when the reporting is rubbish.

The polarising of the parts of the electorate probably also coincides with the poor rating of the media.