Press Gallery got it wrong

Have asserted here that the Press Gallery got things very wrong when they asserted that Gillard had lost politically after her speech dissecting Abbott. That she'd in fact won politically out of it, and that the Press Gallery was out of touch down there in Canberra with real people. Online people were applauding her speech, around the world, yet the press were at times scathing in their critique of her performance that day (remember this is that leftie-socialist-media that's always so terribly unfair to the hapless Abbott).

Well, even the MSN (main stream media) is now starting to ask if they got it wrong. 

But the best comments are in the blogosphere, not just asking if so, but out and out accusing the MSN of being completely out of touch.

Here, finally, was a powerful woman speaking out against the sexism and misogyny that so many of us have to deal with. It was something that Julia Gillard has rarely done since she became Prime Minister and certainly not in such personal and impassioned terms. 

That was what got the response. That was why the speech was so exhilarating - and that was why it has attracted such a huge and impassioned response, here and around the world. 

Only in Canberra, it seems, did her words fall on sceptical and tone-deaf ears. Only in Canberra was Gillard's assault on the Opposition Leader's behaviour towards her portrayed - somehow, incredibly - as either a defence of Peter Slipper or a failure to attack him. Only in Canberra was a vote against the motion to dismiss the Speaker of the House seen as supporting sexism rather than upholding the separation of powers as outlined in the Constitution. 

The reportage and commentary this morning out of Canberra was so startlingly at odds with the reactions of such vast numbers of people both here and abroad that you have to ask: why and how could this be the case? 

I can only speculate. Is the Canberra press gallery so thoroughly disillusioned with Gillard after two and a bit years of reporting her prime ministership that it cannot adjust its perspective when the game changes? Were the briefings by the Opposition yesterday so persuasive that seasoned journalists chose to ignore constitutional realities in favour of an ideological sledge? Or was it something else? I wish that rather than simply opine, that they would talk us through, share the reasoning, explain to us mere mortals how they got to these extraordinary judgements. 

They are, after all, seemingly so out of kilter with how so many of the rest of us reacted that they need to provide some explanation for us to have any reason to take at all seriously anything they write in future. more

This isn't the first time they've been wrong. The MSN here spent nearly the entire year leading up to the overthrow of the Howard gov praising Howard and exercising journalistic incompetence by continuously asserting his gov would be returned to office. Some of the commentary, in The Australian in particular, was more like a Howard love fest than anything that could pass for serious journalism. The Howard gov lost the election after over 11 years in office, and Howard lost his own seat in parliament (being beaten in his seat by a woman I might add). 

As again this time the Press Gallery have completely misjudged the mood of the people.