Drifting off course

February 23, 2024

One of the long term problems of blogs such as P&I, and here I have in mind such outlets as Crikey and New Matilda, is they inevitably descend into expressions of in house idiosyncrasy. I have been reading P&I for much of the past decade, and have long recommended your coverage of geopolitical analysis. More recently, though you have become more wide ranging in what you cover, and in the process you have become somewhat unhinged.

In today’s edition, Stella Assange’s comment about Navalny’s death, McQueen’s evocation of Taylor Swift, O’Keefe’s analysis of the Israel/Gaza situation, and Michael Keating’s comments about economic stagnation were largely incoherent as well as being factually unreliable.

You also severely restrict and limit feedback by your readers. This is irritating, and I usually do not bother attempting to communicate with you. Mostly people don’t like criticism, and I suppose that you don’t either, however well meant it is.

However, you do have strengths that are not replicated in any other media outlet, and my sincere advice is that you should stop undermining your own credibility by publishing half baked and ill thought out opinion pieces.

More self discipline and less self indulgence seems in order.