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Speaker 1: A very good morning to you all. Today is Thursday,

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Speaker 1: the eighth of July. As always, I'm joined by Sam Kosloski,

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Speaker 1: co founder of the Daily Os and today what are

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Speaker 1: we talking about here?

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Speaker 2: In New South Wales lockdown was extended. We're going to

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Speaker 2: catch you up on that. There is a big push

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Speaker 2: from businesses to help with the vaccine rollout. We're going

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Speaker 2: to chat through good news about a shorter week and

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Speaker 2: break down some media jargon. It's particularly important this week

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Speaker 2: and we'll tell you why.

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Speaker 1: Not. Great news out of New South Wales yesterday with

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Speaker 1: the state recording twenty seven locally acquired COVID nineteen cases,

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Speaker 1: eighteen of which were connected to existing cases, but importantly

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Speaker 1: seven cases were infectious while in the community, and Gladysbury

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Speaker 1: Jicklian has made clear that that is the number that

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Speaker 1: health authorities are really focusing on. A how many people

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Speaker 1: are connected to existing outbreaks, but b how many people

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Speaker 1: are out and about in the community while infectious. So

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Speaker 1: we know that the lockdown will be extended until next Friday,

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Speaker 1: July sixteenth, and Gladysbury Jicklin said this about the delta

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Speaker 1: variant yesterday. Now, the reason for this is as we've

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Speaker 1: been saying this stilter straining is a game changer. It's

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Speaker 1: extremely transmissible and more contagious than any other form of

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Speaker 1: the virus that we've seen. We have shortened our script

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Speaker 1: nowadays on the states that we have to report on

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Speaker 1: COVID nineteen numbers. So it's just Queensland who recorded a

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Speaker 1: single locally acquired case yesterday and that person was already

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Speaker 1: in home quarantine, So good news all around. For the

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Speaker 1: rest of the country.

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Speaker 2: You might be going to Bunnings for more than just

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Speaker 2: a snag. You might actually be going for a vaccine.

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Speaker 1: And that vaccine and a snag.

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Speaker 2: Of course, you cannot get one without the other, and

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Speaker 2: that's because Treasurer Josh Fridenberg said that various big businesses

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Speaker 2: are willing to host vaccination hubs in Australia. Besides for Bunnings,

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Speaker 2: there's also Cohle's, Commonwealth Bank, Telstra, Virgin Quantus and Office

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Speaker 2: Work and all of these companies representatives met with the

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Speaker 2: Treasurer and health officials yesterday morning. Fridenberg said there were

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Speaker 2: many exciting and interesting ideas brought by the businesses to

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Speaker 2: help with the vaccine rollout.

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Speaker 1: The first of the funerals has been held for victims

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Speaker 1: of the tragedy in Florida. Overnight yesterday, a ten year

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Speaker 1: old and her four year old sister were buried in

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Speaker 1: the same white coffin alongside their parents. This occurred at

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Speaker 1: the same time as rescue crews continued to work into

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Speaker 1: the night to search for survivors of the tragedy. Officials

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Speaker 1: did say yesterday though that there were no new signs

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Speaker 1: of life.

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Speaker 2: And today's good news, which had a massive reaction on

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Speaker 2: social media. Two and a half thousand employees in Iceland

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Speaker 2: have trialed a four day working week, with researchers finding

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Speaker 2: that worker well being dramatically increased a range of indicators

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Speaker 2: from perceived stress and burnout to health and work life balance.

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Speaker 2: So this trial involved employees moving from forty hours of

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Speaker 2: work a week to thirty five to thirty six hours

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Speaker 2: over four days, and they still received the same pay.

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Speaker 2: According to the study, productivity amongst most of the employees

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Speaker 2: remained the same or actually improved. We found ourselves in

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Speaker 2: an interesting situation yesterday morning where we put up a

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Speaker 2: piece on Instagram that said the new South Wales government

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Speaker 2: is set to announce the extension of lockdown at eleven am,

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Speaker 2: and this was at about seven am, and we started

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Speaker 2: to get questions on social media as to how did

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Speaker 2: we actually know what the government was going to say.

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Speaker 2: So what we wanted to chat about on today's podcast

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Speaker 2: is the idea of briefing out and backgrounding and some

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Speaker 2: other kind of media lingo terms that are big in

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Speaker 2: the worlds of journalists, but they actually shape the news

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Speaker 2: that you read every day. What did we see happen

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Speaker 2: yesterday with the media.

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Speaker 1: It was really interesting. So, as you said, we woke

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Speaker 1: up to news that there was a lockdown coming, and

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Speaker 1: it wasn't just one media organization was reporting this. If

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Speaker 1: you opened the Sydney Morning Herald, if you read the ABC,

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Speaker 1: if you listened to the ABC, if you read the Australian,

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Speaker 1: if you read the finn Review, it was on the

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Speaker 1: front page of every single major newspaper in this country.

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Speaker 1: And to the naked eye, it would have been a

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Speaker 1: bit confusing as to how all of the media seemingly

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Speaker 1: knew about this lockdown hours and hours and hours before

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Speaker 1: it was announced. So what we saw last night, or

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Speaker 1: actually earlier yesterday, was the Premier and her cabinet briefing

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Speaker 1: the media on what the outcomes of their cabinet meeting

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Speaker 1: had been, So in this case, it is extremely likely

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Speaker 1: that a representative from the premier's office or the Health

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Speaker 1: minister's office or someone in the government spoke to specific

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Speaker 1: members of the media about what was going to happen.

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Speaker 1: And this can be done for a number of reasons.

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Speaker 1: In this case, the premier was announcing pretty bad news.

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Speaker 1: She was a premier who hadn't wanted to put her

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Speaker 1: state into lockdown, not that any premiers want to do that,

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Speaker 1: but she'd been pretty strongly worded about the way that

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Speaker 1: she wanted to handle this outbreak, So it could be

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Speaker 1: assumed that the story was briefed out to the media

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Speaker 1: so as to take out the oxygen from her announcement,

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Speaker 1: meaning that when she announced it, it wasn't this shock horror,

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Speaker 1: it wasn't unheard of, it wasn't massive. Everyone was sort

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Speaker 1: of emotionally prepared for what was coming. And we see

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Speaker 1: this happen quite often with big announcements of this nature.

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Speaker 1: Another reason that government can brief out to journalists is

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Speaker 1: to basically gauge where public sentiment is at. So you

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Speaker 1: might see this, say, for example, from the treasurer if

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Speaker 1: the Treasury Department is looking to introduce some sort of

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Speaker 1: fiscal reform, the Treasurer's Office might brief out the idea

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Speaker 1: to media to then gauge how the public responds to

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Speaker 1: it before deciding whether or not they pursue it. And separately,

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Speaker 1: there's another reason or why the government might choose to

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Speaker 1: brief out to the media, and this could be to

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Speaker 1: nurture relationships. It is commonly known that the Prime Minister

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Speaker 1: right now has an extremely good relationship with journalists at

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Speaker 1: the Australian and so it's often at the moment that

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Speaker 1: we see the Australian leading coverage of government announcements. But

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Speaker 1: in Victoria, for example, there is an ABC journo who

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Speaker 1: is the journal of choice per se, who always knows

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Speaker 1: the COVID numbers well ahead of everyone else. So it

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Speaker 1: could be a matter of nurturing and strengthening relationships between

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Speaker 1: the government and journals.

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Speaker 2: Well. One other way that politicians, particularly and journals interact

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Speaker 2: is this idea of backgrounding, and we talked about backgrounding

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Speaker 2: a lot when Britney Higgins was in the news. Basically,

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Speaker 2: backgrounding is when a source talks to a journal on

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Speaker 2: backgrounds and that means that the source knows that this

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Speaker 2: information can be published, but only under conditions, and often

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Speaker 2: those conditions are some sort of vague label placed on

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Speaker 2: the source. So a good example could be a senior

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Speaker 2: memory of the Prime Minister's Office told the Daily Odds

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Speaker 2: that they are amazing. So we know that that information

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Speaker 2: came from a reliable source. We just don't know which

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Speaker 2: member of the Prime Minister's Office that information came from.

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Speaker 1: And more recently than the Brittney Higgins story, Julia Banks,

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Speaker 1: who we spoke about the other day, also claimed that

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Speaker 1: the Prime Minister's Office backgrounded against her after she announced

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Speaker 1: her resignation.

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Speaker 2: So what do you mean by backgrounding against somebody?

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Speaker 1: So, and this is Julia Banks's own accusation. It has

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Speaker 1: not been proven and there has been no investigation into it.

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Speaker 1: But what she claimed was that the Prime Minister's Office

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Speaker 1: was pursuing a narrative so speaking to journalists about Julia

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Speaker 1: Banks's mental state, basically implying that she had had some

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Speaker 1: mental breakdown and that she was as emotional as she

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Speaker 1: says delicate flower, and that that's why she was resigning. So,

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Speaker 1: according to her, the Prime Minister's Office spoke to journalists

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Speaker 1: and ed this narrative so that when she announced her

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Speaker 1: resignation it was against that background.

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Speaker 2: Even in the last couple of minutes, we've discussed two

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Speaker 2: really different examples of briefing out and backgrounding, one to

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Speaker 2: seemingly give members of a state the heads up on

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Speaker 2: a really massive announcement, and the other to allegedly achieve

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Speaker 2: a political aim. It's really interesting to note the different

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Speaker 2: ways that journals and politicians interact with each other. Part

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Speaker 2: of our mission at the dailyi ODS is to make

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Speaker 2: you feel more comfortable with how these systems work and

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Speaker 2: give you a little bit of insight into the weird

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Speaker 2: ways that journalists and politicians get along. That's all from

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Speaker 2: us today. We really appreciate your support. If there's any

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Speaker 2: feedback you have for this podcast, we'd love to hear it.

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Speaker 2: Slide into our dms on Instagram at the Daily Ods.

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Speaker 2: Tell us what you'd like us to explain. We are

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Speaker 2: willing to get into the nitty gritty for you and

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Speaker 2: we can't wait to take you through the rest of

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Speaker 2: the week's news