Broadside
The collapse of Broadside is certainly a setback for the left, as is the demise of any progressive publication. However, the last issue of the paper does contain a number of points that need to be challenged.
Throughout the many articles talking about the decline of the paper and the failure to reach its projected targets for sales in its first year, as well as the decline of the left, the central theme is one of demoralization and that a broad, progressive publication will not find it possible to survive in the market place.
Firstly, the very idea that such publications are out to compete with the mass media on an open market is absurd! We should be trying to create our own readership and milieu, challenging the role of the mass media, not assume that the progressive media is just like the mainstream media with a humanistic face.
An article by staff writer Peter Cronau entitled "Is there a future for alternative publications?" attempts to find a reason for the demise of the paper. Various reasons are put forward, apart from the marketplace, the most notable being that there just aren't the people to distribute the paper and the people writing for it are tired from writing for too long.
The article on the decline of the left doesn't attempt to take up other groups apart from the old Communist Party and subsequent organisations arising out of it. The whole tone is one of defeatism and there is no attempt made to look at positive steps forward on the left.
Throughout the entire issue, Â鶹´«Ã½ does not even get a mention, despite the fact that it is still going at 100 issues — 65 more than Broadside made. The only reference to GL is an article on the back page slandering Â鶹´«Ã½ — while not directly naming it — as openly sectarian and referring to it as a paper of a religious cult!
Broadside has had a history of such sectarianism. I have not seen any positive reference to Â鶹´«Ã½ in any issue, so the closed eyes approach of the last issue comes as no surprise. However, it has found many occasions to stick the boot into the DSP, even including the gutter tactics of using the death of former DSP leader Jim Percy as a focus for publishing slander.
Ian Milliss' comments in the interview with Â鶹´«Ã½ (#97) seem to suggest a shutting down of the progressive struggle due to a tightening of the political period, rather than seeking further communication and cooperation between left organisations.
While mourning the closure of another left paper, let's hope that the sectarianism that has featured in it dies with the paper.
Liam Mitchell
Adelaide
Broadside — 2
Your article about the closure of Broadside (GLW 28/4/93) certainly was an insight into why Broadside failed to sustain itself.
It is difficult to believe Ian Milliss really said what was reported in the article. It begs the question who was the most incompetent — the management, the editor, the funding source or who?
Perhaps if Milliss wasn't so concerned about his own analysis of, and association with "the left", "ideology" and other's "naivety" Broadside may have succeeded.
Milliss comes across as a bitter person who holds little respect for the readership of papers such as Broadside.
Some of us are a little cross that we still haven't been notified of Broadside's closure, our subs returned and the fact that a lot of CPA dollars were spent on Broadside when Tribune did a reasonably good job.
I hope GLW manages to survive.
D. Durnan
Hackett ACT
What failed?
I've spent my life since fighting in World War 2 dealing with people in a half dozen countries. The Marxist ideal has never failed. Only greedy and dishonest people who profess socialism until they get power have failed the millions dependent upon them.
We must recognise factors in people's makeup and learn. In the more well off countries, people strive hard to escape from the working class label. It's snobbery but it's fact and if we wish to see a revival of Marxist ideals, modified to fit today's needs, we must erase "working class" from the propaganda. After all, if we believe in socialism, we also believe in equality and a classless society. Concentrate on honesty, fair dealing and justice for all and we might get somewhere. Good luck.
Bill Wilcox
Brisbane
'Party line'
I would like to support Frank Noakes' letter (Write on, May 5) on editorial stance and "party line."
Right-wing news and commentaries are to be had on five TV channels, three daily newspapers and countless magazines. GLW (and Tribune before that) helps balance what can be read and heard everywhere else.
I resent the concept of "balance", as against editorial stance, in a journal. The idea of an objective balance in politics is a rightist lie, a justification of fence sitting and laissez-faire. Political balance is subjective and personal and, knowing a journal's editorial stance, any thinking person can work out his or her own balance.
Why should a left journal waste half its space, which could carry quality left news and commentaries, to carry the same rightist tripe as does every other news medium?
John Harland
Brunswick Vic
Abortion
Whilst I agree with most of the politics of your paper, I am totally opposed to your support of abortion. Perhaps the article that has shocked me the most so far, has been that of Karen Fredericks (GLW April 21) under the "Ain't I a woman" column.
The use of the rhetoric of choice is exposed as a total farce, as it becomes apparent that the only choice Karen permits anyone is to support — and participate in whenever called upon — all abortions.
Certainly she allows no choice for unborn babies as they are subjected to chemical warfare and/or dismemberment. She is horrified that a doctor or a nurse can be permitted to believe that it is wrong to assist in an abortion, and choose not to do so.
Karen also accepts without question the fact that because this child was disabled it was deemed unfit to live!
The whole tone of her article shows how far down the road of callousness we have travelled in our acceptance of abortion.
Anne Rampa
West End Qld