If anyone was foolish enough to make me editor of anything, particularly a Melbourne paper, I would at this time of crisis be trying to find ways to explicitly embrace and empathise with the audience without letting go of the duty to hold government to account. Not an easy job.

But here is the nuance I would add to what Tim says. Some (not all) of the criticism of journalists on Twitter is unduly personal, and yes, in some cases misunderstands or is written without a full understanding of how decisions are made or the difficulties of the job.

And yes, journalists largely fail in their duty to explain themselves and their decisions to the public. Nevertheless I don't think there is a single story that has been called out on Twitter that hasn't also been the subject of strenuous arguments and conflicts within

...the newsrooms. And this can get extremely hard for the people concerned. Big politics is in play, as we know. Smaller, purely internal, politics too, sometimes. So all of this is not so much to disagree with either Oz or Tim, but more to add some points.

And yes, all this is complicated by the issues of domination of the media by the Murdoch press, and the way they like to spin the ball.

And, overall, I very much welcome that people are talking about, critiquing and thinking about the role of the media and what they want from journalists. It can be rugged sometimes, but it behoves journalists to stand the scrutiny with grade and engage with it when they can