Pages 1-2 of The West Australian carried a similar message to this. 'We are the press and it is our job to criticise the government'.

No. It is your job to inform people. Tell us what is going on. Tell us when there are other/better options than what the government is doing. But let us make up our own damn minds.

The press has had a history over the last 15-20 years of trying to engage the audience, rather than informing it. And nothing engages us better than plucking the outrage. Make 'em mad and keep them coming back for more. So we see article after article criticising specific members of parliament and nothing about choices faced by the government.

In the days of newspapers, you could get a decent impression of what most articles were about by the headlines. After all, the paper had already been sold - there was no requirement to get you to buy. Today, you need to click to get information. Headlines are all "pick me!" bait and not simply "This happened".

So, after years of stirring up outrage, while providing limited information and zero solutions, we get journalists saying 'We are fire alarm; not the fuel'.

Horseshit. You are absolutely a part of the problem, if not a major contributing factor to it.