They make a very important point. We need a free press. That, however, is not in itself the goal - it is simply a necessary means to an end. For democracies to function effectively, the people who vote need to know what the various contenders for office have done or promise to do. We, the voters, get our information through the media.

However, that information is filtered by the press gallery. In effect, they decide what you and I hear about people and policy debates. The media outside Canberra do the same. Putin and Xi Jinping can "adjust" what their constituents know, but our media does just that to us as well.

Some, at both senior and junior levels, do an excellent job. They are the exception.

To be fair, it is impossible for us to know everything. Even with the news running 24/7, there's not enough space to tell us everything that happens in Canberra. Even those addicted to politics and policy don't want to know everything. So of course there has to be some filtering.

But what we get is not just a trimming-down of the mass of information to a manageable amount. The filter is much more brutal than that. We get prominent stories that the media decide are important. We get nothing about all the work that goes on in Parliament in which the media have little interest.

Essentially, rather than presenting unbiased facts so that you can decide, many in the media weaponise information to make the point they want to make. These people aren't journalists. That's just a respectable tag they give to proselytising their chosen cause. They are active political players.

The main point many of them currently want to make is that ScoMo is a bad guy. Some who appear on our screens may not realise the degree to which their personal opinion oozes from every pore on their face, and flows into the tone of their voice. Those who are with the print media can hide it a little more. Obviously different people hold different opinions. Members of the media are entitled to hold strong anti-government or anti-Morrison views. But that doesn't entitle them to assume we should agree, or to so filter our information that all we get is negative stories about him. Seriously, when did you last see a positive story about him?

MORE AMANDA VANSTONE:

It seems ScoMo should be held responsible for just about everything that goes wrong. During the fires in the summer of 2019-20 he was vilified at every turn. Yes, he had been on holiday, and some think he should have come back sooner. But that doesn't make him responsible for the fires getting as bad as they did. The media focused on their "Are you sorry?" crusade, rather than reporting what went wrong. Or what we can and should do in the future.

Fires are a part of nature. They will always be with us. But we're slow learners. Indigenous Australians have managed the land and burn-backs for thousands of years. We, on the other hand, fed by media on a solid diet of greenie propaganda, just haven't done enough of it. There should be oodles of stories out there about what local and state governments have and haven't done to ease the problem. Good luck finding them; the thought police want the spotlight kept on ScoMo.

Now we face the floods. The damage is devastating both on a human and a financial scale. Have you seen many (or any) stories about how state and local governments over decades have played a very bad hand ? I haven't seen much at all, other than the game of taking potshots at ScoMo.

There was a great piece by Ellen Hill recently, pointing out how Indigenous Australians had warned governors Phillip and Macquarie about flood risks in NSW. They, in turn, warned people not to build in certain areas - but nobody listened. We're still not listening. Our recent flood is not the worst we've had. So we should be actively preparing now. Indigenous knowledge of land management just hasn't been given the credibility it deserves.

China and Russia rightly deserve condemnation for their control of the media. What do you say to those of our media who actively control the content you can access about your government?