Is Prime Minister Abbott so desperate to control the message and lift his flagging polls that he risks alienating Australian mainstream media?

This was how The Australian commenced its 5 January 2015 article about Prime Minister Abbott’s latest public relations misstep:

TONY Abbott’s office has triggered frustrations with the media by excluding a TV crew from the Prime Minister’s sudden visit to Baghdad, limiting access to his speech to Australian troops and joint statement with his Iraqi counterpart.

A camera crew sent by the major TV networks was left in Dubai when Mr Abbott flew into Iraq with his personal staff, forcing the media to rely on footage provided by the Prime Minister’s office.

This is how individual journalists reacted to the unannounced Iraq trip on Twitter:

What Iraqi News knew on 29 December 2014:

(IraqiNews.com) On Monday, the official government spokesman, Saad Hadithi revealed that the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott plans to visit Baghdad in the coming days, while noting that Abbott will discuss with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi the support and the equipment of security forces to confront the organization of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Hadithi said in an interview for IraqiNews.com, “Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott will visit Baghdad in the coming days to meet with President Minister Haider al-Abadi to discuss military cooperation between the two countries.”

He added, “Abbott will discuss with al-Abadi the subject of development, training and equipping of security forces with weapons and ammunition,” adding that, “Australia has shown its willingness to provide military support to Iraq to face the terrorist gangs of ISIS.”

This is part of the 5 January speech Australian journalists were not allowed to hear as it happened:

This is my first visit to Baghdad. It is my first visit to Iraq.

Iraq is a country which has suffered a very great deal. First, decades of tyranny under Saddam Hussein. Then, the chaos and confusion that followed the American-led invasion. Most recently, the tumult, the dark age, which has descended upon Northern Iraq as a result of the Daesh death cult, but Australia will do what we can to help.

These are some of the images of varying quality which Team Abbott appears to have released to the media and/or posted on Facebook:

These are the poor quality propaganda videos his personal media crew created:

http://youtu.be/XCrDn8j812Y  http://youtu.be/Ba4XP0rhWL0

However, the Prime Minister's attempt to control the media message was not successful as one can see from this interpretation of that 5 January speech in The Sydney Morning Herald later the same day - which contained only one mention of 'death cult' and opened with this message about a war of which he approved and agreed to Australia's participation in:

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has blasted in his strongest terms yet the US management of Iraq following the 2003 invasion, branding it a period of "chaos and confusion".

It seems the days when Abbott just had to don a helmet and flak jacket to have the media treat him like a hero have long since passed and his latest attempt to reverse the public relations situation is only making matters worse.

I imagine Jane McMillan is thankful she is on holidays and not returning to the the prime minister's office as his media chief. 

To quote Bruce Hawker writing in The Age: When a Prime Minister is on a collision course with public opinion there can only be one result.

UPDATE

Political cartoonist Alan Moir sums up what appears to be the general response, to the Prime Minister's visit to Iraq, in his latest effort for The Sydney Morning Herald on 6 January 2015:

The truth about the Australian Prime Minister's address to the United Nations on 25 September 2014

Prime Minister Tony Abbott  addressed  the 69th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on 25 September 2014 during the Opening of the General Debate.

There was the standard set image of his attendance on the UN website:

Other more animated images in the Australian media such as this:

However, there were no long shots of the audience listening to Abbott’s speech.

This is one possible reason why…..

US President Obama speaking during the Opening of the General Debate in front of a packed audience of delegates on 24 September:

This was Tony Abbott speaking during the same Opening of the General Debate with a decidedly sparse audience the next day:

Like the difference in the size of their official audiences, the messages they delivered to the world were starkly different even when both were addressing the situation in Syria and Iraq.

These were President Obama's opening remarks:

Mr. President, Mr. Secretary General, fellow delegates, ladies and gentlemen: we come together at a crossroads between war and peace; between disorder and integration; between fear and hope.

Around the globe, there are signposts of progress. The shadow of World War that existed at the founding of this institution has been lifted; the prospect of war between major powers reduced. The ranks of member states has more than tripled, and more people live under governments they elected. Hundreds of millions of human beings have been freed from the prison of poverty, with the proportion of those living in extreme poverty cut in half. And the world economy continues to strengthen after the worst financial crisis of our lives.

Today, whether you live in downtown New York or in my grandmother’s village more than two hundred miles from Nairobi, you can hold in your hand more information than the world’s greatest libraries. Together, we have learned how to cure disease, and harness the power of the wind and sun. The very existence of this institution is a unique achievement – the people of the world committing to resolve their differences peacefully, and solve their problems together. I often tell young people in the United States that this is the best time in human history to be born, for you are more likely than ever before to be literate, to be healthy, and to be free to pursue your dreams….

While these were Prime Minister Abbott's:

I’m happy to be here at your urging, Mr President. It is the weightiest of matters that brings us together today.

Right now, thousands of misguided people from around the world are joining terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq because they claim Islam is under threat and because they are excited by the prospect of battle.

But whatever they think or say, these terrorists aren’t fighting for God or for religious faith.

At the heart of every terrorist group is an infatuation with death.

What else can explain the beheadings, crucifixions, mass executions, rapes and sexual slavery in every town and city that’s fallen to the terrorist movement now entrenched in eastern Syria and northern Iraq?

A terrorist movement calling itself “Islamic State” insults Islam and mocks the duties of a legitimate state towards its citizens.

And to use this term is to dignify a death cult; a death cult that, in declaring itself a caliphate, has declared war on the world.

So, countries do need to work together to defeat it because about 80 nations have citizens fighting with ISIL and every country is a potential target….

Full transcript of Obama's speech.

Full transcript of Abbott's speech.