Broadcaster Alan Jones helped pile pressure on backbenchers over Mike Baird's greyhound ban. Credit:James Brickwood The Daily Telegraph, for example, simply couldn't let our use of social media go, and neither could Ray Hadley on 2GB. According to the Tele, I had hatched a plan in which Baird would "emulate North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un by becoming the state's Dear Leader with a plan to bypass traditional media such as newspapers, TV and radio and speak to his people using Twitter and Facebook." Hadley repeated this nonsense regularly. In fact, it provoked him to produce, in the Tele, a bizarrely off-kilter response to Trump's election victory last November: "Perhaps Australian political leaders (Mike Baird please take note) should start realising 'cute tweets' and social media campaigns can't beat good old fashioned legacy media. Trump got hammered on social media but it had little impact." It's not hard to see why tabloid media in NSW is terrified by the advent of the new social media platforms, not just as a threat to its business, but also as a threat to its power. After all, to an extent seen in no other jurisdiction, tabloid media in NSW regards itself as the gatekeeper standing between the elected government and those who elected it. Social media flings that gate wide open.

Donald Trump revels in bypassing the mainstream media with Twitter. Credit:Evan Vucci The anxiety reached fever-pitch when Hadley, the Tele and Alan Jones came gunning for Baird over the greyhound racing ban. For Hadley and Jones, whose default mode is gibbering panic, the ban confirmed that we had, in fact, transformed NSW into a version of North Korea – and they repeatedly said so. The two issues, greyhounds and social media, often seemed to be conflated into one. The ban could barely be mentioned in the Tele without the footnote that Baird had "taken to Facebook" to announce it. Mike Baird was closely identified with the exploitation of social media. Credit:Ben Clement Which, for what it's worth, simply wasn't true. On July 7 last year, as cabinet ended its discussion of greyhound racing, we issued a traditional media release, and simultaneously posted the announcement on Facebook. Less than an hour later, Baird fronted a full media conference. In more than a decade of close involvement with NSW politics, I'd never witnessed such a rapid turnaround between a cabinet decision and full accountability to the media.

But given our winding back of "drops" to the Tele, and fewer "interviews" with the hysterics on 2GB, this was the moment for tabloid media to draw a line in the sand. The most vicious tabloid jihad we have ever seen in NSW swung into action. Premier Baird was forced to back down on his greyhound ban. Credit:Graham Tidy Clearly, the premier of NSW communicating directly with voters, rather than allowing tabloid media to package whatever he has to say, is unacceptable. He or she is not allowed to get "the honest and unfiltered message out" any more than Trump. The Herald's NSW political editor Sean Nicholls got it right when he wrote this time last year that the fight over greyhounds "has emerged as a major test of a strategy the government has been determined to employ since Baird came into the job: largely ignoring the demands of tabloid and talkback media". "And there's a huge amount at stake for all involved," he continued. "For their part, the talkback hosts and the Telegraph have long traded on the suggestion they can bend governments to their will. Such a high-profile failure would expose them as impotent."

Well, I guess we all know how that turned out. While the public never got too excited by the jihad, the Coalition backbench folded like a flock of origami cranes. Social media is just that – a medium. Political leaders can use it well, or badly; to bore, or to amuse; to inform, or to misinform. But, on the face of it, there should be no scandal about political leaders communicating directly with voters. Everyone announces their news on Facebook these days – from the arrival of a new cavoodle puppy, to the death of a beloved parent. Is it so outlandish for governments to do the same?