'Literacy debate' is a generally accepted term for a generally accepted crisis in our culture. The aim of this study was to establish the essence of this debate in the current decade. The questions thence were to identify the participants in the debate, establish the focus of the debate and note the frequency of the debate in the daily press and in educational journals. The present study analysed the contents of such articles found in newspapers and education journals between 1990 - 1994 and then sought to quantify and categorise the information found in these. Articles were retrieved from database searches on a daily basis for the Courier Mail 1992 to 1994 whilst the Australian newspaper articles were restricted to 1994 publications. Education journals were selected for their availability and relevance to Queensland primary teachers and were searched for relevant articles from 1990 to 1994. Results indicated that a two sided public debate was not taking place. Generally articles in daily newspapers were written outside the education sphere, portraying an anxiety about literacy attainments, providing suggested solutions and indicating a preference for a kind of literacy which Street describes as having 'universal literacy functions'. Educators, on the other hand, appeared to be more intent on absorbing the latest ideas in literacy understanding, applying these to classroom situations and were more clearly aligned with Street's 'ideological' model.