Tuesday, March 06, 2012

The Australian campaigns

On Insiders on the weekend, Courier Mail journalist Denis Atkins (a relatively balanced and reasonable commentator) noted that the Gillard government is suffering from a poisonous relationship with The Australian newspaper.

He's not half wrong. It's been quite a while since we've seen the paper go so full on attack, and have such an obvious disproportionate number of articles against, a Labor government.

Looking at today's material on the web, for example:

* economist Judith Sloan attacks the carbon tax. What she fails to mention explicitly is that at Catallaxy blog, she is blithely dismissive of climate science predictions, commenting recently (for example) "they expect us to believe that?" She shows no sign of having read up on the topic in any depth at all: for all I know she may find co-blogger Rafe Champion's gullible swallowing of everything climate change denying blogger Jonova convincing. (I feel fairly certain he finds her convincing because of her photo on her blog.)

* Niki Savva - former Liberal staffer who primarily spends her time telling us how much trouble Gillard is in.

* David Kemp (Liberal identity) complaining about the Finkelstein enquiry about media regulation.

* Peter van Onselsen: with Liberal ties, although he does cop a lot of criticism from the Right for being too "middle of the road".

And the editorial is an attack on Wayne Swan, and the Finkelstein inquiry.

This is all, of course, completely fair and balanced.

Meanwhile, in the struggling Fairfax press, you have Tim Colebatch doing economic commentary in his usual clear, calm and dispassionate way.

Fairfax can't be allowed to die.

4 comments:

TimT said...

Steve, the government will kick up a stink about anything that mildly disagrees with their current agenda. These were people that were just the other day coolly and calmly insulting fellow members of their governing coalition in order to give their own side a political edge. How much more combative do you think they'll be with a press that asks hard questions of them?

Remember that Gillard complained about the 4 Corners interview after it went to air - 'I went to the interview thinking it was a chance to talk about my government's achievements'. A paraphrase - but you in essence that's what she said. And it nicely summarises the government attitude to media: it's not an institution for finding out about stuff the public might like to know. It's just a propaganda vehicle.

They hate the Oz so much - and the Murdoch press in general - not just because of certain columnists writing certain things about global warming. The Oz has a habit of breaking stories about the NBN, for instance, that Conroy would rather not be known. And of asking uncomfortable questions about personal relationships in an obviously dysfunctional ALP cabinet. So if the Murdoch press is biased, so much the better. (Admittedly I don't care so much about fairness and balance in private media sources.)

Just thought I'd get in early before any trolls do...

TimT said...

Agree with you about Fairfax. But I have to wonder whether Fairfax management agree with you about same! They don't seem to be particularly concerned about readership lately...

Steve said...

Meh, I'm not convinced. Denis Shanahan was hyperventilating about Carr last week in a way that I thought was over the top.

Basically, the paper is putting the boot in because of the Finkelstein inquiry - they are determined to not see it come to anything.

TimT said...

Anyway, why not more about the Queensland election campaign? I'm fascinated by it.