UTS study accuse News Limited of bias in carbon tax coverage
An academic study has accused News Limited of biased coverage against the Government’s policy on climate change, while Fairfax titles have leaned in favour of the carbon tax.
According to the report – A Sceptical Change – from Sydney’s University of Technology, News Limited’s tabloids and its national broadsheet The Australian have both campaigned against the policy rather than merely reporting it.
Report author Wendy Bacon, who leads UTS’ Australian Centre for Independent Journalism, said in a press release: “The results for News Ltd, particularly it two biggest tabloids – The Herald Sun and Daily Telegraph – indicate a very strong stance against the carbon policy adopted by a company that controls most Australian metropolitan newspapers and the only general national daily.”
Bacon is a former investigative journalist who has previously worked for the Nine Network, Fairfax and SBS. News Limited has accused Bacon of publishing a biased report.
The report examined 3971 articles about climate change in ten newspapers from February to July this year. It found negative coverage of the carbon policy outweighed positive coverage by 73% to 27%.
However, in News Limited publications, the articles were 82% negative versus 18% positive, while Fairfax titles had a “a more balanced result” of 57% positive to 43% negative, said Bacon.
The papers featured in the study were: News Limited’s The Australian, The Daily Telegraph/Sunday Telegraph, Herald Sun, The Advertiser, Courier Mail/Sunday Mail, The Northern Territory News and The Mercury; Fairfax Media’s The Age/Sunday Age and The Sydney Morning Herald/Sun Herald and Seven West’s The West Australian.
Bacon said: “While the impact of columnists is considerable, negative coverage cannot be attributed merely to several well-published conservative personalities. Bias is an editorial accomplishment achieved through a variety of journalistic techniques included headlining, the selection and prominence of topics and sources, structuring and editing of stories, selection and promotion of commentators, editorials and cartoons or other visuals.”
She claimed: “The response of media companies to the government’s Independent Media Inquiry has been that the market, if left to itself, can be trusted to deliver a quality media outcome for Australia. As I have already argued in a submission to the inquiry, the quality of reporting on the critical issue of climate change provides a litmus test in seeking answers to the inquiry’s terms of reference. The evidence provided in this report suggests we may have a case of market failure.”
According to the report, The Age had the highest proportion of positive stories at 67%, while Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph was the most negative, at 89%. The Australian gave the most space to coverage of the issue. According to the report: “Its articles were coded 47 per cent negative, 44 per cent neutral and nine per cent positive. When neutrals were discounted, there were 84 per cent negative articles compared to 17 per cent positive.”
The second part of the report, examining media reporting of climate science, will be released next week.
In comments given to The Conversation website, Greg Baxter, director of corporate affairs at News Limited, attacked Bacon’s credibility. He said: “Wendy Bacon has absolutely no credibility with this company. It is a matter of great regret that she teaches young people in this country who aspire to be journalists. The fact that Wendy Bacon produces a piece of research that is negative about this company is no surprise to anybody – she’s been doing it for 25 years.
“Every now and again this kind of research comes out and it masquerades as some kind of definitive analysis, and usually it’s got more flaws in it does the insights it purports to have about what it’s studying. We see this all the time. Most research about journalism is atrocious. Most of it purports to unveil or uncover some kind of systemic problem and yet it’s generally guilty of the same sins that it’s trying to identify in others: the way the questions are framed, the kind of methodology that’s used. It’s all usually skewed to achieve a particular outcome.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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Suck it up News. The sooner you put up your pay walls and die, the better.
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Another so-called accurate report about media sources not publishing the approved Labor sponsored doctrine,
The facts are that 19 out of the G20 will not follow Gillard’s tax, the USA, Canada etc whilst full of praise are laughing to themselves about Australia taxing its own people in times of economic uncertainty.
You should ask why our treasurer should remove payments to mothers, others. and take back tax breaks, pay the UN millions for carbon, pay Malaysia for boat people, waste money on pink batts, school buildings, then reduce spending on education, stop tourism by increasing the visa fees just to keep their so called budget ‘surplus’.
It is the newspapers that reflect the views of the people.
The carbon religion will remain just as long as its high priests and priestesses are allowed to freely blame anyone who ‘denies’ the religious argument of the end of the world, buy carbon now before we are all doomed. Question Everything!
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@QuestionEverything. best irony laden comedy ever. Thanks for contributing to the debate on media bias.
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Last week the telegraphed reported the number of results for googling “Peter” “Slipper” and “Rat” and gave a dictionary definition of the word rat. The fact that googling Peter Slipper and any generic word gave more results was not covered. Increasingly their editorials read like the year ten debate team. The losing team. Still at least I’m not paying to read it.
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I may be wrong cos it’s early in the morning but is 57-43 not a bias as well?
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might also point to this: “Its articles were coded 47 per cent negative, 44 per cent neutral and nine per cent positive. When neutrals were discounted, there were 84 per cent negative articles compared to 17 per cent positive.”
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Anything to do with anything positve is reported as being Negative in NEWS so much for a unbiased news organization..They have to be careful as there right wing is showing
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Crikey, what a shocking revelation. The Australian actively campaigning against anything that isn’t in line with some twisted, rotting, Tea Party, Boltian view of the world? Surely not.
Question Everything – I can see they’ve whipped you into a frenzy. Add a bit of 2GB to your muesli and your finger must be practically trembling over the trigger. “Newspapers reflect the views of the people”? Are you twelve? Newspapers shape the views of the people. You’d only have to be someone who’s observed the rise and (somewhat) fall of support for action on climate change to know what drove it. When mainstream media (except for The Australian and some AM radio) finally acknowledged the absolute legitimacy of climate science around 2006, so moved public opinion with it. When the retarded Rudd started to bungle it around 2008-09 and News Ltd notably started to turn against him and their (led by Murdoch) somewhat supportive stance on climate change action, so too did broader public opinion. Nothing – in the world of science – supports this change. Its just powerful people playing games, once again. Yes, you should question everything. Somehow I don’t think you’re somebody who’d ever change their mind, no matter what the argument.
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Finally the facts on the appalling News Limited media bias in this country. Just took Wendy Bacon to read the papers and do the math. Why hasn’t the government inquiry into News Limited bias done this instead of the line-up of media big shots spouting opinion?
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Interesting… and what’s the bias for talkback radio? Or is this Pick on News Limited Day?
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wasn’t Greg Baxter the James Hardie spinner at the time they put out a presser claiming to have fully funded all future mesothelioma claims?
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@Rawnoceros – Nicely said. So true.
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It’s not just Labor’s carbon policy that gets torched by News Ltd. Take Wednesday’s Australian – ‘Swan’s bread and surpluses trick’ – “LABOR is gambling on its ability to pull off an unprecedented $40 billion budget turnaround to defy escalating risks to the global economy and achieve its promised return to surplus next year.”
When I read it I thought what a transparently loaded, weasel-worded take on the issue – even if I do tend to agree.
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it just proves that all universities are hot beds of Communism and anyone with a degree can not be trusted.
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Does a bear shit in the woods?
Is the Pope a catholic?
Isn’t bias at News Ltd a given?
Aren’t they just the publishing arm of the Liberal Party?
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News Ltd are the voice of the idiot, nothing more. They appeal to the low hanging fruit who do not have the gray matter to make an informed decision. There is a reason why the Tele is written to a Year 9 reading level, as most of the readership are from the lowest percentile in terms of literacy and IQ. There may be money in feeding the idiots, but there is no credibility and the educated will still lament the fact that such an atrocity of a publication exists. Good form guide though…..
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News Ltd didn’t really turn the tide against the carbon tax. The culprits were Gillard with her bullying arrogance, and Abbot with his empty protests. The fabled Man in the Street, the very antithesis of the academic, is fast losing faith in the print media which is why News Ltd is losing readers; and why its punch-drunk Murdoch puppets are so easily knocked off balance.
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Even a pineapple could see the bias.
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As a UTS journalism graduate, I can confirm that Ms Bacon has extremely strong left-wing political views that she has on occasion communicated to students. Apart from supporting boycotts against Israel on her Twitter account, I recall around the time when WikiLeaks exploded in the news, she emailed the entire journalism student body encouraging them to read Antony Loewenstein’s blog posts about the issue. Ms Bacon would be my last choice to conduct an independent review.
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