‘New low’ for journalism? Why News Corp’s partisan campaign coverage is harmful to democracy
News Corp’s lack of neutral election coverage in 2019 isn’t a new thing for the publisher, but it has dealt a serious blow to both journalism and democracy, argues associate professor Johan Lidberg in this crossposting from The Conversation.
Remember the Daily Telegraph’s 2013 front page headline “Kick this mob out”? Although some could argue that Labor after the Rudd-Gillard years was in a deep mess and not fit to govern, such a headline was deeply partisan and far from neutral election campaign coverage.
The Guardian’s Roy Greenslade said at the time of News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch:
“There is not the slightest attempt to conceal his agenda. It is blatant, bold and belligerent. And it confirms yet again the way in which he links political interventions to his commercial desires.”
Spot on.
How’s Nine Rob?
Where do you start on the insanity of an article that starts off quoting The Guardian?
The near entirety of the rest of the media varies from left (Nine) to far left (Guardian/ABC etc) and for some reason those on the left think those outlets are in the middle.
We live in an age where everyone to the right of Mao is considered a Nazi – this article is yet more proof.
Yeah…you lost me (and I think a few others) at ABC = far left
What we have now is a collapse of status. Once the newspapers in Australia were all relatively singular. Then Keating allowed a free for all and we ended up with News (70%) and Fairfax. Then the internet came along. In the process a generation of editors allowed the intrusion of increasing levels of commentary and opinion in news pages. Nowadays it’s common to hear reporters talking as though they are the decisive actors and people who need to be convinced (rather than people whose job is to ask questions and report stuff).
News clearly has been made even more assertive by the influence of the son of Rupert, who is clearly not as smart and a bit more ideological (whereas Rupert used his power to make money).
In general though the most egregious flaw is the overwhelming desire of reporters to express opinion – such that they often neglect to report the essential facts.
So our media is becoming less influential as it increasingly imposes its influence. People just ignore it, as I hope to see on Saturday.
Claiming Channel 9 as left wing is outrageous, insanity is strong with this one.
Get outta here with that Brietbart nonsense! #neverheardofya
entirely agree – as if the Guardian’s politics (or the ABC or the Age/SMH etc) are any less partisan than News
I think most of the media in Australia are biased and to the left politically speaking which is unfortunate and unhelpful for our democracy.
Agreed, David. Most media people live within a 15km radius of the CBD and are unable to empathise with people who live outside the bubble (migrants, working-class, farmers).
And so rather than listening to non-media people, they’d rather tell them what to believe.
This goes for both “left wing” and “right wing media”.
This has nothing to do with the left / the right and the culture wars, and everything do with corporate intervention into politics and the lack of transparent ethical journalism in Australia.
When the centre has shifted so far to the left, everything to the right seems far-right.
@Duncan
If you believe that 9 is left and that The Guardian and The ABC are ‘far left’, I encourage you to brush up on your politics sir.
Anyone who takes time to read the Daily Tele story about Shorten’s mum would see it was actually a factual account of her achievements.
The issue was Shorten playing the victim using his mum’s apparent lack of career fulfillment — settling for teaching over the law — as a campaign explanation of his political motivation.
Labor demonizing News Ltd is exactly what Trump does to critics.
Yeah, why is no one talking about that?
People are so quick to form a judgement without even reading the content they are bandwagoning for. Clickbait for the haters.
Mr Lidberg lives in a non-commercial world at Monash University. In the typically 45-55% two party preferred vote ranges since 1949, there are people who think one way, and some who think the other way. They should all have the right to listen to other side’s arguments. Obviously by asking that the “other side “ to shut up, Mr Lidberg supports the sort of media voices arrangements that exist in countries like Russia, China and Turkey.
Now I pay for Mr Lidberg’s salary, I pay the ABC/SBS salaries and the ton of assorted Government directly or indirectly supported media. I have to have this drivel of an article of personal prejudices produced from my wages and have no choice. With NEWS, which services commercially, I don’t have to buy a single product. I have the choice , and that’s something the Associate Professor wants to take away from me.
Its pretty obvious what the Daily Telegraph did. Bill stated a story, and the Daily Telegraph stated the correct story based upon what his mum did. Bill brought his Mum into the conversation, and the Daily Telegraph then correctly described her incredibly successful scaling of the heights. He can’t say she was hard done by because of gender , background or, as a result, any missed opportunities for he himself. Fake news was not the Telegraph story , but Bill’s.
100%
“Now I pay for Mr Lidberg’s salary, I pay the ABC/SBS salaries and the ton of assorted Government directly or indirectly supported media.”
I know that’s not your only point, but I can’t let this slide. Your taxes pay for all sorts of things you don’t personally benefit from, Roger.
In fact, MY taxes pay for your family tax benefits, and your negative gearing, and for all your not-quite-honest income tax deductions.
One day, my taxes will pay for your pension. Do I get to be pissed off at the way you spend your pension, Roger?
Of course a leftist journalism professor would write this.
Re. climate change, there’s literally nothing of substance a country with a population of 25m people can do on a global level.
I like the way you think, Brian. You live in an electorate of roughly 100,000 voters. That electorate is one of 150 similarly sized electorates. There’s literally nothing of substance your vote can do on a national level. So you in particular shouldn’t vote.
Totally agree with the comments re the leftist agenda – which seems swept under the carpet and almost “normal” or middle ground.
Channel 7 News – extremely biased towards Labor with a news story the other day of a student demonstration (no doubt orchestrated by leftist teachers and co (a form of child abuse) and don’t start me on the ABC and Q&A – “tonight we have a panel of a Labor politician (Left), a Union rep (Left), a social activist (Left), an actor or media personality (Left) and a Liberal/National polly (Right) – ah yes, that looks balanced to us – now let the tax payer funded debate begin. When was the last time you ever saw the panel stacked to the right – the answer is never.
If you read the story about Shorten’s mum it’s actually accurate and positive. There is nothing negative. The issue is Shorten got caught being economical with the full story.
Attacking News Ltd is right out of the Tump playbook.
Nonsense from start to finish. Starts with The Guardian as a reference point, meaning the most partisan Left leaning news source. Nowhere to go after that.
Regardless of what the Guardian is, trying to deny the fact that Murdoch wants the Libs and uses his media to help make that happen is just plain daft.
The angry right-wing men in this comment section harping on about the bias at Fairfax and ABC is terrifying.
I am tired of everything being lumped into ‘rightist’ and ‘leftist’ categories. This poor guy, just for being an academic, is being branded a ‘leftist’, therefore his argument isn’t worth engaging with. What is this? East and West Germany? These words are a new device designed to skewer the population and drag us away from what’s actually important.
And what IS important is that giant news corporations are shamelessly churning out blatant propagana as though they were another political party. I think, ‘rightist’ and ‘leftist’ nonsense aside, we can all agree that that’s a frightening thing we shouldn’t allow?
says the person blaming ‘angry right-wing men’
people with political leanings like yours always attempt to discredit the view by discrediting the person making the view
Many of the aggressive comments are from male names – just stating facts.
Trolls have infiltrated this post and the tactic is to create echo chambers. Take anyone of you out of your echo chambers and into a grown up, intelligent debate and most will fall over. (Just like Shapiro did in his recent interview with conservative Andrew Neil.). Frauds.
How many of these commentators are regulars?
Describing NineFax as left-wing is laughable
In no particular order, you can find columns in the SMH from the following “left-wing” contributors
Amanda Vanstone – Fmr Lib Minister
Christine Forster – Sister of Tony Abbott and Lib Councillor
Dave Sharma – Liberal Candidate for Wentworth
Matt Kean – NSW Lib Minister
Tony Abbott – Fmr Lib PM
The comments on this article are absurd. The idea that the ABC or Fairfax/9 is left wing is completely farsical!! Anyone who’s spent longer than 30 seconds reading/watching any of these media organisations would know that to be completely absurd. It also completely ignores the actual issues raised in the above article, specifically how media has become hyper partisan in the chase for $$$, and how media, specifically newscorp, is leveraging it’s power to rip off the tax payer & achieve its business/profit goals.
Whether other media organisations are leftwing, rightwing or whatever doesn’t really matter, it’s the use of power to screw over democracy that is the issue…
I wouldn’t have opened this one for comment personally.. I know not everyone is down with editor but I think during an election it has a role here. Doesn’t look too me like subbies and industry comments above
The petulance of the headline to this story can’t be over estimated. Shorten cut his mother’s success-story in half, leaving out the successful bit, in order to manipulate an audience into thinking she and he were hard done by. The Tele simply provided the other half of the story. She became a uni graduate, successful lawyer and barrister, enough to pay for him to go to Xavier College, and live in comfy middle class splendour. His deception had to be pointed out, and complaining about it is being just as deceptive as he was.
The irony of people claiming that the media is left wing. While the Guardian certainly leans that way, little else in the media is anything but centre to right wing.
But that’s the goal, always shout left bias if it’s to the left of you.
if you don’t believe that the ABC is predominantly left wing then your judgement of what is left and right is way off
From your view way on the right, everything looks left wing.
See below comment.
I’m stunned about the extreme ignorance being displayed in this comments stream.
Anyone who doesn’t understand that the Guardian is far left, closely followed by the ABC, then the Age, probably thinks The New Daily is a friendly, apolitical news service and that GetUp is a grassroots, non-partisan community organisation.
If this is you – you live in a bubble. Read the Australian, the News Ltd tabloids, the Spectator, Quadrant to get some balance in your life.
This myopia is a major difference between left and right-leaning peoples the world over – lefties claim to be centrist, and will decry the Murdoch press while denying the political bent of left-leaning media.
On the other hand, most conservative people will decry the left press while having absolutely no problem admitting that News Corp is right-leaning.
I try not to trust my own judgement when data is available – even data that was commissioned by the Abbott government and published in The Australian!
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/audits-exonerate-abc-over-bias-claims/news-story/3ad4ba13a0751a74c2b417c13dcb52d6
It is obviously very fashionable to hate on Australia’s most-read news publisher, and has been for some time now – especially from competing news outlets – but glass houses etc.
16/05 ‘The Guardian view on the Australian election’:
“We have always considered Guardian Australia readers capable of making their own voting decisions, but in 2019 we urge readers to heed the fact that Labor is the only party with a credible climate policy and a chance of forming government after Saturday.”
This isn’t from an opinion columnist. This is an editorial from the publisher.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/16/guardian-view-australian-election-vote-climate-emergency
All newspapers have editorials before an election saying which party they think should win. It is neither new nor unexpected. They do wrapups about which newspaper’s editorials support which political party.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/17/nt-news-breaks-ranks-as-only-news-corp-paper-to-endorse-bill-shorten
Back to the real vote,is our Kate going to win?
Jonah
You must be joking right? Have you watched the ABC lately? Where is your article on their far left bias?
Mike
Everything is far left or far right if you don’t agree with it.