Some things never change, and one of them is News Crap Australia’s blatant anti-Labor editorial policy evident pretty much daily in its metropolitan turdbloids and its national broadshit The Australian.
Our Media Glass House researchers regularly identify instances in which Murdoch media outlets’ mandated anti-Labor stance colours their presentation of supposedly fact-based news.
The Melbourne daily The Herald Sun is a case in point. It has not ceased its attacks on Victoria’s Premier Jacinta Allan since she took over the job from its previous punching bag Dan Andrews.
The latest example was its presentation of stories arising from a state parliamentary inquiry trying to determine who – mainly the new Premier – knew what and when they knew it about the circumstances surrounding the Victorian Government’s cancellation of the 2026 Commonwealth Games. (main picture)
The inquiry was established by non-government MPs in the state’s upper house so our MGH teams think it safe to bet their collective life savings on its report being extremely critical of the Premier and her predecessor.
Nevertheless, they add, genuine news outlets still have a responsibility to report the inquiry’s proceedings in a fair and balanced manner.
That approach was not evident in a Tuesday story in The Herald Sun whose headline “Gold medal deceit” proved the paper had already made up its mind.
The use of such a term might have been excused had it been uttered by a witness or committee member and therefore presented as a direct quote within inverted commas.
But nowhere in the paper’s coverage was anyone identified as doing so.
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Further north in Sydney, Murdoch’s daily turdbloid The Daily Telegraph was using similar tactics, yet again, against Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore.
Our MGH teams say the Lord Mayor is a favourite target of the turdbloid, possibly because she seems to be a reasonable person with progressive ideas. Definitely someone worthy of being taken down in the eyes of the Murdoch media.
The headline on a recent Tele story clearly labelled her as “arrogant”, (below) but as a statement of fact since the adjective was not presented within quotation marks.
That’s despite the fact it was drawn from an actual quote from a Liberal Party city councillor critical of Cr Moore’s idea for a First Nation’s voice to the city council.
Obviously the Tele wants to unseat the Lord Mayor just as much as any other Murdoch outlet wants to be rid of all non-right wing administrations and their leaders across the nation.
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Our MGH teams point to one article published in some Murdoch turdbloids this week that did employ quotation marks in its emotive headline.
It was a story on the ongoing war in the Middle East and featured a claim by the President of Israel that the terrorist group Hamas had plans for deploying home-made chemical weapons using cyanide. (below)
Our MGH researchers continue to maintain their professional political impartiality when analysing coverage of the Israel-v-Hamas conflict, unlike the Murdoch media which takes an Israel-can-do-no-wrong approach.
Our researchers suggest the cyanide story’s headline should have treated the cyanide element of the story as a claim by one side against the other and not as proven fact.
They acknowledge that the word “claim” was used in the sub-heading but maintain that a main headline such as “Hamas faces cyanide claim” would have been preferable if the Murdoch media wanted to be genuinely fair and balanced.
They also say that they are sure readers of The Bug can spot the flaw in their argument.
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