The Murdoch media’s dangerously sloppy standards of reporting were on full display in the Sydney turdbloid The Sunday Telegraph with a story on the expenses incurred by ministers in the previous Liberal National Party NSW government. (main picture)
The story trumpeted how the ministers in the government of then premier Dominic Perrottet “burned through” $44 million in nine months running their offices up to their defeat at the March election.
Now, our Media Glass House researchers believe that one basic fact a reader would need to know was how many ministers are we talking about – a key fact missing from the story.
The breakdown of the top 10 ministerial spenders provided shows former premier Perrottet topping the list at $6.7 million – a figure that includes staff salaries, overtime, travel, catering, and spending on taxis.
But, as our MGH teams point out, nowhere is mentioned how many staff each ministerial budget covered. Was it five, 10, 20, more?
Yet again, another essential and very, very basic fact that is missing from the story
The only clue we are given are the staff costs figures for three offices – the premier’s, the treasurer’s, and the National Party leader’s. But again, no hint as to how many staff members they covered.
Our MGH teams wonder how the story in the form it was published on Sunday made it into print with such essential information missing.
The answer is simple. The Murdoch media simply doesn’t care.
If those simple facts were present readers might be able to do the sums themselves and work out if the spending on a per capita basis was reasonable.
As it stands the Sunday story simply aims to generate outrage at a government, albeit a past one.
We mentioned earlier “dangerously sloppy” standards. By that we mean that stories such as Sunday’s effort run the risk of eroding confidence in the very concept of government.
A readership constantly fed a diet of confected and baseless outrage about public figures, politicians, and governments – the only thing the Murdoch media has to offer these days – may well start to doubt the value of democratically elected governments at all.
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While on the topic of The Sunday Telegraph our MGH teams were somewhat puzzled by a double-page spread the News Crap Australia turdbloid gave over to a story with multiple photos (each taken from a fair distance) about a 46-year-old mum of three having a beach outing at Byron Bay with some chap who cooks for a living and has his own kids. (below)
The woman in question has children – two boys and a girl – and the bloke has six of his own aged between nine and 17, or so we are told by the story.
Why on earth is this beach outing regarded as a news story? Well, the woman in question is Erica Packer, the ex-wife of Jamie Packer, and the bloke she was spending time with at Byron is “celebrity chef” – is there any other kind? – Shannon Bennett.
Our MGH teams are still having trouble working out why even those facts make it a legitimate news item. They consider it more cheap and shallow sensationalist gossip especially since it forces public exposure on young children just having a day out.
So actually it fits right in with Murdoch standards.
Our researchers were very intrigued by this passage in the story.
They think that “onlooker” has a lot of time on their hands and is perhaps spending too much of it stalking, err… following the happy couple around Byron Bay. All day in fact it seems.
Then there was this passage quoting another “onlooker”.
Our MGH researchers have their own theory about the identity of the two “onlookers”.
They refuse to name the pair but when pushed did mention the story carried a double byline.
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