The role played by the various arms of News Crap Australia as the Liberal Party’s public relations and advertising agency was on display yet again during the Tasmanian state election held on Saturday.

Our Media Glass House researchers noted one instance in particular on the televised far-right wing sewage farm otherwise known as Sky News.

A “news” item running on the Sky website as results started to become clear three hours after polls closed spoke of trenchant criticism by a Labor Party Senator for Tasmania, Helen Polley. (main picture)

In the story Senator Polley – a guest panellist on Sky’s election night live coverage – was alleged to have described Labor’s performance at the election as a “disaster”.

Here is how it appeared online in the network’s rolling coverage with “disaster” in the headline as if a direct quote from the Senator….

“Labor Senator Helen Polley has conceded the result of the Tasmanian election is a disaster for opposition leader Rebecca White and the ALP.” the story began.

In her comments in that story and in others on the Sky website, Senator Polley did recognise that Labor had – at that stage of counting – not done as well as she had hoped.

She did suggest that Labor’s low primary vote showed a need to engage better with voters and listen more to the community, but added that it was a lesson for both major parties.

The problem with the Sky News item is that none of our MGH researchers can find evidence that Senator Polley actually said the “disaster” bit.

Because our MGH teams did not spend all evening glued to Sky News – I mean, why would they? – they didn’t hear the specific question-and-answer exchange.

But they do put their faith in other real news outlets (not to be confused with News outlets) which they figure would have leapt on such comments and given them a run themselves if they had been uttered in the way Sky was reporting.

Their best guess is that the “disaster” reference was probably included in the question asked by one of the Sky News hosts to which the good Senator responded.

A big clue supporting that theory is the use of the word “conceded” in the offending article.

“Labor Senator Helen Polley has conceded the result of the … etc etc…” (Note: Our emphasis added).

So having a Sky News host pose a loaded question, a Sky News reporter is apparently perfectly entitled (in more ways than one) to write a story framed in relation to a response to the most loaded element of a question.

Yep, that’s good old Sky News at work, reporting on an election that’s just happened by taking every opportunity to skewer the side of politics its owners don’t much care for.

What a disaster for our democracy.

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