2012 election defining moment for #AusMedia – by Darin Sullivan

The Financial review recently attacked the newly arrived Guardian Australia online for only representing ‘the view of a clique.’ [‘En garde for the leftist Guardian’ 29 July page 38.] 

Given mainstream newspapers like the Australian Financial Review, The Australian and the rest of the Murdoch and Fairfax papers (don’t start me on the daily telegraph in NSW) represent the rich dictating to the poor and middle class, the Fin reviews criticism was somewhat laughable.

 

Here’s an example. Recently, 10,000 people across Australia demonstrated against the Rudd government’s policy to deport refugees to Papua New Guinea.

That’s a significant public response to an important federal issue.

 

Yet, the The Australian nor the Australian Financial Review ran any reports of note on these demonstrations. The Telegraph in NSW of course ran a partisan line.

This highlights the fact that under the present mainstream media duopoly the views of a large number of Australians are ignored, and skewed.

The federal election has finally been called, and here in NSW we awoke to the front page on the Daily Telegraph “Kick this mob out“. Some fine independent journalism there.

The Daily Terrorgraph’s front page today is an absolute disgrace. Not because of the side of politics it supports, but because it is so partisan, so blatantly NOT in the spirit of journalism.

Clearly newspapers in Australia are now nothing more than mouth pieces for the ruling class, for the 1%. So where can the 99% go? Is it time to let them go completely, and embrace new social media for independence, or do we need to restore balance in the mainstream media?

This will be an interesting election campaign. Not just around who gets elected, but how. It will also provide an insight into the influence and effectiveness of new and old media.

As a friend of mine wrote today on Facebook, “While News Corp have made it abundantly clear they’ll be running an incredibly partisan line in their newspapers, never before has social media and the internet provided such an alternative for political discussion and debate. In many ways, printed newspapers will be the biggest loser if Rudd wins, because it will confirm their reducing influence and power in Australian politics.”

So will this election be a defining moment for the media?