All the big Sydney newspapers have stood behind the Coalition for the New South Wales election on Saturday, a stark reminder of the lack of political diversity in Australian media.
Gladys Berejiklian is a “dour, workaholic and mostly competent technocrat” but Michael Daley’s Labor opposition is a “wild bunch of political hucksters”, according to the Australian’s editorial, which endorses the Coalition for the state election.
The Daily Telegraph said Daley relied on stunts rather than substance and detail in his campaign and Berejiklian should be allowed to finish the job.
“The case for endorsing her arises not from anything she has done during the campaign,” the Sydney Morning Herald said, rather unenthusiastically, as it too endorsed Berejiklian. “It is mostly a bet on continuity at a time when the state must complete the huge infrastructure projects started on her watch.”
The Herald’s backing of the Coalition in its political editorials is nothing new, and does not have anything to do with new owners Nine.
Nine’s Australian Financial Review also endorsed Berejiklian and declared that “Labor is literally anti-jobs”.
Mocker misfires
Why is Tim Soutphommasane so silent on Michael Daley, the Australian’s anonymous Mocker column has asked, after video emerged of the NSW Labor leader saying young Sydneysiders were leaving the state and being replaced by workers from Asia.
“Had Daley been a conservative leader who made such remarks on the eve of an election, Soutphommasane, a former Labor staffer, would have personally chartered a skywriter to register his outrage,” Mocker wrote.
Well Soutphommasane did not charter a plane but he did go to the ABC’s studios in Ultimo to talk about Daley’s comments live on air on Tuesday.
The former race discrimination commissioner is a popular target for News Corp commentators.
Andrew Bolt once said: “And Tim Sou … what’s his name … Soutphommasane, if he’s really worried about hate preachers and violence in the streets, why doesn’t he say something about these hate preachers and the violence they inspire?”
But this latest attack has misfired. It also could have been avoided by doing a tiny bit of research.
Now a professor of sociology and political theory at Sydney University, Soutphommasane did a 10-minute interview with ABC News host Joe O’Brien in which he said Daley’s comments were “an appeal to racism”.
His remarks were reported by Nine, the Sydney Morning Herald, ABC’s PM, The Drum, ABC Online, news.com.au and Australian Associated Press.
“Those remarks [by Daley] are disappointing,” Soutphommasane told ABC TV.
“Many people would have interpreted them as involving an appeal to racism. You can have a debate about congestion or housing affordability or quality of life without singling out racial groups.”
This so typical of The Australian. Still no correction on the Mocker article noting my public statements on racism this week. Yet the newspaper sees fit to change the headline, and to delete its initial tweet. If you get it wrong, own it pic.twitter.com/C8rR3x0Haj
— Tim Soutphommasane (@timsout) March 21, 2019
After the Mocker was called out on Twitter, the tweet was deleted and the article was corrected. Too late. Underneath, the comments were ugly: “Mocker, the answer is simple, Tim Alphbet soup is only playing to his far left audience.... he doesn’t call out Daley, because Daley is in his ‘Team’.”
The Mocker column has been linked online to the Twitter account @Monster_Dome, a self described “free speech extremist”.
Thin on the ground
Every now and again we like to remind you about how few people watch Sky News Australia. The highly-publicised NSW People’s Forum, hosted by the Daily Telegraph and Sky News, was the final leaders’ debate before Saturday’s state election.
But the contest between Gladys Berejiklian, and Michael Daley on Sky News Live on Wednesday night averaged 32,900 viewers in metro homes nationally, peaking at 49,200. Sky on WIN in regional homes averaged 22,700, with a peak of 55,200. Compare this with Nine’s Married at First Sight, which had 1.9m viewers on the same night. When you break the national figures down, 12,086 people in Sydney saw the debate and a further 4,157 in regional NSW, amounting to about 16,000 potential NSW voters.
Seven’s slip-up
A story on Seven’s Sunday Night, which claimed that Melbourne was in the grips of an “African gangs” crisis has been found to have breached the broadcasting code of practice.
The Sunday Night story asserted that what “infuriates so many people who say they are living in fear is that, for far too long, police and politicians have refused to acknowledge that African gangs even existed, let alone were responsible for an alarming surge in violent crime”.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority found Channel Seven Melbourne breached the Commercial Television Industry Code of Practice by making the inaccurate claim.
ACMA found that “African gangs” were not responsible for a surge in crime.
“Viewers deserve to know that news and current affairs programs contain factual statements that are accurate,” the ACMA chair, Nerida O’Loughlin, said. “It is unacceptable for news and current affairs programs to broadcast statements that may mislead audiences.”
Seven’s punishment? More training for its news and current affairs staff.
It’s not all a blur
Sometimes Google Street View is surprisingly judgmental. Just look what they did to a large advertising billboard for Grant Broadcasters in Cairns, which hosts Classic Hits 4CA and Star 102.7.
Street View has chosen to blur the face of Alan Jones, whose show is carried on 4CA, while leaving the somewhat young faces of hosts Dave and Inkie on clear display. Don’t know what they were thinking.
The ‘pygmies’ News Corp can’t stop talking about
On Wednesday, protesters gathered outside the Sydney convention centre where News Corp hosts its annual pitch to advertisers. A small crowd stood with Daily Telegraph front pages, showing headlines such as “Allah, Allah, Allah. Oi, Oi, Oi”, “Evil IS among us” and “Refugee to Jihad” blacked out, and “Stop Hate Speech” written over them. The organiser and freelance journalist Alex McKinnon, who has worked with Sleeping Giants Oz and the Greens, called on the editors of News Corp to stop encouraging violence and fear of Muslims.
Before the protest, News Corp executive chairman Michael Miller had said it was very unfair of anonymous groups such as Sleeping Giants to target advertisers.
“I have a strong view that we encourage free speech and we encourage free speech and diversity of views in our papers and on Sky News,” he told trade publication Mumbrella. “I don’t support hate speech, and no one should.
“So while it’s received a lot of noise I don’t see it happening because it hasn’t had much of an impact.”
That night Andrew Bolt couldn’t wipe the smile off his face as he ridiculed the size of the protest on Sky News’ Bolt Report. “I said Sleeping Giants, hounding advertisers to try to kill my Sky News show, was pretending to be vastly bigger on the internet than they really were,” he said.
The Herald Sun columnist calls Sleeping Giants Oz “pygmies” and rants about how insignificant they are and how advertisers should ignore them. But these little irritants must be getting under his skin, and that of his fellow News Corp commentators such as Janet Albrechtsen, because they can’t stop talking about them.
Watching over ABC
We hope someone from the Australian turns up at Gleebooks next Wednesday to hear a conversation between the former Media Watch host Jonathan Holmes and the current Media Watch host Paul Barry. The topic of conversation is Aunty, of course. And the event is hosted by Friends of the ABC. We’re sure there will be plenty of material for ABC lovers and haters alike.
