Liberals and News Corp in lock-step with interests of climate denying billionaires

Despite the spin, the Coalition and News Corp remain mouthpieces for billionaire interests bent on stalling climate action and truth alike, writes Dr Victoria Fielding.

THE LIBERAL and National Parties and their media arm – News Corp – are never going to admit that they work only for the interests of the elite few. They will claim black and blue that they are for “everyday Australians”.

But the proof is in the pudding. When you look at their actions and their own words, it is clear their masters are the billionaire class and they care nothing for the interests of non-billionaire Australians, interests like living on a habitable planet.

It was coincidental timing last week that the Liberal Party was choosing to side with the Nationals in shamefully dropping their commitment to net zero at the same time as News Corp Australia was being questioned about its platforming of climate disinformation in a Senate hearing.

In this questioning, as it always does, News Corp did its best to pretend it is a news organisation, when everyone knows that really it is a political organisation which uses the façade of journalism to promote right-wing ideas and causes.

News Corp’s fossil fuel advertising dressed as news should be illegal

News Corp's unethical support for the fossil fuel industry is propaganda dressed as news and requires some kind of regulation.

During this Senate inequity, News Corp executive chair Michael Miller apparently repeatedly denied that his news organisation was responsible for platforming climate denial. Having played this denial game many times before, Miller used his opinion-writers-can-spread-whatever-disinformation-they-want, get-out-of-gaol-free card.

Miller implied that, sure, there might be some opinion pieces that question climate change, but that this was fine because “healthy democracies are built on healthy debate”. He also said with feigned innocence and apparently a straight face, “I hope you are not suggesting that we should censor [climate deniers]?”

Of course, choosing not to platform disinformation is not censorship. Indeed, if News Corp were a legitimate news organisation, it would have come to this conclusion decades ago and would have stopped doing it. But it is not a legitimate news organisation and should stop being treated like one.

In my research into News Corp’s conservative advocacy for the “No” campaign during the Voice Referendum, my colleagues and I found that News Corp produced more commentary about the Voice than it did factual reporting, Aside from that, even in its factual reporting, the lines were blurred between opinion and facts which made it difficult for the audience to know if they were being presented with facts or opinions about the Referendum.

This melding of opinion and news is a staple political strategy of News Corp; it claims to be a “news” organisation, but it is really a political organisation which has worked for decades to muddy the science – the facts – of climate change and to undermine action. And it does this because it is serving the political, ideological and commercial interests of the billionaire class — a class to which its owners belong.

This is why News Corp chooses to platform the very people who – lo and behold – write commentary pieces which undermine the facts of climate change and advocate against climate action. It does not make any difference if a piece of writing is labelled “news” or “commentary”; when it is misleading – and politically deliberately so – the results are the same.

The toxic links between News Corp’s climate denial and political advocacy against renewable energy were on display at the Senate Inquiry through the absolutely bizarre appearance of “journalist” and anti-renewables-obsessive Chris Uhlmann.

News Corp using content for conservative political advocacy

News Corp's political influence is strong enough to sway public opinion and urgently needs scrutiny, particularly in an election year.

Uhlmann appeared not in his role as unhinged spreader of misleading anti-renewables “opinions” in News Corp papers, but rather, through his role as advocate for anti-renewables group Rainforest Reserves Australia (RRA), which was being questioned about its ‘fictitious references and opaque funding’. Uhlmann wears many anti-renewables, anti-climate action hats.

The point is, News Corp would not be censoring him by not publishing him. It would just not be publishing him.

Another example of the cosy relationship between News Corp and aggressive political opposition to climate action on show at the Senate Inquiry was an intervention by climate-denying-extremist Nationals Senator Matt Canavan, who took News Corp to task for the company’s 2021 statement in support of net zero.

Canavan needn’t have been concerned, though. It was clear from the day that News Corp made a commitment to champion net zero that it was a meaningless PR stunt aimed at watering down public backlash at News Corp’s decades of climate denial.

News Corp never followed through with this promise. There was no campaign to advocate for net zero. There was no change in editorial direction. Quite the contrary, my research shows that News Corp remains the only mainstream news outlet in Australia that regularly platforms climate deniers, anti-climate action advocates and plays down the link between climate change and climate-driven events.

It doesn’t matter what News Corp or the Liberal-Nationals say to try to defend their indefensible undermining of the facts of climate change and their political campaigns against climate action. They can claim all they like to be representing the interests of the public and can claim to be engaged in a healthy debate. Their actions speak for themselves. They serve no constituency other than billionaires who fight tooth and nail to maintain reliance on fossil fuels for their own commercial benefit. They manipulate and deceive for political ends and for that, they should be condemned.