Australia's news media landscape may have changed forever

The influence of the malicious mainstream newsrooms should be reassessed following Labor’s stunning landslide, as Alan Austin reports.

IT IS CURIOUS to note that on lists of urgent action demanded of the returned Albanese Labor Government, media reform does not appear. This is the first election Labor has won in living memory when this has been the case. And it is the first election since 2007 when Australia’s media have not been widely lambasted for their treachery in manipulating the result.

The taming of Smeagol

One intriguing subplot in JRR Tolkien’s magnificent The Lord of the Rings is when Frodo Baggins captures his bitter enemy Smeagol, or Gollum, the wretched creature who had schemed to kill him. Frodo, with the reluctant support of Samwise Gamgee, cajoled and coerced the resourceful Smeagol into assisting his desperate quest to destroy the Ring of Power, which Smeagol had possessed and still coveted. Thus did Smeagol aid his own destruction.

Parallels with Treasurer Jim Chalmers taming the malevolent forces of the slimy Murdoch newsrooms through his first term as Treasurer are several.

While some observers, including this column, initially watched Chalmers collaborate with News Corp outlets with Samwise-like distaste, we must now acknowledge his extraordinary success.

Election showed democracy working well in Australia

With anti-democratic movements stirring around the globe, Australia went to the polls in an unfazed frame of mind, writes Dr Lee Duffield.

So far this year, Chalmers has submitted to 67 in-depth television interviews probing his economic management.

He sat down with Murdoch’s Sky News more often than with Channel 9, Channel 10 and SBS combined. He has given a total of 23 interviews to all ABC TV programs, and 17 to Sky News. Then followed channels Nine (13), Seven (11), Ten (2) and SBS (1).

He has also written opinion pieces for Murdoch’s tawdry tabloids.

The end result is that the false media narratives of the pro-Coalition newsrooms all failed. Labor won 94 lower house seats. The Liberal Party won 18. The Coalition won 43.

This is not to say the craven newsrooms didn’t try to crush Labor. They did, as seen in their rabidly anti-Albanese editorials on election eve. The precise impact they had on the final vote tally is, of course, unknowable. But they did not swing the election the Coalition’s way, as was plausibly claimed in all elections from 2010 to 2019.

Media falsehoods persist

The newsrooms are still falsifying their economic analysis. Reporters in recent days whose election postmortems assert that the Coalition are the better economic managers, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, include Nine’s Paul Sakkal, Peta Credlin at Sky News and Peter van Onselen at the Daily Mail.

Coalition’s cost-of-living crisis receding

At last, some corporate pundits are backing away from their deceptions that living standards have been falling and Labor is to blame.

Veteran economics analyst Ross Gittins was one of the first to concede when he wrote in the Nine newspapers last Wednesday that ‘we’ve moved on from the cost-of-living crisis’.

Labor victory proves public rejected malicious media falsehoods

Saturday’s electoral mauling of the Coalition was a resounding rejection of media lies and distortions.

He continued:

‘Am I the only person to have noticed that, in all the many thousands of words commentators have spilled in explaining Labor’s landslide win, there’s been nary a mention of the cost of living? Had it been the only issue in voters’ minds, surely there’d have been a swing away from Labor, not towards it?’

Precisely.

Nine’s chief political correspondent, David Crowe, in contrast, is still bewildered by the result:

“Here they are with an increased majority, with this mandate, when households are doing it very tough. On other grounds, they might want to boot out a government when the cost of living is so bad.”

No, David, households are not distraught, as you keep on insisting. The majority are enjoying a phenomenal consumption boom and record-high living standards. You would know this if you checked the actual published data.

Press Council should now go

Australia’s Press Council (APC) was expected to be a pedigreed Dobermann pinscher, fearlessly defending citizens from the rabid liars peddling hate and division. It is now a deaf and blind Chihuahua with arthritis.

We are approaching halfway through a year that demands accurate reporting, but in which most mainstream newsrooms have lied shamelessly, as IA has demonstrated multiple times.

Getting tough for mainstream media liars to ignore economic facts

More data has emerged confirming the Liberal-led Coalition's cost-of-living crisis is now behind us, but mainstream journalists don't share it.

So far this year, the Press Council has not found a single breach by any newspaper. Not one.

It has issued one adjudication — on a complaint against Murdoch’s tabloids for promoting gas companies under the guise of news reporting. The conclusion was no breach of any principles or standards.

In January, this column lodged a complaint against The Australian over an article titled, ‘Treasurer will want to exit this horrid 2024 as soon as he can’, run on 30 December 2024. This contained six blatantly untruthful statements on the economy, intended to deceive readers in advance of the election.

We gave the APC all the data on a platter, confirming the malicious falsehoods, but were advised:

‘As you were not personally identified (or directly affected) by the published material, your complaint has been considered... [and] the Council Secretariat has decided to not proceed further with your complaint.’

This is a difficult paragraph to write, as this column has applauded the APC many times in the past. Reluctantly, however, we conclude it is no longer fit for purpose and should be wound up.

The critical role of the independent online media

Finally, kudos to those in the alternative media outlets who for three solid years reported the Government’s achievements accurately and exposed the mendacious shonks in ABC News and the commercial newsrooms. They know who they are.

Let’s hope the power of corporations to manipulate election outcomes has gone forever, and the Gollums meet their fitting demise.