We have grown up with two
types of newspaper, the tabloid and the broadsheet. The tabloid is seen
as a simplistic and sensational rag that is for a mass market of a relatively
uneducated and unsophisticated readership. The broadsheet is seen as the
more intelligent and sophisticated newspaper that is read by the minority educated,
professional, political and establishment readership.
As we know the paper size of
about 36 x 25cm for the tabloid, and about 75 x 60cm for the broadsheet is the
general rule, but ultimately only symbolic of the content. The exception
to the rule has often been where a sophisticated broadsheet style newspaper has
adopted the tabloid size for convenience. Good examples are The Guardian
in London and The Financial Review in Australia. I haven't been aware of
any examples of the opposite case, until now.
Reading The Australian and
talking to many of its readers over the years I have come to realise that it is
a deceptive product. It represents itself as being a broadsheet in the
traditional mould, but its sophistication, to the extent that it has any, is in
its duplicity. The Australian is a hybrid, a cross between a tabloid and
a broadsheet. Its tablarity is riddled like a cancer through its
political and economic articles, features and editorials.
The Australian specialises
in a sinister sort of bias that is so concocted that it could only be the
product of an organizational policy. The
“style’ is utilized by its team of hacks who are on message, and have obviously
been employed for their propensity for this type of partisan writing. The stamp of proprietors and editors are
obvious, both in their choice of staff and in their enforcement of both the house
“style” and the partisan view.
There is hardly a word, a
sentence, a heading that is not slanted to the purpose. The extent of this is so practiced as to have
become an art form for some of the chief perpetrators. Some articles are rancid with subtle slants,
slurs and slanders. Others are just blatant
shock jockeying. Recent articles on climate change, the NBN, the Fair Work Act,
Julian Assange and refugee policy have been such claptrap that they are embarrassing. The Republicans in the US have just lost the
unlosable election due to this same contempt for the electorate. Isn’t it time for an authentic, intelligent
and genuine conservative voice to be heard?
I am sure that all sides of politics would welcome that. Instead we get this hateful incendiary pseudo-debate,
pseudo-science, pseudo-economics. The national
dialogue is reduced, corrupted by this Limited News.
This would probably not be a
worry if it was not our only national broadsheet. But it is and it is a curse on the nation.
And so to the article by
Niki Savva on Nov 8, 2012.
I talked about the bias and
slant and partisan writing that permeates The Australian. The other shock jock practise is to twist
almost any issue or event into an attack on Julia Gillard. The paper often has several headlines with
associated cartoons that attack the Prime Minister and put her in a bad
light. And the cartoons are simply disgusting,
portraying her as monstrous, ugly, and zombie like. This is the evil News Limited, the same one
we saw in London, the same one we see in America, the one we see here. The deranged hand of the long long reign of
the psychopath, Rupert Murdoch, is all but apparent. The long reign that has had the time to corrupt
this large part of the Forth Estate, root and branch.
So Niki Savva tries, ridiculously
and improbably, to turn the victory of Barak Obama into a criticism of Julia
Gillard. It’s absurd, but counts as
journalism at The Australian.
Suffice to say that it is a silly, infantile piece. The 1,000 word article is written so that,
and this is her brilliant “thesis”, she can call the Prime Minister a whiner because
she complained about Tony Abbott’s misogyny. Hooly Dooly