Clear evidence of bias at The Australian
Cartoon ©Fiona Katauskas, used with permission
Political zine New Matilda is featuring a stinging rebuke of Murdoch’s The Australian, Australia’s only national daily paper, in an article The Australian, Free Speech and Hypocrisy by Clive Hamilton of The Australia Institute, author of the new book Scorcher: The dirty politics of climate change which claims to blow the whistle on the politics of global warming in Australia.
Bias in The Australian’s approach is not just a matter of perception but can be demonstrated. To test this, we at the Australia Institute examined all opinion pieces and editorials over the first three months of 2006, a period selected because it was one of intense activity on the climate change issue. I have no doubt that the results would be replicated for other periods.
We assessed the political orientation of opinion pieces and editorials against three criteria: whether they were for or against the Federal Government’s position on climate change; whether they were for or against the Kyoto Protocol; and whether they were for or against the consensus view of climate science.
The results showed that, over the three-month period, The Australian published opinion pieces or editorials as follows: nine for the Government’s position and one against; 10 against Kyoto and one for; and 10 against the consensus view of the science and six for (including one by the Prime Minister).
My own experiences dealing with The Australian have born this bias out. It seems that Matt Warren, by all accounts a former Minerals Council mouthpiece before he mysteriously scored the role of Environment Editor, gleefully rolls out pretty much any old climate change denier and gives them whatever soapbox they want, and yet has refused to cover any of our work at all. In conversation with a mutual friend he apparently went so far as to declare Carbon Planet as being some sort of scam, an accusation that I naturally found entirely offensive. I emailed him to clarify his comments but never heard back.
Even since Mr Murdoch’s much publicised turn-around on climate change, it seems The Australian just hasn’t kept up with the times. I refuse to read it these days, would never advertise in it, preferring to recommend an absolute boycott of that sad rag as the only sensible reaction to their bias, lies and distortions. — DS
Technorati Tags: bogus science, business, climate change, Clive Hamilton, media bias, politics, shill, The Australia Institute
