Hate media and the media mafia

 The propensity of the political class to express its views/dislike/concerns about news media isn’t new. Lest we forget Malcolm Turnbull teaming up with an old enemy, Kevin Rudd, to mount a campaign for a Murdoch Royal Commission, calling the Australian born media proprietor an “arrogant cancer on our democracy”. They got half a million Australians to sign a petition to demand greater media diversity. The Greens joined in as well – with Senator Sarah Hanson Young calling News Corp a “Murdoch media mafia.” 

Last week, as Peter Dutton and Anthony Albanese squared off in the final week of the federal election campaign this is what Peter Dutton told a rally of the Liberal Party faithful:

“Forget about what you have been told by the ABC, The Guardian and the other hate media. Listen to what you hear [at] doors. Listen to what people say on the pre-polling. Know in your hearts that we are a better future for our country.”

The remark sent a collective chill down the spine of all journalists, except perhaps those working for News Corp. The “other hate media” Mr Dutton referred to presumably did not include News Corp newspapers. Even a brief viewing of the front page of its newspapers will confirm that the media organisation has been broadly supportive of Mr Dutton and the Coalition (even if the poll result serves as proof that perhaps Murdoch can no longer sway election results). But why draw on such an obvious Trumpism of media contempt in the final days of the campaign when the polls would have been strongly indicating to the Liberal Party that diminishing support for the Coalition may have had something to do with a fear that it was sympathetic to the kamikaze, obliterate-all opposition stance of the new(ish) US president.

Perhaps the opposition leader’s comments had something to do with a Four Corners documentary that was to air a few days after the rally, revealing that for two years when he was a cabinet minister, Mr Dutton failed to declare his interest in a family trust that operated lucrative childcare businesses. Perhaps the comments had nothing to do with that, and more to do with an historic Coalition dislike of the ABC (a dislike occasionally displayed by Labor as well) which its always accused of being “left”. That might account for the decision to wrap Guardian Australia in the same cloth. Or perhaps it was the fact that the polls were reflecting a Labor win that caused Mr Dutton to throw all caution to the wind and indulge in a blustery Trumpian flourish to grab a headline or two. 

Whatever the reason, you’d forgive the ABC for feeling relieved with the election result. But we shouldn’t lose sight of the truth. “Media mafia” and “hate media”, regardless of which media house they are directed at, have the same aim: to tarnish the news media’s purpose. Both have the same result: to further diminish trust in what journalists produce, notwithstanding that what one media house produces is in dire need of examination. And both are tactics Donald Trump might applaud, despite his reliance on the misinformation produced by the Murdoch owned Fox News in the US. As the Coalition stares down the barrel of at least one more election cycle in the wilderness, perhaps they should take a leaf out of the Albanese playbook – talk to everyone, even the journalists you know aren’t in your camp.