Greens leader Bob Brown has criticised the Australian media — in particular News Limited and The Australian — for the way it reports on climate change, labeling News the “hate media” and accusing them of “doing a great disservice to the nation”.
Brown launched the swingeing attack at a press conference today in Canberra, after journalists repeatedly pressed him for details about the carbon tax and asylum seekers.
Brown said Rupert Murdoch’s mob were part of the “hate media” and had to take responsibility for debasing the national climate change debate.
“I think it’s very essential to take that on at the moment because I think the Murdoch media is doing a great disservice to this nation in perhaps the most important debate of the century so far, which is how we tackle climate change,” he told the assembled press pack.
Brown accused some sections of the media of not being balanced because they failed to get “both sides of the story”. Instead, he said, they relied on opinion instead of facts.
“Its not what you would read in other countries around the world and I think that needs taking on,” he said.
Hugh Riminton from Channel Ten asked the Greens grandfather figure whether his stinging words amounted to a change in tactics, to which the Senator responded in the affirmative:
“I’m being very much on the front foot here because I think the media, with some very good exceptions, can at times lose track of the fact that it’s part of the process of moving Australia into a much more secure future with a more secure lifestyle, economy and job creation prospects.”
One journalist, Fairfax radio reporter Michael Pachi, repeatedly challenged Brown on his views, asking him why he was “obsessed” with attacking News Limited and the “press you don’t like”.
Brown said that his words were “all part of the democratic discourse”:
“The Murdoch press comes out every day and bags out the Greens, why one rule for you and not one for the others?”
