A little over two years ago I wrote in this column that at a gathering in the US of his most senior Australian staff, Rupert Murdoch anointed Tony Abbott as his preferred PM, and that readers of News Ltd papers would soon see the fruits of an undeclared campaign by editors and columnists to deliver their boss his desired outcome.
”It seems increasingly apparent that Labor and the Greens are going to be facing a largely hostile popular press between now and any election,” I wrote in May 2011, adding: ”No wonder the Liberal leader has a spring in his step – the News boss is not in the habit of backing losers.” The campaign to install Abbott started within days of that fateful confab at Murdoch’s ranch near Carmel, California, with Labor’s 2011 budget receiving some unflattering reviews from News Ltd tabloids and, of course, The Australian.
Labor was at that time very much in bed with the Greens, enough to convince Murdoch they had to go, regardless of the National Broadband Network. The campaign has been relentless ever since.
The low point came during the debate over press regulation in March, when the Gillard government proposed establishing a Public Interest Media Advocate and News had conniptions. (Fairfax had a few, too, it must be said.) Their opposition culminated in a front page in Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph that portrayed the then communications minister, Stephen Conroy, as Joseph Stalin attacking press freedom.
If Labor thought a change of leader was going to help mend fences, it thought wrong. Proof came on Monday morning when the Telegraph came out strongly against Kevin Rudd. Its ”Kick This Mob Out” would have been provocative on election morning, but on day one of the campaign it was incendiary.
Such sentiments are usually kept until polling day and for editorial columns. Also, they tend to be wrapped in a cloak of even-handedness and understatement. But here was Murdoch’s feistiest tabloid putting it out there on day one of the campaign proper, and on page one. Somewhere – Carmel? New York? London? – the proprietor would have been smiling broadly at what his minions had delivered unto him.
He would not have been surprised, though. Murdoch had dispatched New York Post editor, Col Allan, a former editor of the Telegraph, to Sydney to juice up coverage of the campaign and, it was said, unsettle local News boss Kim Williams. He has had success on both fronts.
Anyone familiar with Allan’s work on the Post would know…
Read the full article here: It’s on: Rudd gets the Col shoulder as Murdoch telegraphs his punches
• Last week on Tasmanian Times, Mr Denmore, The Failed Estate: Did You Vote For This Man?
*(Image courtesy of Driftglass – licensed under Creative Commons)
• New York Times: In Turkey, Media Bosses Are Undermining Democracy
