Kevin Rudd addressed the Copenhagen conference at 8 o’clock (our time) last night. Crikey liveblogged it on Rooted.
How did the mainstream media go covering Kevin, or for that matter the entire conference?
Early this afternoon, The Australian’s website was continuing its extensive coverage of, and commentary on, Copenhagen, following on from its front-page treatment in its print edition. The SMH and Age sites had a mix of parochial stories, mostly involving criminal trials, and updates on a philandering American golfer, the public interest of which we have not been able to discern despite 24/7 coverage for weeks.
Perhaps Fairfax knows its audiences better than News Ltd. Its top five stories are:
Not a Dane in sight.
But that’s not to say all is lost. The Oz’s most-read stories show that if you provide quality coverage (as well as Dennis Shanahan’s commentary), readers will respond.
Whatever biases The Australian might have, it takes public affairs seriously and throws substantial resources at its coverage. And that commitment stands in dire contrast to that of Fairfax. Both media companies talk a lot about the need for quality journalism and its importance in attracting readers in a parlous environment for the mainstream media. Only one appears to back up its words with resources.
Crikey! Praise for the Oz!
I guess it shows how dumb I am, but if the Oz does do things “so well” as “exemplified by their coverage of public affairs” from the resources they devote to them, and “here’s the evidence”:
“Blundered Copenhagen kills ETS early poll” – embarrassing for whom?
“PM denies BBC “hissy fit”” – embarrassing for whom?
“Climate talks set for failure” – embarrassing for whom?
“Wong jeered, Chavez cheered” – “chorus”?
From memory, history and the archives, if it was Howard getting hammered like this on a pet project, like say Iraq, what sort of coverage do you think it would get in the same paper? Would it be an open and “cheery” one?
Then the next story, Bernard Keane’s, on another “unsexy reality” in the same paper.
Where is the actual evidence that the paper really does, take “public affairs and quality journalism seriously”? That it doesn’t use it’s position to sell one message?
They still let Paul Maley report on refugee stories even though he is almost always wrong.
@ KLEWSO – Perhaps the answer lies in something as simple as this: people don’t give a shit about AGW.
Harsh? But that might explain why they don’t bother to read stories which reinforce the Left Establishment view of AGW – repeating the substance of which is, of course, stock in trade for Fairfax and the ABC.
Perhaps the majority of people think that AGW is a crock and, hence, if they do want to read about such matters, they go to the media outlet which they like because they avoid the sort of a priori Leftism that they get from elsewhere.
If you think I’m wrong, why wouldn’t the ‘Fox News’ effect be just as applicable to Australia as it is to the USA? Why is the WSJ doing so well when the rest of the Left-dominated MSM is doing so badly.
How about this for an idea: the bourgeois Left and their picayune appetites are a tiny minority – not on Crikey or New Matilda or LP, of course, but in Australian society generally?
Peter, I think you’re wrong that the majority of people think that human activity is not primarily responsible for global warming. And I don’t think the SMH indulges in much a priori Leftism (whatever that is) – it has supported the Conservative candidate in just about every State election in the past 100 years, after all. And I think you’re right that there is a ‘Fox News’ effect in Australia: there’s a lot of misinformation out there, and you are obviously proud to contribute to it!
You’d better hope the bourgeois Left minority isn’t so tiny, though, or then you will have to find something else to be paranoid about.
There’s a serious point here, and that is why a lot of Australians don’t read Fairfax reportage from Copenhagen. Maybe, like me, they get that sort of information from other sources – and then turn to the Age to find out what happened at the WACA.