They’re at it again on the front page of The Australian. Comment dressed up as news. “Religious freedom at risk in same-sex shift” declares the downpage headline — a direct statement of fact we should rightly expect to be supported by the text below. Silly us.

Instead, we get a blast of opinion from Paul Kelly, that pompous warhorse News Corp is pleased to award the meaningless title of “Editor-at-Large”. His view is that the marriage equality plebiscite should be accompanied by “guarantees” of religious freedom, and declares the current approach “unpalatable”.

According to Kelly, this is a “myopic failure of parliament”, assertions that religious freedom won’t be undermined are “worthless”, any claim to the contrary is “dishonest”, the politicians involved have been “derelict in their duty” and their failures “will come with a high price”.

You get the drift. Kelly thumps the increasingly obvious pro-Catholic drum of The Australian so hard you might wonder whether there isn’t a confessional box and duty priest available 24/7 to the staff at Holt Street.  

So, was this sermon tagged as “comment” or “opinion”? Of course not. Perhaps readers are expected to know now that anything on the Oz front page under a photo byline is no longer news, it’s views. The same paper that is always so keen to squeeze in an “exclusive” tag above the most mundane stories somehow can’t find space for a similar acknowledgment of “comment”.

For the record, the editors might like to check the Australian Press Council Statement of General Principles they are meant to abide by. The very first Principle in that guide to ethical self-regulation is as follows:

Accuracy and Clarity

  • Ensure that factual material in news reports and elsewhere is accurate and not misleading, and is distinguishable from other material such as opinion.

Yet every day, in its boast box at the bottom of page 2, The Australian proudly declares that it is “bound by the standards of practice of the Australian Press Council”. Clearly, the Murdoch definition of the verb “bind” is rather loose.