Once upon a time you used to be able to distinguish The Australian Financial Review from The Australian because it was only at the latter that its editorial stances infected its journalism; the AFR, for example, is editorially opposed to the NBN, but its coverage was always far more neutral than that to be found in The Oz, which has conducted a mostly fiction-based campaign against it for years. Things however may be changing under the not-so-new régime of Michael Stutchbury.
On Wednesday, David Ramli produced a piece (page 3, but led off page 1) describing how construction companies were abandoning the NBN because of delays caused by “bungled planning”. This would, Ramli declared, lead to increases in construction costs. He “understood” that two of the three winners of NBN’s first round of construction contracts had declined to participate in the second round of contracts. The two companies were Silcar and Transfield; both were said to have declined to comment because of “contractual obligations”, implying the sinister hand of government had silenced the companies.
Only, Silcar and Transfield did comment afterward. Transfield, in a remarkably terse 34-word statement, said the story was “incorrect”. The company “already successfully bid for one major work package and remains committed to the project”. Silcar said the same, issuing a statement saying the report was “untrue”: “Silcar has and will tender for specific components of the NBN offered to it and remains 100% committed to the nation building project …”
What did the AFR do? Yesterday Ramli revisited the issue to couch it in terms of an NBN denial and, while noting the companies had issued “similarly worded statements”, said neither had confirmed they were bidding for contracts. So, a company’s failure to openly declare it is tendering for a contract in competition with other companies is evidence it has walked away in disgust at “bungled planning”. They have some funny ideas about how tender processes work at the AFR.
OK, but Crikey’s editorial orthodoxy affects Crikey coverage in every sense too- commission and (lots of) omission, the slant, the free advice…
Why are you here Frank? Surely there’s a big wide intertubes out there waiting for your trolling …
I have been a regular reader (libary or free cafe copy) and occasional buyer of the Fin for years. The last time I bought was this week. $3 is a luxury, but the Fin, over the years, has been worth the occasionaly budgetary excess.
When Mr Stutchbury took over, I feared the worst. As Mr Keane points out, the worst has started.
There was a Q&A the other day when one of the participants, in response to a question about Ms Rhinehart determining editorial in the SMH and the Age, made the observation that if they ended up serving up what people did not want, the readers would disappear.
I will stick with the Fin, pro tem, but it is no longer with unalloyed pleasure. If Mr Stuchbury wants to promote anti-government reactionary crap, he should have stayed with ‘The Australian’ and not spoil the cup of coffee of those very few of us who still enjoy a good read in a good newspaper.
Those who are economically literate could quote Adam Smith’s “Interested complaint of faction” as a reasonable explanation of News and now AFR’s antagonism to The NBN.
They see the NBN as threatening their “interests as purveyors of the newsprint medium”.
If they were not backing the Big Bad Carbon Tax line of Abbott so strongly they would be going hell for leather on the “NBN is destroying the economy” line.
The proper political perspective is that had Abbott supported the NBN, he might have won over the independents and become a minority government PM.
So Abbott can thank an anti-NBN MSM for his failure to win government.
Think about it, with friends like News Abbott doesn’t need enemies.
Now, posters, go hell for leather with some mindless rants of “interested complaint’ in reply.
No none of you comprise any sort of faction do you?
The MSM hardly sell anything now because much of what they write is utter crap – don’t forget it was Stutchbury who was claiming a $7 billion waste in the BER before one contract had ever been awarded.
At the end of the building program there was one tiny little article in the OO pointing out the program came in $1.5 billion under budget.