The Australian Spits the Dummy

I'm going to put this here even though it's all about Australian politics. I want to get the full, story down while it's fresh as I think it could have lasting interest. This post will contain the full ramble for those interested in the gory details. See my next post for a to-the-point wrap up.

(Preamble for US readers. Oz readers my wish to skip to the weird bit)

The Australian is a national broadsheet newspaper headquartered in Sydney. It's one of our main papers of record and the preferred home of business, legal and media industry reporting. It's owned by News Corp. Think of a more modern, better presented broadsheet with an editorial stance to the left of the Wall Street Journal but still right of centre.

The Australian publishes Newspoll. One of the two big, credible, regular, national opinion polls that come out monthly (or so). Since Kevin Rudd was elected opposition leader last December Newspoll and all it's competitors have been remarkably consistent in giving Labour a 55/45 ish lead over John Howard's conservative coalition in voting intention and Kevin Rudd a small but significant lead over John Howard as preferred prime minister. So far, so ordinary.

Now for the weird bit.

This week on Tuesday (10/7) the Australian published a Newspoll which showed no change in the two party preferred voting intention (despite a small bump in Labour's primary vote) but a gain for Howard in the preferred prime minister numbers, narrowing the gap in that measure to 1 or 2 points. The accompanying headline was

Newspoll: Howard Checks Rudd’s March

The headline was accompanied by various articles talking up the significance of the preferred prime minister number and downplaying the unchanged voting intention numbers. This included a blog posting by Dennis Shanahan, Political Editor, entitled "Kevin's sizzle not snag-free" taking the same line and supporting the headline.

Some 250 people, including myself, then proceeded to post comments saying, in essence, that numbers in the poll didn't support the headline and that we regarded this as evidence of bias driven by proprietorial direction. It's possible we used some colourful Australian language along the way and put our cases fairly strongly. Many of us having had this argument with Dennis once a month for sveral months. Here's my contribution

robertbe of Elwood (10 July at 09:14 AM)

Oh good grief Dennis. Could you lot be more transparent? A few points movement in approval ratings hardly warrants the headline today. Head office must be impressed by your diligence if not your effectiveness. As you note, in spite of your best efforts there has been no measurable change in voting intention since Christmas. Scary huh? You could end up looking like you have no leverage (gasp). In order to make a living you might have to fall back on, you know, actual journalism.

Again so far, so ordinary. A centre right paper talks up polling results to make them seem favourable to a centre right government. A bunch of blog commenters and other bloggers call them out for it. Happens all the time, right? But wait. This month turned out to be different.

The next day (Weds 11/7) The Australian published an article by the CEO of Newspoll defending the headline and Dennis Shanahan's position and dissing the bloggers as ill informed. Also, Dennis Shanahan posted another blog entitled "Howard's trend lifts him out of the trough" which basically defends his previous blog and marvels at the response it got. It also includes a jibe at "academic PhD aspirants" which seems to have been aimed Peter Brent, a PhD student and blogger (mumble.com.au) who had been part of the chorus of disapproval the previous day. Here's where things started to go off the rails. Comments on Dennis Shanahan's blog were closed off after only an hour so and only 16 comments. That same morning Peter Brent reports that he received a phone call from Chris Mitchell, Editor in Chief of the Australian, which he describes as follows

"A courtesy call from Editor-in-Chief Chris Mitchell this morning informed me that the paper is going to "go" Charles Richardson (from Crikey) and me tomorrow.

Chris said by all means criticise the paper, but my "personal" attacks on Dennis had gone too far, and the paper will now go me "personally"."

The next morning (Thurs 12/7) The Australian published an extraordinary editorial, taking up it's entire leader space, defending their editorial line and headlines related to the Newspoll and attacking blogs and bloggers in general and Peter Brent's blog in particular. I'm not going to summarise the editorial at length here. Safe to say it was long, rambling, full of pique and bile and deeply self involved. Here's the direct link. I've preserved a copy here. Just in case. You'll see why in a moment. Have a read. It's quite something.

The same morning Tim Dunlop, a resident blogger at News Limited's Australian umbrella web site, www.news.com.au, published a post to his blog "Blogocracy" which criticised the editorial in The Australian at some length. Later that same morning Tim Dunlop's post was removed from the news.com.au site. Tim Dunlop then stopped blogging for 24 hours and had this to say on his return.

"CODA: Apologies for the recent absence and lack of response, not to mention lack of posts. Yep, the editor here pulled a post yesterday, which I ain’t happy about, though of course, in the greater scheme of things editors pulling copy is hardly unusual. Nonetheless, it is something we are discussing. In the meantime, let’s just go John Howard and his new aircraft wallpaper, shall we?"

Thanks to other boggers we can read what Tim Dunlop's post said before it was pulled. I preserved a copy here, taken from Guido's Place.

Here's the money quote

“I think the editorial is ill-conceived and way off the mark in singling out

Peter Brent in the way that it does. His site largely confines itself to

interpretation and in doing so, provides a great service. The idea that he can’t

comment without the editor of The Australian ringing him up to say they are

going to “go” him is disturbing...”

Extraordinarily, the next day (Fri 13/7 ) The Australian published no letters or blogs related to the previous day's editorial. They must have received many.

I have since posted comments protesting all this to Tim Dunlop's blog at news.com.au, Phillip Adam's blog (he's their resident lefty, I was after a sympathetic ear) at The Australian and to the editorial staff via their email stream forum@theaustralian.com.au. All, unsurprisingly, all went unpublished and without response. I'm sure many of the original 250, plus many others have done likewise. None of which has seen the light of day in any of The Australians letters or blog pages in the subsequent two days. Here's what I attempted to get posted, which I'll rework as a my more-to-the-point post after this one (it was written before I had confirmed what had happened to Tim Dunlop).

I was one of the 250 people that commented on Dennis Shanahan's blog post "Kevin’s sizzle not snag-free" on Tuesday (10/7). Dennis' post and all those responses were about the Newspoll results and the accompanying headlines in the paper on that day. In particular, the significance of the change in the preferred Prime Minister numbers as compared to the primary vote. For myself I had set out to nibble Dennis’, and the editorial staff’s, ankles a little. I was surprised that we got two responses, in the form of a rebuttal from the CEO of Newspoll, and a post from Dennis in his blog, in the next day's paper. But, I was flat out astonished (as I'm sure the rest of the 250 were) to see that there was a response on this topic in the editorial on Thursday (12/7). Not just a response, but the whole editorial! Instead of a bit of ankle we got the whole leg. Amazing.

Of course, some of that fit of editorial pique was directed at those professional troublemakers over at Crikey.Com and Mumble. Still, it was pretty good fun for us amateurs to find we had helped to wake the beast.

I stand by my comments (you’ll find me in the stream as Robertbe of Elwood).

The hyperbole and bile in the editorial and the paper’s other responses misses the original point Which was simply this : the headline went to far given the substance of the numbers. The decision made by the headline writer looked an awful lot like it was driven by awareness of proprietorial direction. The overblown response, complete with the arrogant assumption that anyone commenting on a blog or otherwise active online is a left-wing imbecile, only serves to sharply increase that perception. You did protest far too much. We must have been closer to the nerve than we imagined.

One a final note. The comments on Dennis’ follow up response “Howard’s trend lifts him out of the trough” appear to have been shut off after only an hour or so allowing only 16 comments. I’m betting that dummy spit was part of a larger tantrum that then produced the editorial the next day. All of which is a textbook example of how to give your opponent oxygen and end up losing an argument when you started out in a position of strength. I’m sure your publicists have their heads in hands right about now. To paraphrase Zaphod Beeblebrox, 8/10 for self belief but minus several million for communications effectiveness. Have great weekend.

So, there you have it. A major newspaper responding to run of the mill blog criticism by making scary phone calls, dedicating a entire editorial to the issue, apparently pulling an already publised item by a staff member of it's own organisation criticising this approach and then shutting out all mention of the issue in it's letters and blog pages on subsequent days. All out of sensitivity at being accused of bias.

Nothing could possibly have lent more credibility to the accusation of bias in the eyes of the general audience. And nothing could make all us blog folks more determined in our criticism the next time polling day rolls around. If I was paying the salaries of The Australian's editorial staff I'd be very unhappy right now.

I don't object to a major publication loudly and summarily rejecting amateur accusations of bias. We amateurs should expect that and take it on the chin. I do object to intimidation, suppression of in-house dissent and censorship of supposedly open forums.