Polls, Blogs, Editorials and the Devil

We've just had an extraordinary reaction, including some quite troubling behaviour, from The Australian newspaper to blog comments about commentary on polling results.

(This post is the core of my response. My previous post "The Australian Spits the Dummy" lays out the full (electronic) paper trial and provides all the background for those interested in the gory details)

This week on Tuesday (10/7) The Australian published a Newspoll which showed no change from previous polls in the two party preferred voting intention, putting Kevin Rudd's Labour Party 10-12% ahead, but a gain for John 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.

I was one of the 250 people that commented on Dennis Shanahan's blog post. Most of us took the line that we were seeing evidence of bias in favour of the government party, as did several independent bloggers including Crikey.Com and Mumble.

For myself I had set out to nibble Dennis’, and the editorial staff’s, ankles a little. I was surprised that the next day (11/7) we got two responses, in the form of a rebuttal from the CEO of Newspoll, and a post from Dennis Shanahan oin his blog (on which comments were closed after about an hour and 16 comments), in the next day's paper. I was flat out astonished 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.

I discovered later that day that Peter Brent, one of the bloggers that criticised Dennis Shanahan's posts and related articles, had reported that he received a phone call from Chris Mitchell, Editor in Chief of the Australian, the previous day, prior the editorial beiong written, 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 morning the editorial was published, 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.."

Thanks to other boggers we can read what Tim Dunlop's post said before it was pulled. I have preserved a copy here. 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, in the following few days The Australian published no letters or blogs related to the Thurs 12/7 editorial. I sent in a response myself. 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 few days (as at this writing).

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.

They did protest far too much. We must have been closer to the nerve than we imagined.

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.

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, public suppression of in-house dissent and dissent being shut out of supposedly open forums.

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. If I was paying the salaries of The Australian's editorial staff I'd be very unhappy right now. To paraphrase Zaphod Beeblebrox, 8/10 for self belief but minus several million for communications effectiveness.

And on a final note. The whole thing shows a deep discomfort with the 21st century reality of blogs and the Net. Especially the attempt to hide what Tim Dunlop wrote by pulling his post. These guy's clearly don't get how this confounded Internet thingy works.