Ideology runs rampant at Rupert Murdoch's Australian newspaper

Extract from The Guardian

As the editorship changes at the national broadsheet, one former employee looks at the impact of groupthink on the profession of journalism

‘I can’t read the paper anymore. It’s too distressing seeing ideology run rampant because it suits the interests of Rupert Murdoch and his allies.’ Photograph: Jason Reed/AP

Jim Buckell

Jim Buckell is a freelance journalist and facilitator

Monday 7 December 2015 15.33 AEDT

In a tribute to retiring editor-in-chief Chris Mitchell published in the Australian recently, veteran media columnist Errol Simper captured one side of the dilemma that is the Australian.

In “Young Chris Mitchell, you were simply Devine”, Simper says what a fine editor Mitchell was and how he watched him develop into “gunslinger” with “nimble instincts”. “He knew news. He was a conjurer.

He was going places … Along with Paul Kelly (admirably supported by Malcolm Schmidtke and David Armstrong), Mitchell (ably backed up by Clive Mathieson and Michelle Gunn) stands out as a giant among this journal’s editorial leaders. Mitchell has been a sturdy warrior for print media. But he has had to manage it through difficult times.

From my 11 years in the Australian’s newsroom as chief features subeditor, letters editor and section editor as well as reporter, I can say with all honesty that it was the best edited paper I’ve ever worked on, and it probably harnessed the best stable of reporters I’ve ever worked with too.

But this is just one side of the beast. The other is the unwavering, often knee-jerk conservative ideology that the Oz trumpets so readily.

It wasn’t always the case. Under the editorship of Paul Kelly and then David Armstrong this extremist tendency, while not unknown, was usually kept in check by a broad pluralism that recognised its readers were best served by a range of views.

Sadly, in the noughties this position gradually gave way to the thundering of the neoconservatives. The paper began to act more like a propaganda sheet for the rightwing of the Liberal party than a broad-based sounding board for big ideas and public policy. This period roughly coincided with Mitchell’s ascendancy as editor-in-chief.

And therein lies the dilemma. No matter how well written, no matter how well edited, the paper’s right-wing bias is overwhelming. The tone is hectoring and unforgiving, making it frustrating to read and tricky to work around as a journalist.

As a reporter you learn how to navigate your way around masthead biases that don’t fit with your own values or approach to news gathering. It’s a survival technique you have to master to balance the demands of editors with the fragile trust you build with your sources.

You have little choice – your reputation is at stake. You learn that if you give a nod to your editor’s views and then proceed more or less as you had planned you can keep everyone happy. If you maintain a strong supply of copy it helps keep the editors off your back.

On a good day, this means you can deliver a cracking story, with all the facts checked, with the sources verified that you have dug up on your own and that they can run with some prominence.

Trouble is, this becomes increasingly disheartening when your stories touch on or flesh out some unsatisfactory implications of policies or directions the editors support. Editors commission stories countering the thrust of your own and running them upfront under 60-point headlines. At some point you start to question whether you might be better off elsewhere.

That’s what I did. But I was big enough to acknowledge what a fine bunch of journalists they had gathered in the Oz newsroom and what a pleasure it had been learning from them and honing my craft. In the end though, they cramped my style too much and I left. No regrets.

Having said that I can’t read the paper anymore. It’s too distressing seeing ideology run rampant because it suits the interests of Rupert Murdoch and his allies.

The influence the Australian and News Corp Australia wield by setting a market-based, small-government agenda is widely understood because it’s so blatant. Less well scrutinised is the impact of groupthink on the profession of journalism within Fortress News. When dissent is marginalised and self-censorship is an unquestioned norm, the newsroom culture becomes self-serving.

Chris Mitchell may have been a conjurer but we should be under no illusion about the price he extracted.