The Guardian needs a mirror:
News Corp has a distinctive culture – tribal, aggressive and centred around powerful editors – according to the accounts of former employees.
Peter Fray, the former Sydney Morning Herald editor and former deputy editor at the Australian describes the difference between the news organisations this way; “Working for the Australian reminded me of being at the SMH when the Fairfax family controlled it.
“In both instances, you felt you were part of a particular tribe where the norms and values were set by the chief and their key lieutenants. Of course, Tribe Fairfax is not Tribe Murdoch. The Oz is not the SMH. But as with any tribe there are set rules and rites, mostly unspoken.”
Another former News Corp insider described it as an aggressive, masculine culture although there are also women in News Corp’s executive and editor ranks.
“Alpha males are selected as editors. It’s a real big swinging dicks culture … With the editors it’s often about the relationship with Murdoch himself: who can be the ballsiest, toughest, cheekiest editor at the next editor’s conference in Belize or wherever.”
This year it will probably be Christopher Dore, the editor of the Daily Telegraph, after the paper claimed the scalp of the deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, by revealing he had left his wife and was having a baby with his media adviser Vikki Campion.
Or perhaps it will be Paul Whittaker at the Australian for his diligence in pursuing the former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull over his energy policy.
The culture of News has been described by some past executives and former staff as “bullying” and “vindictive”. Some embrace it and become spear carriers for their editors – and usually rise up the ranks. Others struggle with what is expected of them and feel anguished about the agendas. Others persevere and navigate the culture to produce excellent in depth journalism.
Former News staff admit it is sometimes not about meeting audience needs or preferences but rather about pursuing editors’ own agendas.
“It’s a strange vision of what journalism is about,” one former senior News executive said.
Recent campaigns have included the Australian’s obsession with the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation – News Corp criticised the Australian National University for rejecting it (because the university considered what the centre wanted to be an unacceptable level of academic control). Other campaigns have fought the national energy guarantee, and a push by large investors to get more reporting from major corporations on progress on achieving gender diversity and measures they are taking to meet ethical obligations to be good corporate citizens.
There is no doubt that Newscorp pushes the line of the Fake Right. By that I mean that it pretends to be liberal and market-friendly while most often defending specific corporate and politically allied interests instead.
But holy cow, Guardian. Cognative dissonance or what? I used to enjoy reading your paper. Until it arrived in Australia and progressively turned itself the Cult of the Fake Left to combat the News’ Cult of the Fake Right.
The Guardian is the Fox News of the Left, ignoring all principle of traditional working class politics in favour of a perversely narrow cultural Marxism agenda. By doing so it very often ends up aligned directly behind the same corporate interests as News on population, wages, energy, reform etc.
At least News has the excuse of greed which is part of its credo. The Guardian does it out of pure ideological corruption and hypocrisy. Together they are the bootleggers and baptists off the cliff together.
Both are symptomatic of the real problem, that Australia has no national interest, centrist journalism left to tackle the real issues of working class oppression and capital efficiency together.
