I think Margaret Simons is getting ahead of herself pre-calling out News Corp’s impotence in this Ninefax essay.
All media outlets are guilty at times of outbreaks of stupidity, errors of fact and judgment and egregious omissions. News Corporation is in a different class. Only it makes a habit of intense, politically charged campaigns.
But it does so happen that Lord Rupert’s janissaries fight for the Coalition at every election as though conservative governments were mere loyal colonies of the Empire.
Political and media scholar Professor Rod Tiffen is convinced that the Murdoch organisation can no longer turn an election by directly impacting voters – if it ever could. He notes that at every state and federal election in Australia since 2010, the Murdoch press has supported the Coalition.
And yet, says Tiffen, the outlets have shrinking reach, and an ageing readership “already fixed in their ways. If any of their readers are going to be influenced, they probably already have been.”
And I do so love to read the Oz from cover to cover when their side has been arse-whooped like a Russian battalion on the banks of bloody Donets.
The tabloids, strictly speaking, may well only be consumed by people like my parents(*). But they remain a wellspring, or an overflowing toilet if you will, of ideas that influence plenty of other people.
The tabloids, strictly speaking, may well only be consumed by people like my parents(*). But they remain a wellspring, or an overflowing toilet if you will, of ideas that influence plenty of other people.
* not so much my father since he was cremated.
I wonder how 'influential' they are now because you got to figure most of the readership/viewers are rusted on conservative voters.