Graham,

You do run a site that attempts to provide balance between contributors and I admire that. I’d like to see less of the warlike competitive interaction and more emphasis on people attempting to understand what the other person thinks and why. Do you think that sometimes the question is more useful than the answer?

I do believe that you strive for objectivity so I was pointing out the areas in which your striving is deficient. LOL sorry, very arrogant of me. But I didnt mean it to be an oppositional criticism, at all, although I am learning that most people would see it that way. Perhaps neuro-typical brains are primed to regard discordant opinions as negative. I can see that this would have been functional behaviour in earlier societies, but in this society, as with eating more than one needs to survive, it has become a dysfunctional response.

As for Alan Kohler. If I should ever have the chance I would tell him that he does uses emotive and biased language, although he’s pretty good at that laid back, I’m so cool and rational stance, lol.

Totally agree that all politics is pretty shoddy but don't we all know that? Thus your criticism of the Greens for being 'political' is not particularly useful, in terms of you developing an understanding of what they and their supporters are all about, or for encouraging uncommitted people to view them with suspicion.

Criticise away I say, the Greens will only benefit from any critique, especially when it is biased and emotive, as this provides supporters like me, with more information to understand why you object to them. Your assumption that they want to ‘defang the news’ indicates to me that you do not understand the Green philosophy the way I understand it and you are tilting at windmills in your attempt to ‘defang’? them.

It pains me to quote Captain Smirk, but I thought he was on the money here.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/a-licence-to-print-good-news-no-thanks-20110719-1hn4w.html

Starting a debate about media bias is one way to get the focus off the carbon tax.

Mollydukes

Welcome to OLO.

Your posts are very cogent and a wonderful read. Now I must declare, at the outset, my bias - I am also a Greens supporter and, as such, understand there is no truth to the claim that the Greens are out to "defang" the News Ltd. I think that News Ltd is doing that to themselves, given the responses thus far from Murdoch Jnr and Snr.

Here in Australia, at 70% of ownership of the printed media it needs a jolly good wash and trimming. A little competition would reduce some of that predictable flab it is carrying by way of an excess of pandering to neo-cons.

Remember more people read these pages than post. People will, over time, reveal themselves in ways they do not realise - all one needs is a good and critical eye.

Sorry Molly, but if we followed your rules then no-one would be allowed to criticise anyone else's stance and debate would cease. So would progress.

My point about the Greens is predominantly that they have a barely-hidden agenda that one should take into account in assessing their calls for intervention in the media market. I wouldn't say it is illegitimate for a political party to try to get power per se, although I would say it is not legitimate to try to do it by nobbling independent commentary using the powers of government.

If you look at the Greens' media policy you will see it is slanted towards increasing the power of public broadcasting, from which one can legitimately infer that they find the ABC's view of the world more congenial than other media's.

I'd also dispute that my article is biased in any sense other than that I come with a world view, which includes, amongst other things, that free speech is close to an absolute good. It's an honest attempt to look at the issues objectively. No hidden agendas.

I'd also dispute that I dislike the Greens. I criticise whatever party I think deserves it, and have at times criticised Liberal, Labor and One Nation. My even-handedness led to me being expelled from the Liberal Party.

Mollydukes
I must agree with GrahamY - your standards are far too high for any debate, particuarly as you don't come even close to following them yourself. Time to stop these absurd efforts to claim the moral high ground and start making relevent criticisms, if you can think of any.

Arjay
Phone tapping as common practice? Think you've gotten confused there. Phone tapping is not common at all but breaches of the law, particularly technical ones, are common. I think that's what your sources mean. No newspaper in Australia, for example, would hesitate to publish a confidential government report if there was public interest, although its illegial to do so. But they would certainly hesitate to steal it.

Maybe 'progress' of the matter would be helped by focussing upon some of the essential practical elements involved rather than conjecture upon a fog of conceptual peripheries.

Quite simply 'The News' is not the news. Overwhelmingly it is opinion crafted to advance the ideological and economic positions of the media owners and their major clients. Moreover, such polemic is presented not just in isolated commentaries but via strategically implemented campaigns by the mass media entities.

Most heinous within this technique is the complete omission from the 'news' stream of matters of very significant public interest. The following link presents a good example.

http://www.crispinhull.com.au/2011/08/06/population-question-gets-scant-coverage/#more-9950

This method of concerted omission is essential to the sustenance of industry and political agendas that are essentially false in their acclaimed premise base and unproductively narrow in their accruable benefit. It enables a 'big lie' to prevail and endure.

The problem is that the majority of constituents DO perceive this propaganda stream as the news, either by their simple faith in the medium or by the sheer inundatory power of the 'tuned' message being deployed.

These private media entities operate in public space and overwhelmingly affect public consciousness. There is no 'free market' in this realm as there are many 'buyers' and only a few 'sellers' with very close ideological alignments. Neither, by definition of the problem, is perfect information available within the marketplace.

It is not just acceptable, it is imperative that a public enquiry be held upon the suitability of this media condition being an information cornerstone within our society.