Though I've been fond of calling the phrase "intellectual left" a tautology, I'm uncomfortable with pegging intelligence quotient to an ideological spectrum. To begin with, we don't begin to understand what intelligence is in any objective sense; iq tests are a tendentious measure and intelligence can take myriad form. While I'd love to assert that conservatism is tantamount to ignorance, one need only read Edmund Burke's "Reflections on the Revolutions in France" to ascertain that conservatism can be both eloquent and compelling. Moreover "fascist left" is a completely legitimate term. As the historian Eric Hobsbawm has argued, it was the popular uprising of fascism that supported it's emergence between the wars, after the great slump, and hardly the aristocratic movement it's so often associated with. We are seeing a similar movement around the world now; a puerile fascist mentality reacting to the need for economic austerity. and manifesting as intolerance and xenophobia generally. Indeed this is the common ground of Left and Right, only the Right is in the minority. It's the popular Left, the Labor bogan, who's the worst racist, the most jealous of his job, the most pro-protectionist, espousing the socialism of fools, and it's the savvy rightwing aspirant that courts it.
When all's said and done it's surely impossible to substantiate any other interpretation since the genuine conservative is a tiny minority in Australia's banal class structure.
Before the research can be quantified, Mollydukes (and I'm taking a plunge as I haven't read it) terms like IQ, radical and conservative have to be defined.
Back on topic; the media is surely a barometer of popular sentiment, rather than a measurable index of the objectivity or freedom of the press, and Australia's fall in the freedom index is a reflection of popular sentiment rather than the media. It seems to me we're in danger of becoming a country of petty fascists, with Dick Smith and Harvey Norman as our statesmen.

Bonmot,

Here's a few I picked up from a cursory reading of your link:

i) The heading: <<Australia reacts to Lord Monckton's call for a 'Fox News' funded by 'super rich'>>

No. It wasn't "Australia" reacting --if you read the article it was GETUP and a few of its political allies.

ii) <<The reason why Rinehart's "media grab" is so feared in Australia...>>
Again. What evidence do they have that her action(s) are "so feared in Australia"

iii) << Get Up! ("an independent, grass-roots community advocacy organisation which aims to build a more progressive Australia")>>

ROFL -- Note the favorable & unreal presentation of GETUP!

iv) << I played a small role in this video going viral.... Within a few hours...Graham Readfearn had spotted my tweet... His blog was then quickly reposted on DeSmogBlog. And then again on ABC's The Drum>>

So it's Ok for left leaning sources to work together to manipulate opinion.It's Ok for the ABC (& it derivatives like The Drum) to carry only pro-AGW news but should Monckton talk of a new media channel, or Rinehardt take 15% of Fairfax the sky is falling!


v) <<But, thankfully, a copy had already been secured and Get Up! posted an edited version on its website. Get Up! emailed its members asking them to "share the video with friends".>>

What was that again?
They posted an EDITED version!

Vi) << she's using that wealth now to change our media landscape and our nation's politics. Ms Rinehart may believe she has the power and the wealth to take over our media without facing a fight>>

This is sheer distortion--real alarmist stuff, right up there with Peter Garret's 6 metre sea rises!

The below's a more realistic appraisal:

"Buying up to 14.9 per cent of Fairfax makes her a major shareholder on a widely held register, but nothing more. She may agitate for a board seat, but Fairfax has a long tradition of editorial independence. The views of individual shareholders amount to diddly-squat on the editorial floors of the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Australian Financial Review"
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/gina-rinehart-cant-buy-a-voice-at-fairfax/story-e6frg9tf-1226260016987

I see why you think that way SPQR.

Perhaps this will make it easier to understand mine:

http://theconversation.edu.au/the-online-test-for-media-inquiries-4100

If that didn't work, then this (lengthy but worth the read)

http://theconversation.edu.au/turnbull-lectures-on-the-crisis-of-newspapers-and-the-opinion-epidemic-4634

Wait, those are from an 'intellectual' site that you wouldn't dream of going to.

That's a pretty nasty backhander LeftHander (Mollydukes). At no time have I ever speculated on the IQ of Aborigines as a group, let alone asserted that it was lower than other races.

I have said that Aborigines practiced cannibalism and my authority for that is A History of Australia by Manning Clark. I think I may even have defended Pauline Hanson on that point.

Now, to get back to the debate, I think there are a couple of things that have come up which illustrate problems with the media, although again, I wouldn't use it to regulate them. One of those things is the lack of research.

When I saw that video from GetUp I contacted one of the people who was there - wasn't difficult they had his name printed on the video. He referred me to a blog post that he made about the meeting at the time when it happened. You can read it here http://catallaxyfiles.com/2011/07/01/an-evening-with-the-stars-at-mannkal/.

So no conspiracy, just a group of Libertarians discussing dead Austrian economists and a little bit of tub-thumping by Monckton before they head off to a pizza parlour.

The other issue is that bodgy research about intelligence and conservatism. Some good points have been made already, but one that hasn't is that for a large percentage of political scientists, perhaps the majority, conservatism isn't even an ideology, it's a tendency. A good demonstration of that is that Edmund Burke was at one stage a Tory (Conservative) but at another a Whig (Liberal).

There are a lot of others that could be made, but again it makes you wonder why no journalists have been poking around doing stories on this sort of thing - or at least none that I have seen.

I doubt whether the people of low IQ would be hanging around with Monckton, Champion et al discussing Austrian economics, yet it's Monckton Champion et al who many on this forum would think of as "conservatives" even though not many conservatives over the last 400 years would have regarded them as such.

BM,

Your comment:

">> That the topic had a racial element, effectively makes it potentially criminal to discuss. << So don't, nuff said already."

Says it all. You have completely missed the point of the thread.

Shadow, like SPQR - your attention span is limited to short, snarkey and snipey soundbites.

Ok, if you want to play that way - read this over your bowl of Coco-Pops:

http://theconversation.edu.au/turnbull-lectures-on-the-crisis-of-newspapers-and-the-opinion-epidemic-4634

Turnbull is correct.