Horus -

If the academic establishment causes too many journalists to become left wing, then why are most of the complaints about these media organisations that they're too right wing?

If it's not people complaining about a liberal media, it's people complaining about a right wing media. If it's not people complaining about a right wing media, it's people complaining about a profit driven media. If it's not people complaining about a profit driven media, it's people complaining about the media seeking the lowest common denominator. If it's not people complaining about the media seeking the lowest common denominator, it's people complaining about incompetent coverage. If it's not people complaining about incompetent coverage, it's people complaining about one-sided coverage.

At the end of the day? People complain because everyone has a different idea of what the media should be, so it can't always tell them what they want to hear in the way they want to hear it.

As far as Pauline Hanson goes Horus, she does a fine job of showing why the public shouldn't listen all by herself.
Yet she gets plenty of coverage? So who's at fault?

And to further illustrate that point: how often have you heard:

Damn The Australian! They're too right wing!
Damn The Age! They're too left wing!
Damn the Herald Sun! They're too right wing!
Damn the Sydney Morning Herald! They're too left wing!
Damn Alan Jones! He's too right wing!
Damn Mike Carlton! He's too left wing!
Damn Fox News! It's too right wing!
Damn the ABC! It's too left wing!

Puh-leese.

TRTL,
True enough, you get those with an axe to grind from all shades of the political spectrum, regularly complaining that one media outlet is too far lefty or right.

But a better measure of the ‘bias’ of the media would be to gauge what the grassroots’ population
(the usually non-political) ‘believe’ on key issues. Given that the majority have no direct experience with issues such as Iraq, US Immigrations Law, The Arab –Israel conflict or culpability for climate change – it is highly likely their opinions are moulded by the (local) media –and if the grassroots’ views on such issues tend to fall left of centre, what does that say (?) (i) the left has better story ,or (ii) it gets more/more sympathetic air time (?)

I am not a great fan of Pauline Hanson my self, but, I am critical of the way she was set up by the press (i.e. the style of questioning).And, a typical coverage of a Hanson speech would run 30+ lines of the journalist telling us what s/her though of the issue, with a two line paraphrase of what Hanson actually said, starting on line 31-if we were lucky . It was amazing the number of people who could tell me she was racist, without knowing what she actually said –it seems they had been spoon-fed their views with their breakfast cereal……

Pauline Hanson is an excellent example of the power of the media.

She - a political and social nobody - was virtually contructed by and for the media and promoted as some sort of messiah for the voice of "real Australians". A sort of Australian Idol media invention.

They made money out of her party's so-called manifesto, then out of her personal life. Later they made money from her legal problems and again when she was released from prison.

Her manufactured celebrity status was then used to promote an amateur dancing TV programme and now she's poised to squeeze a bit more personal cash out of the voting taxpayer. All she's done is cross-out the word "Asians" and replace it with in "Muslims" (or "Sudanese" as required).

She hasn't got much coverage this time around because nobody's really interested in what she's got to say anymore (Howard reclaimed her reactionary disgrunted powerbase) and there are more saleable topics out there to keep us enthralled.

Horus... you make quite a good point about the basic level of political awareness being shaped by the media, even if there are left and right organisations... I guess we're talking about where the centre now lies.

I find it interesting you think that centre point has shifted to the left and that the media tends to be a liberal organisation.

From my view, I'd agree that there's been a shift, though I tend to think it's the opposite direction, and how much of that is actually a manipulation on behalf of the media magnates is open to interpretation.

From my point of view, there has been a shift in the base point of politics, but it has been to the right.
For instance, in Europe we still have nominally socialist government such as Spain, and countries such as France are still more left leaning than Australia.
Yet in all the western world, the shift is toward a privatised, more right wing model. How often do you actually hear genuinely left wing views on economic issues in Australian media being given much credence?
I'd put it to you that there has been an overwhelming shift toward free market tendencies, and now that it's started it drives itself, via the media.
In relation to social issues, I think that's an issue that swings like a pendulum. I tend to think we're living in a pretty right wing country, as evidenced by the rebranding of multiculturalism to citizenship, as well as issues like Tampa, Nauru and Villawood.

Inrelation to the economic side, I suppose the simple answer is to lay it all at the feet of multinationals and the influence they exert via the power of advertising... fair enough I suppose, though again, I don't see this as something where a media mogul has sat back and made a conscious decision - perhaps in relation to certain advertising clients, yes, but not as a concerted direction.

Still on the topic of controlling vs. reflecting.

How many people choose to read a newspaper or watch a news program that displays an ideology with which they disagree?

Would you find dyed-in-the-wool liberals reading a Murdoch paper, or a Pauline Hanson supporter reading the op-ed pages of The Age?

We are fed the material that the proprietors know will keep us buying their titles. To suggest that there is an editorial conspiracy to lead our thinking down a particular path, away from our comfort zone and into new territory, is a little fanciful. To further suggest that this is a means of subtle thought-control is, in my view, just a couple of steps too far.

Marketing companies are active 24/7 tracking the mood of the people, and selling the results to a broad range of businesses, amongst whom are newspapers. All major businesses - those that provide to the mass consumer market - don't think of us as people at all, simply a statistic. When sufficient of us statistics begin to sway in a particular direction - whammo, the product will change to reflect the shift.

A classic example of this was the claim by the Sun newspaper in the UK that their editorial shift from Tory to Labour brought about Blair's election win in 1997 - their headline even boasted "It was the Sun wot dunnit!"

Here's another angle on the story from Peter Mylan:

"In the UK, for example, the Sun likes to claim that it wins elections, and that the major reason Blair got elected in 1997 was because it woz the Sun wot dunnit. But I recall at the time that many commentators saw the Sun's support of Blair as inevitable, given that (a) their readership had already decided to vote that way, and (b) their Australian-American proprietor wasn't about to have his papers back a losing horse."

It is certainly not as exciting as a conspiracy, but, I think, more convincing a story.