Yes, I remember the Age in the 80s/early 90s as a very different paper. It was once regarded in the top 10 papers in the world from a quality point of view. Now I'm a Brisbanite, and we get the Oz, but have at times been irritated by the conservative bias. The Courier Mail (we nickname the Curious Snail - as coined by a friend) we'll get on Saturdays too. Oddly, we used to think the Curious was a real rag compared to the old Melbourne Age, but now, I reckon the quality gap has narrowed - maybe movement in both directions? With RN, some good blogs, etc, there is less real need for the actual papers - for me it's more of a habit - especially on a Saturday morn with a cup of tea. Wither quality journalism now that the rivers of gold are drying up?..... We need it so we've got to try and support decent newsmongers.

I agree with Sancho. I dislike intensely the Australian's politics but being a paper sold around the country it has a wide spread of reports both nationally and internationally. I just put the conservative bull filter on to sieve out the large amount of oped crap.

The Age and the SMH are quite parochial. My local paper, the Canberra Times, at least has a wide range of reports and different views among its commentators. It has a vague left of centre bias. But it is much better than its Sydney and Melbourne Fairfax stable mates.

The Fin Review is OK becuase I can learn what the bourgeoisie think. But that means its op eds and reporting are a little more tendentious

I find the Australian ok for something which is middle of the road.

The Age is and always has been a comic, full of wine reviews, limp-wristed leftie editorials and weekend getaways in rural Victoria.

Never bothered with SMH

I used to read the Daily Telegraph in UK when travelling, daily, in and out of London. The best read you could buy. Imho better than the Times and certainly well ahead of the FT. It had plenty of indepth international reporting, about things which take another 20 years to hit the TV screens. Meaningful editorials, significant local news coverage and a few anachronisms (which did not interest me too much) like the Royal Court Diary. The DT also had less “Advertising” than Aussie papers.

Sadly it has no equivalent in Aus and is one of the few things I miss about the old Dart.

So Passy the fin Review “I can learn what the bourgeoisie think.”

But that don’t mean you necessarily “understand”.

I've been observing the Australian on and off since the years of the Whitlam Government. In my early teens when I was politically aware and pro-Labor, I considered the Australian to be gospel truth. So, when they turned against the Whitlam Government in 1974, I got sucked in for a while. I found myself unable to deny the apparent mountains of evidence against the Whitlam government every day of the week in the pages of the Australian, and came to agree with the editorialists that it had to go.

I came to my senses some time during the crisis over the Senate's blocking of the budget in 1975. It has since become clear to me that Murdoch and the media empire he controlled did not turn on Whitlam over any fundamental principles of government. Rather, it was because the Whitlam government was an obstacle to his financial interests.

Ever since then the Australian and all of the other Murdoch newspapers have been cynically used again and again in the political arena to promote candidates favoured by Murdoch and to destroy the careers of those he opposed.

The most appalling stance I can recall, with the possible exception of its support of the invasion of Iraq, is The Australian's current support for the privatisation of NSW's electricity. This is a policy which was not even put to the NSW electorate in 2007 and was, in fact, roundly repudiated when it was last put to the NSW electorate in 1999. 85% of the NSW public oppose privatisation as well as the Labor Party and the NSW unions.

If the privatisation of NSW's electricity in these circumstances is not a clear violation of basic democratic principles, then what is?

The Australian's support for privatisation in these circumstances is absolute confirmation that is not, in any meaningful sense, a pro-democracy publication.

In past months I have formed the habit of writing my own counter-editorials. In case these may be of interest, some are to be found at http://candobetter.org/PropagandaWatch

People who follow the manipulation of this country by the Evil Empire may find this article of interest:

"Doug Cameron in the cross-hair of the Murdoch press" at http://candobetter.org/node/522