As regards bias, Morrison went on a holiday and he was condemned, Anna, the Queensland Premier, went on a holiday and virtually no one said a word.

Which of the two had more responsibility in the fighting of bushfires?

Now the Daily Mail, another online foreign newspaper we could do without, along with The Guardian, is sneering at Morrison (one idiot suggesting he is not even human) for donating only one bag of groceries in a fire-ravaged country town. A personal thing that he did himself, worth about $70. Nothing to do with the government. How much money do they think the PM carries around? How much have his scumbag Left critics donated?

Dear Paul1405,

The site has become less about the churn of ideas and more about partisan sport.

I'm happy to deal with either but generally take my cue from whoever starts the thread.

This one was in response to the constant carping about leftwing bias in the media. I could have been a little more circumspect about the detail as it was the pictorial coverage which was my intended focus. But accuracy hasn't been the standout in attacks on the ABC either.

We have some pretty unsavoury types kicking around here now who would love the place to themselves without people like you and I. The snide celebratory carry on when Foxy felt she needed to step away is a case in point. It wouldn't have taken much to have this place a bit more inclusive but hey, that's the nature of politics now I suppose.

I use to enjoy being prompted to do better research so I could confidently participate in debate on informative topics on OLO. Now all we do is react against unsubstantiated opinion pieces and feed the chooks.

It is fast food rather than a sit down meal, but horses for courses so to speak.

It's a national newspaper. I've referred you to the site where you can see the editions. No doubt, in the freak circumstances that The Australian has somehow produced a one-off Steele specific edition, Steele can take a photo of the front page, upload it to some social media site and then send us the link.

As for other dishonesty from Steele, on the religious freedom thread that I started he claimed that the legislation would allow someone to abuse a customer on the basis of their religious beliefs. This is not true and I said that at the time, but didn't come back to the thread until much later, so let it lie.

You can go to the explanatory document at:
https://www.ag.gov.au/Consultations/Documents/religious-freedom-bills-second-draft/religious-freedom-reforms-outline-of-the-bills.docx and on page 8 find the following paragraph:

"However, this provision does not protect statements that are malicious, would harass, threaten, seriously intimidate or vilify a person or group or which advocate for the commission of a serious criminal offence. Accordingly, this provision will not affect federal, state or territory protections against harassment, vilification and incitement to hatred or violence. "

Steele has been dishonest about The Australian and also about the Religious Discrimination bill, but rather than apologise, he always doubles down as he is doing here. I don't apologise for calling him out.

There is some idea that this is a matter of ideology, but unless you believe that believing in truthfulness is only a value specific to some ideologies, and not a universal value, it is hard to see how you could make that out. If it is just a "right wing" value, then that is the way we should all be voting. I'm happy to be "right wing" if it means I care about facts and honesty.

Dear GrahamY,

I will yet again refer you to the link to the article I quoted from in my original post. Here it is again;

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/jan/04/the-australian-murdoch-owned-newspaper-accused-of-downplaying-bushfires-in-favour-of-picnic-races

In fact since here is a direct link to the image only. You will see the Australian's front page surrounded by a border of blue.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/jan/04/the-australian-murdoch-owned-newspaper-accused-of-downplaying-bushfires-in-favour-of-picnic-races#img-1

Is your revulsion of anything you deem left wing media rendering you incapable of simply clicking the link? It is pretty sad if that is the case. But failing to do so and then claiming I have made it up is certainly dishonesty from you.

Now for some reason I was pretty sure you would bring up the religious discrimination thread as your example. You did appear to have your nose seriously out of joint on that one.

Well let's see what I did say rather than what you have conjured up.

“So does it become abuse when the woman behind the counter at the motor registration branch informs every single mother that in her opinion single mother are leading sinful lives? Or the disability support worker telling each of their clients that in his opinion their disability is from the devil?”

Under the new law can the employers of these people still censure or even sack them for expressing their 'religious' beliefs in public?

Steele's post refers to 'The Australian' front page Thursday 2nd January, where as the link provided by GY is the front page of 'The Weekend Australian' Saturday/Sunday 4th/5th January.

From 'The Guardian' 4th January, the article in part, "Many of the world’s leading mastheads featured pictures of the devastation of the Australian bushfires on page one on Thursday (2nd January) ". 'The Australian' prominent headline for that day as shown in 'The Guardian' article was 'Secret police bid to ban booze' with a featured photo, and one smaller photo, on the front page being from the New Years Day Hanging Rock picnic races. There was a lesser article titled 'Fire total at eight as troops prepare for evacuation' but there was no accompanying photo. The mastheads for the day in question, from seven other leading world newspapers all showed photos and stories about the bushfires, but not Murdoch's 'The Australian'.

The distortion is by whom? Clearly its by GY. Unless there is a missing link showing a different digital front page for 'The Australian' Thursday 2nd January.