Topic: big media
The Daily Telegraph is an interesting and wicked beast.
We haven't properly read the Alex Mitchell story in the crikey ezine yesterday lambasting the idea of a Rees leadership challenge yet. Mitchell is a long time thenFairfax colleague in the press gallery to one Simon Benson of rival News Corporation/Sydney Daily Telegraph.
But judging from the ezine headline Mitchell was rubbishing Simon Benson's claims about newbie Premier Rees. [Having read the Mitchell story now actually Mitchell is not rubbishing Benson so much as other former colleagues at The Australian and Sydney Morning Herald, and giving credence to Benson's speculation today by identifying Frank Sartor (new family, babe in arms etc) as the Right's potential candidate.]
Now the front page blowtorch by Benson wit serves several purposes regardless of merit or truth:
- it undermines the Left of the Labor Party, probably gratuitiously as the traditional enemy of the right wing Tele
- it implicitly sledges Alex Mitchell as a traditional rival, when at Fairfax SunHerald, but even more so now that he is at crikey.com.au ezine. Crikey was founded by 'a traitor' to the conservative cause in Stephen Mayne ex News Corp himself who dared to attack conservative Premier Kennett (another ex employer) and set up a rival arguably still 'minor' media outlet to the Big Media dinosaurs (particular Telegraph's sister paper Herald Sun in Melbourne).
- it draws the public's attention away from their colleagues and allies in the Friends of Israel/pro Iraq war/anti Muslim lobby who are looking shocking and reprehensible, as the reality in Gaza emerges: For instance a constructive breach by Israel of the Gaza cease fire as well as humanitarian law by maintaining the starvation blockade, concurrent with Hamas strong compliance with the truce from July to October 2008. An Israeli airforce strike arguably under provocation for a tunnel by Hamas killed 5 Hamas members in early November 2008. It was all down hill from there.
- it could even be a backhander to the ALP in toto for Julia Irwin federal ALP MP and lefty in western Sydney daring to so categorically attack Israel in Big Media print in the SunHerald last Sunday here in Sydney. A warning to their federal counterparts in the Rudd machine?
Really any of the above explanations could suffice, alone or in combination.
