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There’s been lots of talk about the corrosive way that media bias undermines democracy since calls for #MurdochRoyalCommission. I wanted to talk about exactly why and how media bias leads to inequality and political corruption and incompetence, which hurts the country. A thread
There are two ways media ideally plays a role in democracy - as a watchdog on power and as a facilitator of a free and equitable marketplace of ideas. Media bias towards right wing ideology undermines the media’s function for both these roles which in turn damages the country.
Let’s look at watchdog on power first. When powerful outlets such as Murdoch and Nine’s Fairfax refuse to hold the powerful Prime Minister and ruling Liberal Party to account for incompetence and corruption, incompetence and corruption flourish without consequence. Major problem.
Let’s use Morrison’s failures of the China relationship as one example - there are many more. When Morrison blundered into Trumpian calls for China to be investigated over covid outbreak, he should have been restrained by the threat of headlines like: ‘PM undermines China trade’.
Instead, the most powerful mastheads said nothing negative about this total diplomatic fail, instead joining the PM in condescending one of Australia’s largest trading partners, while promoting Morrison’s calls for the investigation as if he was a hero of the people.
Here is the Australian’s take as one example. How would ‘Newspoll’ have looked if this newspaper had framed this news as ‘Morrison risks billions in trades by stupidly antagonising China’?
Remember that the media narrative is strongly influenced by how the traditional mastheads frame news events. Even when ABC and the Guardian are pointing out that it might not be the best idea for PM to piss off China, Murdoch and Nine’s power comes from their print concentration.
Having failed to act as watchdogs over Morrison’s mishandling of this situation - which is indicative of how bully-Morrison behaves every day, we are now seeing billions in trade cancelled by China - even Morrison’s beloved coal - because Morrison has never been held accountable.
A similar problem is occurring on the issue of climate change. Morrison has been blocked from speaking at the Pacific Forum about climate change because of his incompetence in failing to take climate action. He is an international pariah - which is terrible for Australia.
Yet, where are headlines in powerful mastheads holding the Liberal government to account for these failures? There aren’t any because they’re not watchdogs - they’re too biased to hold him to account. Instead they promote his message while also denying climate change themselves.
When the most powerful agenda-setting media are so biased they aren’t acting as watchdogs, the government acts like toddlers without boundaries - they wreak havoc. When everything PM does is applauded, he is never fearful that he might be doing the wrong thing. Viscous cycle.
So what about media bias and the supposably free marketplace of ideas? This marketplace is important to democracy as it is meant to be a place where different ideas and perspectives are discussed and debated, giving audience as much info as they need to make up their own mind.
What I found with my research is that the media marketplace is not in fact free, but instead right wing voices gain easier access to have their voices heard, and are treated as more legitimate than the left wing voices. The news media marketplace is not a balanced playing field.
This gives powerful advantage to right wing ideas, which become taken for granted as the dominant way to see the world. One obvious example is the marketplace of ideas discussing tax cuts. It is taken for granted that tax cuts create jobs. If you say otherwise, you are mocked.
When right wing perspectives are advantaged by the most powerful media mastheads, and left wing voices are delegitimised, democracy suffers. When voters don’t have all the information they need to make good decisions when voting, democracy is undermined.
Again, using Morrison China example. If news media audience didn’t understand that Liberal Trumpian calls for covid China investigation could and were leading to loss of China export revenue, how are they meant to make a fair assessment of the credibility of the PM? They can’t.
Media bias is directly responsible for unaccountable incompetence and corruption amongst political class through failure to hold leaders to account for bad behaviour and failure to deliver a free and fair marketplace of ideas to underpin a strong democracy. That’s why it matters.
Too many times I hear people say the #MurdochRoyalCommission is just Labor sour grapes. Media bias is not about Labor. It’s about the strength of our democracy and the competence and success of our government which has real impacts on our economy and society. It matters. End.
