The Murdoch choir

3 September 2007

I knew one of the Australian's editors many years ago. He complained of endlessly having to "water down" and "chop out" the copy being submitted by his "leftwing" journalists. I doubt if his modern counterpart has any such problems: more careful hiring policies will have seen to that.

Look, if I want to learn about what’s going on in the world I go to places like this: http://www.chomsky.info/ or this: http://www.monbiot.com/

If I want a window into the minds of the people who are destroying my planet, I read the Australian.

In the last week, opinion pieces in the Australian have informed us that more guns will make society safer, and that a bill of citizens’ rights threatens our freedom. (I presume that we will soon be told that divorce is good for relationships, and that drinking your advertisers’ alcohol will improve our work performance.)

I am sure Murdoch did not order that those pieces be written. He doesn't have to. He merely has to make sure, usually through his editors, that people like you are hired: people who share his profoundly conservative biases, have a slender knowledge of the world as it really is, and no knowledge of modern history.

By such means have we gained the Murdoch opinion-leaders: the best-trained choir in the land.