Victoria Rollison's Blog

Defamation and Freedom of Speech: Murdoch media keeps itself out of the news

Lachlan Murdoch’s decision to sue Australian media outlet Crikey for defamation is big news by anyone’s standards. What a coincidence then, that it’s not big news in Murdoch media outlets. Lachlan Murdoch announced his decision to sue independent media outlet, Crikey, for defamation on August 24. This decision came after Crikey challenged the media mogul […]

Media inequality: Labor is on an uneven playing field

This post was originally published on Independent Australia on August 10 2021. THE MOST SAVAGE form of media inequality in Australian political reporting is the tired trope that the Labor Party are bad economic managers. Like all such tropes, its foundation is not only mythical, not backed up by facts, but rather underpinned by deeply […]

Politicised coverage: Media favours Liberal COVID response over Labor’s

This post was originally published by Independent Australia on July 26 2021. Media coverage has aligned itself with the Liberal Party’s response to the COVID pandemic, while rubbishing Labor’s, writes Dr Victoria Fielding.  AS AUSTRALIA once again faces a COVID-19 national emergency, there seems to be an acceptance amongst the media commentariat that the politicisation of […]

Will there be self-reflection about Covid media bias?

In February of this year, after Victoria headed into a proactive ‘short, sharp, circuit-breaker’ lockdown, Herald Sun and The Australian ‘writer’ Sophie Elsworth published a piece titled: ‘Why Premier Daniel Andrews needs to be more like NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian’. This article started with the much-repeated trope that Victorian covid health restrictions were evidence of […]

The dangers of biased media narratives

There is no better illustration of the dangers of biased media narratives – media inequality – than the differing perceptions about Covid-19 in NSW, as compared to Victoria. Victorians are of course more wary about covid because of their trauma at enduring the health crisis in 2020, and the resulting extended lockdown. They take covid […]

‘Fleeting contact’: one phrase, two reactions

As a researcher of media bias, the best way to demonstrate bias is to show how the same facts, or the same information is framed in obviously different ways. There has been no better demonstration of this bias comparison than the news media reaction to Victorian authorities warning that Covid-19 can spread through ‘fleeting contact’, […]

Journalists need to be watchdogs in the marketplace of ideas

When Donald Trump launched his ‘birther movement’ in the lead up to the 2012 US presidential candidate race, his accusations about President Obama’s place of birth should never have been published in mainstream media. By publishing these demonstrably false accusations, aimed at delegitimising America’s first black President, the media gave the accusations, and in-turn Trump, […]

Why is the Prime Minister Teflon-coated?

In the past fortnight, there has been a distinct shift in the media’s willingness to hold Scott Morrison to account for his responsibilities as Prime Minister. Journalists and commentators are asking why he has not delivered on his two key pandemic jobs – to efficiently roll out the vaccine and to deliver effective quarantine facilities. […]

Watchdogs asleep in their kennels

Political journalists pride themselves on being watchdogs who prevent abuse of power. Watchdogs are supposed to bark when they smell something suspicious. So how do you explain the news media sleeping through the exposé of suspicious secret correspondence between powerful friends in the Liberal government and the big banks? Are the watchdogs getting old and […]

Playing the ref with a fake tax

The Liberals are playing the ref by tagging Labor’s dividend imputation policy a ‘retirement tax’. It is not surprising they see this as a productive strategy since the same thing worked with their carbon tax scare campaign. Political journalists self-identify as watchdogs for democracy who hold the powerful to account by shining a light on […]