Media ownership and the Australian election

On Saturday September 7th Australia elected Tony Abbott, leader of the conservative Liberal National Party, as its Prime Minister.

While no one could attribute the result purely to media circulation, Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper and television empire certainly favored the party.

News Corporation owns the majority of media outlets in the country, notably The Australian, the country’s only nation-wide paper, and The Courier-Mail, my home city Brisbane’s only daily regional newspaper.

Murdoch’s conservative leanings are normally relatively opaque in these papers (except in The Daily Telegraph), but this time they, frankly, held nothing back.

Headlines like “Kick this mob out” and “Australia needs Tony” adorned his papers, and his television influence meant that an ad protesting his involvement was banned from the major stations.

It’s honestly embarrassing, but unfortunately only the beginning for Australia. Next up: “Operation Sovereign Borders,” and the continued persecution of asylum seekers.