Bad News: Murdoch's Australian and the Shaping of the Nation, by Robert Manne

Robert Manne’s third Quarterly Essay, Bad News, covers no new ground. It purports to be a vivisection of The Australian newspaper's right wing bias, but is more a list of grievances against the paper. The essay closes with a few ponderous words, but no shattering insights. Bad News has some interesting gossip and bits of fresh interview material, but overall lacks lustre.

The latest in the Quarterly Essay series tackles Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, more specifically, the way The Australian covers issues. Robert Manne has long been critical of the News Limited broadsheet, and has now taken it upon himself to write a thoroughgoing critique.

Robert Manne is one of the country’s best political writers, but his work can take on a bitchy tone from time to time. As someone who is very much an active participant in a lot of public controversies and questions, Manne’s work can lose quality where it becomes personal. Bad News doesn’t fall into that category, but comes close. The author quite palpably has an axe to grind.

Bad News argues that The Australian has given up any pretence to offering objective journalism, and has instead tried to turn itself into a player in political affairs. It’s actively worked against the Gillard and Rudd governments, has wrongly tried to paint global warming as hogwash, has promoted the spurious history of the likes of Keith Windshuttle and generally done its best to create all sorts of mischief.

Manne interviews key News Limited figures like editor Chris Mitchell and senior editor Paul Kelly, but doesn’t find anything particularly interesting to report back. There is some interesting gossipy stuff about Chris Mitchell and his wife journalist Christine Jackman’s chummy relationship with Kevin Rudd and Therese Rein, and how that relationship may have soured due to the break up of the Mitchell-Jackman marriage. Apparently, Rudd and Rein took Jackman’s side more than Mitchell’s. If true, it boggles the mind how national affairs are run on such incestuous, petty lines.

Bad News doesn’t really cover any new ground. It summarises a lot of The Australian’s coverage of key issues, and wraps things up with a few ponderous words supposed to lend the essay gravitas. But it doesn’t really work. In the end, it seems that Manne only wants to get a few things off his chest, rather than offer penetrating insights into the right wing media in Australia.

This isn’t a particularly bad Quarterly Essay, it’s just that it feels like it goes over a lot of old ground. Readers are recommended to try Manne’s excellent collection Making Trouble: Essays Against the New Australian Complacency, Black Inc., (2011) instead of this slightly stale
effort.

Bad News: Murdoch’s Australian and the Shaping of the Nation, by Robert Manne. Published by Black Inc. ISBN: 9781863955447