The front page if today’s Daily Telegraph is nothing but political propaganda in my personal opinion. It pushes an agenda that has nothing to do with news of the day. The front page story is fantasy fiction, designed to rally readers to an opinion about the Labour party that News Corp. wants.
This is not journalism. It is not what newspaper publishers should put out. It is the pushing of an ignorant fear based agenda, something News worldwide has a track record for.
There are no facts in this piece.
This game by News Corp. is considered more important than key stories of the day, news stories.
It is typical for a selfish publisher that runs its agenda ahead of reporting the news, reporting the facts.
You only have to look at their coverage of the NBN over the years. The originally proposed NBN could have been the Snowy Mountains Scheme for our time. It would have delivered a productivity boost off of which plenty of companies could have thrives, It could have fostered start-ups that could have changed towns and cities.
Instead, this publisher ran a campaign that resulted in the junk NBN we have today, something that is holding our economy back.
Yes, these are my opinions. However, I have some experience with which to form the opinions and some knowledge of what has been done in some US states, New Zealand and Estonia. Experience running a software company that serves 3,500+ small business retail businesses that rely on fast and easy internet access.
Newspaper publishers should not run agendas.
Shame on politicians for pandering to them, to get to be part of the News Corp. agenda.
If I was a newsagent in NSW I suspect I would not offer the Daily Telegraph for sale today.
Ted this post is about a newspaper that claims to publish news, news based on facts. What they did today was pure propaganda. Some weekly magazines are known for not publishing facts and people buy them because of it.
In the past I might have agreed newspaper publishers had to much political power. But recent voting, particularly in the UK with Brexit, has shown that even when the publishers are massed alongside a certain party, the electorate are no longer fooled.
Cover pages like this are no longer so persuasive, they do however feed the anti establishment mood, not yet fully arrived here.
I say sell the paper(s) and don’t take the fake headlines seriously.
Ads revenue from private is down, maybe new source secret revenue from gov in power
What a slippery road. Should we refuse to sell magazines that peddle lies about celebrities, or US magazines/Fairfax papers that run their anti-Trump agenda, or does it depend on their particular political allegiance?
Who’s the craziest, Murdoch or Trump? Both a clearly senile.
Slippery path. Do we also refuse to stock gossip magazines that publish blatant lies about Australians? Do we refuse to stock magazines running an anti-Trump agenda? Or does this depend on your political allegiance?
I see what Mark is getting at, but I don’t think you do, Ted.
It isn’t about the Tele being anti-Shorten or anti-ALP, it is about it using the front page for what has become known as “fake news”.
I would think twice about offering such a paper to my customers. It is the misuse of the media that has people turning away in droves and driving the decline in quality journalism.
Murdoch, like all of us, is entitled to his own opinions, but not to his own facts. There is too much desperation and not enough inspiration in that front page and the articles within.
I wonder if this will be repeated across the other Capital city dailies, or if it will be reported as “news” by the likes of Andrew Bolt, Miranda device and Caleb Bond.
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And I think you’re missing my point David. Magazines are full of fake news. Would you consider taking them off the shelves? Or is defaming people better than showing political bias?
The Guardian picked up on this today here: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jul/05/newsagents-urged-to-refuse-to-sell-daily-telegraph-over-fictional-attack-on-labor
And Paul Murray Live spoke about it last night. i remind myself that I am not my customer every day as they purchase items that I myself do not like !
I’m no fan of the Daily Telegraph. But this is chilling political censorship and not something we should see anyone advocate in a democracy. It is also demonstrates a condescending and disrespectful attitude towards your customers.
No censorship here Jarrod, just a question. The question is innocuous compared to the bullying from the pulpit of this News Corp. publication. The damage wreaked on democracy in Australia is dreadful in my opinion.
Let your customers decide.
Ted, in my mind, there is a huge difference between magazines that peddle escapism by cleverly blending a gram of truth with a tonne fantasy and a major daily newspaper presenting fantasy as truth. And that is what The Tele has done.
Jarrod, there is no censorship. A single retailer cannot prevent a newspaper publishing and distributing, only government has that power.
When Quadrant ran its online story “wishing the Manchester bomber had attacked the ABC” I removed the magazine from my shelves. That is not censorship, but an expression of my distaste for that outrage.
Those involved at Quadrant subsequently issued an apology. I find a lot of the content in this month’s issue distasteful, but it is back on the shelves.
Why, I even stock Andrew Bolt’s book, much to the amazement of the customers who know me well. 🙂
Ok, I suppose, you’d continue to restock Fairfax papers when they run a cover story on Trump apparently having hookers urinate on a bed that Obama slept in in Moscow? You and I both know the answer, of course you would.
Self righteous leftists … unbearable.
Ted, it’s clearly based on political allegiance, to pretend otherwise is to take sanctimony way too far. This is a way for Murdoch obsessives to seethe their hatreds, while trying to pretend objective self righteousness and the usual moral mortgage that they believe they have over everything in the process. No one’s fooled.
Jarrod: Absolutely correct. The underlying sneer also being that the Mark Fletchers of this world being of the enlightened left have to protect, nanny and molly coddle, those poor stupid, uneducated conservative customers of his, who aren’t smart enough to work it out for themselves.
“The damage wreaked on democracy in Australia is dreadful in my opinion.”
What sanctimonious poppy cock Mark. have you silently been crying into your Corn Flakes at what the liberal media has done to Democracy in the US?
Answer: No, absolutely not, because they’re a part of your side. If anything, you’ve clapped and cheered them.
David: “That is not censorship, but an expression of my distaste for that outrage.”
And an expression of your self righteous sanctimony of refusing to allow anyone else to read it either. That’s censorship in it’s purest form. It’s the same as book burning, no different.
Oh, wow, James. We get where you are coming from. I posed the question, a valid question as this newspaper that claims to report news handed itself over to propaganda and not news. The Trump urination report was widely published as the report came from a respected source. Very different to the fictitious from page of the Tele.
No need for the name calling. It only weakens your argument.
Fletcher you’re up there with the epitome of hypocrisy. Sadly,you’ll never acknowledge that sometimes you’ve erred. Since when do you decide what I read. Once I find out the newsagencies that followed this lead I’ll have joy publishing their details on social media.
Mark: “The Trump urination report was widely published as the report came from a respected source.”
That is a disgraceful thing to say and comically partisan. Everyone knows that Buzzfeed took it from an invented 4Chan article of which CNN then ran with. It was debunked within a week so obviously cartoonish was it. Nice try Mark, but you can’t get away with that deliberate misrepresentation.
Your friends over at the liberal press make news up everyday, best you have left your criticism of the Daily Tele alone in light of it.
here we go again
That is not true James.
Once everyone gets over the partisan name calling the fact is there is a place for op-ed articles in every newspaper. That place isn’t on the front page like this article is.
This editorialising isn’t the soul domain of newscorp every paper does it and it’s getting worse. I can only read “The Saturday Paper” online, not enough inner city lefties in WA to make it worth sending here, but from what I see online it’s 100% op-ed with no real hard news coverage.
So David….lies and in some cases character assassination should be seen as escapism?
james and ted are deluded!
their rationalisations were silly!
comparing glossy mags with news papers! whats wrong with you people..
news corp is literally making australia shit again! for profit! that’s sickening!
Mark….what is it about Jame’s Trump comments that isn’t true?
I’d have no problem if this was published in the opinion pages, as opinion. Instead, it was on the front page, where the news story of the day runs. Absolutely appalling editorial behaviour confined by News Corp here.
As for the golden shower stuff there is plenty online, from reputable news organisations. And this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump–Russia_dossier
James, Life is too short don’t be angry… Smile
I think everyone commenting on this post has too much time on their hands 🙂
It always astounds me how blog entries like this get so much traction yet entries which focus more on growing your business and making you a better retailer get very little. I am hoping it does not represent the attitudes of the greater newsagency community.
Totally agree Chris!
Its the title of the post that gets the reaction and its designed to do so – no different than the Paper headline really. On this logic you wouldn’t sell any weekly magazines either because of the sensationalised crap that graces their covers.
I mean who are we to censor publishers anyway? That is the public’s job and they best do that by either buying the rag or not. I have better things to do like reordering the leather bags I have sold this morning which have made me more money than a months worth of Newspaper sales.
Give your customers some credit, they actually have a functioning brain of their own and don’t need to be told what is suitable to read or spend money on. How you benefit from this fact is completely up to you and not the political forces at play here.
It is disappointing people assume they know my motivation for writing a post, choosing a post headline or thinking politics is at play.
It is frustrating that people see words that are not there. My post is a question.
Now, as to the front page of the paper – this specific issue goes way beyond what could be classed news. It is advocacy, in typical fashion for some News Corp. titles.
While historically it has not been the role of a retailer to decide what print media products they and don’t sell, we are in a different world now, where opinions are more often shared and acted upon. Today, more than in the past, we will be asked to censor. Hence the question.
Now, please, comment on the business development, management and marketing posts.
If only there was as much uproar about the inferior trading terms News Corp has forced upon newsagents for the past 25years…… go figure!