An extraordinary attack on popular Brisbane mayor Campbell Newman by The Courier-Mail has exposed the bullying tactics and simmering tensions between politics and an incestuous media environment in the one-paper town.
The newspaper used its editorial on Monday to deplore the Liberal mayor’s “increased arrogance” and “Napoleonic tendencies” in trying to manage an announcement on the opening of the city’s landmark cross-city road tunnels. But a leading academic and political staffers at all levels of government told Crikey it goes to the paper’s dominance and arrogance in the market.
According to The Courier Mail, the Mayor’s media office demanded front-page treatment for a story on when the tunnel would be open. Quotes from the Mayor had to be included, opposition comment excluded, and any “negative connotations” within the story had to be verified.
But the mayor’s media office — led by former Courier Mail journo Michael Corkill — told Crikey it was editor David Fagan who personally offered the exclusive over coffee with staff. The demands amounted to “our understanding of these offers”.
The Courier Mail went to the tunnel proponent to get news of the opening — which council agreed to release — and reneged on its demands for an exclusive. “We made it clear that if we were to be cut from our own announcement we would release the information that night before the 6pm news,” Corkill said. The paper published the news on its website, killing its own exclusive, at 5:20pm.
The relationship is now at a nadir, though tensions have simmered for years (as Media Watch detailed in 2008). Both sides seem to be in agreement on the biggest problem: as The Courier Mail wrote on Campbell, “he wants things all his way or not at all”. Political staffers say the same applies to working with the paper.
One reporter told Crikey how much of a “pleasure” it was working on state government stories because the council — the largest in Australia — is so difficult to deal with. They claim councillors are shielded from the media, requests for comment are ignored (yet journalists are berated for not including a response) and advisors set about killing stories at first glance. (Other journalists, however, claim to have a productive relationship with the office.)
But the complaints are numerous against the The Courier Mail. One political staffer points to an increasing “paranoia” over losing stories to Fairfax’s Brisbane Times website, particularly now Fairfax owns Brisbane’s only commercial talk radio station 4BC. Another insider highlights the exodus of dozens of seasoned reporters from the paper — many moving across the corridor to The Australian bureau — leaving The Courier Mail with younger, less experienced reporters.
“There’s been situations in the past where they’ve made it overtly obvious they better not read it anywhere else,” said one political adviser.
A state government flack says the paper has threatened “three-page spreads” of negative coverage if it doesn’t get the scoop. “If they want something they get something,” they said. They believe the Courier took it upon themselves to oppose premier Peter Beattie’s reign because the Nationals-led coalition was so weak. While much of the balance has been restored in parliament, “that mindset continues.”
And then there’s the man at the top. According to one insider, Fagan favours his friends in awarding promotions: “They call them FODs — Friends Of David.”
Fagan has been at the helm of the Courier for more than seven years — a lengthy period compared to other News Limited editors. One former staffer says rumours point to his end being nigh: “My mail is he’ll be out of there by the end of the year.”
Fagan and his wife, former News Limited journalist turned ABC Radio presenter Madonna King, form a “media bloc” in the city, says one insider. Crikey understands problems between the Courier and the council started during the last election when King gave the Labor candidate half-hour of airtime but denied Campbell the right to respond.
It’s understood the council has previously lodged a formal complaint against King with the ABC but the matter was dismissed after review. Asked to answer the complaints, Fagan said: “I have neither the time nor inclination to respond to Crikey.”
University of Queensland journalism professor Michael Bromley says the state’s monopolistic environment — dominated at local council level by the country’s most powerful mayor, and News titles including the Gold Coast Bulletin, Townsville Bulletin and a slew of local freebies — breeds bullies.
“It’s a state of ones, it’s a state of a lack of competition,” he told Crikey. “It’s intrinsic that when you have a lack of competition, a lack of alternative voices, a lack of diversity, the temptation is always to push your weight around. It would be an exceptional editor to reign in that situation.”
That culture is rife at News Limited, Bromley believes. Editors are selected — “not necessarily on a rational basis” — and remain in the job because they share the ethos and deliver results. “If Rupert Murdoch was running The Courier Mail I don’t think it would be run much differently,” he said.
And, perhaps most worryingly, “not many Queenslanders baulk at it”.
And, perhaps most worryingly, “not many Queenslanders baulk at it”
when your choice of what to put under the dogfood bowl is this limited, baulk is the last thing on your mind. Bulk and water absorption maybe.
News Ltd did a very successful 5+ year campaign of subscription via the local newso. We went up a penny-a-month for years before we got even close to full cover normal price. They won the circulation war AND kept it home delivery. (mind you, my lie-sheet is the Australian)
So “baulk” has to be taken in the context of: 1) you can’t walk with your feet when there is no real local alternative 2) its delivery not purchase daily
Lastly, can I say what delight it is to have a tasteful smattering of news inserted in between my adverts. I delight at how few news items I have to look at before concentrating on the latest dinette set, discount brazilian wax offer or rentovision deal of the day. -And with the sarcasm knob turned down, you have to admit that its a new low for Rupert when the freesheet local rags have MORE news per page than his paywall headline newspaper in Brisbane. Go Rupe!
With the results of that study, this week re “PR”, what about these media companies that actually function as scantily disguised PR companies, to further the cause(s) of the interests in which “they” have an interest, from their often unique, or near enough, position in the community? A position “bequeathed” by a “thankful” previous federal government?
Funny reading David Fagan’s views on “the roll of PR in the media”, Tuesday’s Crikey; considering the paper’s, he edits, various high profile PR campaigns like “viva free trade/market forces – for others”, “Right to know – for others”, “bullying – for others”.
And let’s not forget their less overt campaign, in the difference in the way his paper habitually querulously treats “Labor” against their selectively amnesiac, sanguine acquiescence in the way they treat “their” Coal-ition.
Being “captive” to and partaking of the only Qld paper is like being a part of Nicole Kidman’s “The Others”!
“Examples”? The selective way embarrassing aspects of Labor are brought to the light with alacrity, against the way it hides Coal-ition “warts” (Abbott’s “Parental Leave Plan” didn’t “rate” mention for nigh a week).
The lack of any number of contradictions of Abbott’s utterances, past to present, or the parties own “promises record” while sustaining fire on “Rudd’s”!
Look at this weeks “Get to Know Wyatt Roy – Coal-ition Candidate for Longman – Campaign” : three days, three half page+ spreads, with pics. How much would that have cost any other advertiser, on their “open market”? And that followed two editorials in the week before the last election, devoted to pimping two individual candidates (Brough and Boswell) to their constituents. Has any such largess been extended to Labor individuals?
All to persuade voters to “a certain end” – “Murdoch’s”! “Butt take a number.”
These political biases and scrums are a sideshow. Fagan or whoever is the editor is not the issue. Absolute power like this can have no other result. It all tracks back to the grandfathering of The CM monopoly in Brisbane when News shifted offshore–to Delaware, US. That was went the public interest should have been asserted and News should have been forced to dispose of one of its two paper in Brisbane, obviously it would have meant them selling the CM.
But the people get the media and politicians they deserve. It is decades since I read the CM. I simply refuse to ever buy either The Australian or the CM. Anyone who buys them and then complains about them should shut up and simply exercise their consumer power. Of course it doesn’t help that Fairfax have been so feeble in providing an alternative.
Klewso
If the courier is biased then the Oz is off the planet it may as well be a liberal PR machine
My feeling is that Campbell is a mischief making control freak – I’m not defending the courier mail by the way
The easy run Campbell gets on 4bc is incredible its like he is mates with the presenters
Jeremy
Of course Newman comes across as a control freak.
And while opposites attract, similarities repel, and the town’s not big enough for three – against “Murdoch”, the difference is, Newman and Rudd are “elected”!
That’s what “owning the media” seems to amount to, selling “your party” to the public and never having to say you’re sorry, or face voters!
And besides Newman can be used as the “Curiouser-Mail’s” “token conservative whipping boy, an example of how they’re not really biased” – “look at how we treat Nooman”!