By ABC's Jonathan Green
Photo: The Government has probably given the News Corp campaign more credit than is due. (Daily Telegraph)
It is immense flattery to suggest that the biased screams of newspapers that few people trust will be a determining influence this federal election, writes Jonathan Green.
It's as established an element of our modern campaigning as a bar stool on a stage at the Rooty Hill RSL: the ongoing discussion around the role and effect of the political media.
It's an argument of many parts, most notably this time round dealing with the impact of the tabloid screaming war waged against the Rudd campaign, a war that began with "Kick this mob out!" splashed across the front of the Daily Telegraph on day one, and one that has barely drawn a civil breath since.
And indeed, there is much that might be said about an American media mogul having such a strong voice in the Australian political landscape ... the Kraft to our Vegemite.
More than 60 per cent of newspapers sold in this country fly the News Corp flag; a dominant market position that must present certain temptations to a proprietor of strong views and a fondness for the sound of his own influence.
But much of the bluster around the Murdoch campaign in this election, a campaign not so much for Abbott as against Rudd, is based on a pretty fundamental assumption: that there is an audience tuned in to the Murdoch press that is susceptible to its influence.
Chances are that is a pretty big assumption, one that might flatter the vanity of the proprietor, and say more about the impact of mass circulation tabloids than is merited in a time in which trust in some quarters of the traditional media is in strong decline.
The simple fact is that fewer and fewer people actually believe the Daily Telegraph and its ilk, a necessary precondition, you might imagine, for vote-turning influence.
Pollsters Essential regularly survey consumer trust in various media products. On August 19 they asked, how much trust do you have in the way the following media have reported and commented on the election campaign so far?
The totals of respondents who placed some or a lot of trust in various outlets does not flatter newspapers like the Daily Telegraph. Its trust total is 25 per cent. Or to put that another way, 75 per cent of the survey's respondents either don't read the Tele, have no particular view of its trustworthiness or, at 49 per cent, have little or no trust in the biggest selling daily newspaper in New South Wales.
Now, it's entirely possible that earning the trust of its audience is not high in the editorial priorities of the Daily Telegraph. People (in declining numbers) read a newspaper for many reasons: to be entertained, to be outraged, perhaps even for news and opinion. But it would probably be fair to assume that in order to be a potent tool for political influence, trust is important.
It's equally possible that the shrill advocacy of political self interest that the Murdoch tabloids have indulged in through the course of this campaign is actually undermining the quality of the relationship they enjoy with their audiences. And sagging trust must surely show eventually in sales, a point at which, it's safe to predict, the tabloids might be tempted to soften their polemic.
It is a conventional wisdom of our times that people are increasingly disengaged from the day to day of our politics. Having a newspaper shout its advocacy down their throats might not be a winning tactic in the war for circulation.
Not that circulation is the be all and end all. Niche Murdoch publications like The Australian are proof that commercial failure can be indulged if there is a pay-off through the daily capacity to shape the news agenda. There's little doubt that The Australian - trust factor 31 per cent and with a readership that challenges the routine definitions of "mass media" - punches well above the weight of its slim circulation in agenda-tilting influence.
It may well be that through the course of this campaign both the Government and its sympathisers have given the News Corp campaign more credit than is in all likelihood due. Papers that few people trust screaming political invective at the top of their lungs might not be a determining political influence.
For one thing, it's just the sort of top-down 'father knows best' approach to publishing that is the very essence of dinosaur media ... a sense of the audience relationship that is unchanged from the comfortable one-way street of 20th century journalism and one that is quickly being overwhelmed by the new age of interactivity, diversity and quick response.
All of which is to say that while pushing a heated and emphatic political line might be an institutional habit and act of faith for the Murdoch empire, it's a leap of the imagination that flatters the waning impact of newspapers to say that it could actually determine the outcome of an election.
It may suit the "evil empire" prejudices of the anti-Murdoch left to argue that case, as much as it might flatter the vanity of Murdoch and his minions, but the assumption that the shouted demands of a tabloid newspaper can steer a voting public that is either spoilt for media choice or actively disengaged from federal politics seems fanciful.
That disengagement seems to be a more telling factor than any other. The same sense of near universal "whatever" that has enabled a campaign marked by persistent "truthiness" and misrepresentation suggests that politicians these days need to present little more than consistent insistence to convince the voting public.
In any event, 65 per cent of us take the slightly defeated position that either party will do or say anything to win our favour.
In an atmosphere so poisoned by that kind of jaded electoral ennui, what the Daily Telegraph has to say on the matter is neither here nor there, and far from our biggest political problem.
Jonathan Green is the presenter of Sunday Extra on Radio National and a former editor of The Drum. View his full profile here.
Reading isn't believing when it comes to newspapers - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
