Tony Abbott made a speech on the weekend where he pointed out the bias in the Australian Media. The Age has a summary . There are some similarities to the current push by US conservatives to get more conservative academics but there are important differences. Juan Cole has an article about this alleged bias as does The Economist .

Tony Abbott, who has too many ts in his name, points out that the media is not doing their job. Their bias is affecting their judgement. Abbott writes:

Obviously, the election has been a defeat for the ALP but there's a sense in which it's been a defeat for the media too. Many journalists predicted a narrow Coalition win, but none predicted a substantially increased Coalition majority and Coalition control of the Senate. Journalists' predictions of a close result were at least as confident as intelligence agencies' predictions of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The main difference is that Australian journalists had less excuse for not knowing precisely what's going on in their field of claimed expertise.

This is too strong. Many conservatives were also predicting a narrow coalition win. The coalition itself was not making noises about a resounding victory. There were also some journalists including Malcolm Mackerras who were accurately predicting and talking about the probability and possibility of the coalition gaining control of the Senate.

But it is hard not to disagree with his statement that on the whole journalists in Australia, and indeed generally in the West, tend toward the Left. He backs his numbers up by quoting the results of an RMIT study.

An August survey by the RMIT journalism department showed that 55 per cent of journalists described themselves as "left" or "small-l liberal" and only 9 per cent described themselves as "right" or "conservative". Earlier research by Queensland University journalism school professor John Hennington found that "political journalists leaned left rather than right by a factor of more than four to one", with 58 per cent of press gallery journalists describing their voting intentions as Labor and only 9 per cent Liberal. This would once have been a point of resemblance between the gallery and the CFMEU - except that forestry workers no longer vote Labor.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this. However there is something wrong with this when it inhibits their ability to inform and predict. This is what has happened. The face of Kerry O'Brien on the election night was hilarious. It was completely obvious that despite his dislike of Latham that he was very, very disappointed. It is hard to report on election results with bias, but you have to wonder if his views are clearly so strong whether he is an impartial interviewer and reporter.

There are also more than pockets of conservatism in the Australian media. The Australian has a considerable right wing biased. They seem to keep Phillip Adams along so that they can claim balance while really only having a sad old clown from the left broadcast his views. It would be hard to find anyone who would described Alan Jones or that other cretin on the radio as left wing. However, Australia's big serious papers, The Age, The SMH and the AFR probably do have a balance that is a little to the left.

The treatment of Howard's lies is a case in point. Howard almost certainly overstated what refugees were doing with their children, but he had a point. Placing children on dodgy ships is placing their lives at risk. But the Australian public has made it's judgement and pretty much doesn't care. The issue of non-conventional weapons in Iraq is amusing as Australia's intelligence obviously depends on the US. It was interesting to note that our own intelligence services were correct and were at the very least highly sceptical. But all the media seems to want out of this story is some blood of Howards. Finally, Howard may have chinks in his reputation, but he is one of very few politicians to have gone to the electorate and honestly described the new tax he intended to create.

Personally, I'm a very centrist person and bias does bother me unless it is clearly acknowleged. In the last election I voted for both major parties, splitting my vote because of worries about the upper house and dissatisfaction with the coalition. I have voted both ways in both federal,state, territory and local elections. But I think I'm pretty rare, indeed I have never met anyone other than myself who does not consistently vote one way or another.

The situation is different in Australia to the US. In the US 70 percent or some such horrendous proportion of Bush voters believe that Saddam was connected with Al Queda and had something to do with 911. The Republican party itself has talked about the 'reality based community' that includes academics. There appeared to be strong overall opposition to the Iraq war from Academics. But this opposition was for a good reason, namely that Iraq was a very, very unwise war. And they have been proven right. The establishment media showed itself to be absolutely dismal in investigating the substance behind the claim of non-conventional weapons in Iraq.

Australian journalists are a little left wing, and their bias does color their reporting. It would be nice if their beliefs were to move toward the centre as they could report more accurately. On the whole Australia though has a thoughtful, not easily conned electorate and the media should respect and understand that. And indeed, with the media that we have hopefully more journalists will become like Michelle Grattan and research their stories more and show little bias, pehaps even with a little prompting from Tony Abbott.