Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Election 2013: The Newspapers

During the election campaign, most mornings, the first site I looked at was the Press Display to see what the front pages were like.  Obviously they were mostly awful. But for future reference and for your edification here are the front pages of The Daily Telegraph, Courier Mail, Herald Sun, Advertiser, The Oz and Sunday Version thereof of every day of the campaign when the front page had a story about the election.

Press daily didn’t used to show the front pages of Fairfax pages until a couple weeks ago, so I only have the pages of The SMH and The Age for the last two weeks.

First The Daily Tele:

I make it 10 pro LNP stories, 11 anti-ALP stories, and 1 sort of pro-ALP (the ALP launch which still had a kicker for Rudd in the headline about Abbot “surging)

DT 1DT 2DT 3DT 4DT 5DT 6DT 7DT 8DT 10DT 11DT 12DT 13DT 14DT 15DT 16DT 17DT 18DT 19DT 20DT 21DT 22DT 23DT 24

The Herald Sun had a lot less coverage. Mostly this is because there were less critical seats in Victoria, and also because Essendon dominated the AFL town. I make it 7 pro-LNP sotries, and 3 anti-ALP. 

HS 1HS 2HS 3HS 4HS 5HS 6HS 7HS 8HS 9HS 10HS 11HS 12

The Courier Mail is another story. Like the Daily Telegraph and Sydney, there were lots of seat sin the QLD that the Liberal Party wanted to win. And so too it seems did the Courier Mail want them to be won.

I’ll rate the first as neutral. But from then on it’s 12 anti-ALP, and 2 pro-LNP.

CM 1CM 2CM 3CM 4CM 5CM 6CM 8CM 9CM 10CM 12CM 13CM 14CM 15CM 16CM 17CM 18CM 19CM 20CM 21

The Advertiser, like the Herald Sun was in a state with few seats expected to change hands. So it wasn’t as big an issue. The Tiser was the most balance. It found room for one pro-ALP article (with a slight slap in the headline). Only 2 anti-ALP ones and 5 pro-LNP

Tiser 0Tiser 1Tiser 2Tiser 3Tiser 4Tiser 5Tiser 6Tiser 7Tiser 8Tiser 9Tiser 10

The Sunday Papers were pretty one sided:

8 anti-ALP, 3 pro-LNP (not including the ones the day after the election)

SDT 0SM 0SM 1SHS 2SDT 1SM 2SDT 2SM 5SM 6SDT 3SM 3SHS 3SDT 4SM 4SM 7

The Oz is tougher to score. Multiple headlines, and often good stories below the fold disguised by misleading headlines:

Oz 1Oz 2Oz 3Oz 4Oz 5Oz 6Oz 7Oz 8Oz 9Oz 10Oz 11Oz 13Oz 14Oz 15Oz W 1Oz 16Oz 17Oz  18Oz 19Oz 20Oz W 2Oz 21Oz 22Oz 23Oz 24Oz 25Oz W 3Oz 26

The Age is also tough. The headlines are much less emotive than the news.corp

Age 1Age 2Age 3Age 4Age 5AGe 6Age 7Age 8Age 9Age 10Age 11

The SMH is much the same as The Age

SMH 1SMH 2SMH 3SMH 4SMH 5SMH 6SMH 7SMH 8SMH 9SMH 10SMH 11SMH 12SMH 13

So there you go. That was the election 2013 from our unbiased media…