I found a humourous side note to comments by the editor of The Australian newspaper, Chris Mitchell, in which he accused Stephen Conroy of having a “hissy fit” in regards to coverage of the National Broadband Network (NBN) in his paper.
| Conroy Having ‘Hissy Fit’ Over The Australian’s NBN Coverage |
As much as I do hate to agree with Stephen Conroy – (the concept itself scares me) – he is absolutely correct. Almost every single day, The Australian carries a number of stories with nothing but broad attacks against the planned network. Barely anything the other way, and hardly balanced, unbiased reporting.
It is astonishing that columnist Mark Day was able to get his piece supporting the NBN and thinly attacking the paper for its position on the network, into the paper at all.
“To my mind, [the NBN] is visionary, transformational and utterly essential to meet national aspirations to be a 21st century smart country, rather than simply a quarry. I am surprised by two things: the manner in which the NBN has morphed from a generally accepted project under Kevin Rudd to a political hot potato for the Gillard minority government, and the growing doubts being expressed even by those best positioned to benefit from the network.”
“Included in the latter is this newspaper. As the number of digital media services grows exponentially and file sizes get bigger and bigger, media companies will demand first-rate distribution platforms. Quibbling about the value and worthiness of the NBN build seems to me to be short-sighted.”
Of course to maintain his sense of control, editor Mitchell has managed to disable comments on the original article in which he accused Conroy of the so-called “hissy fit”, lest someone manages to agree that the coverage by The Australian is exactly as Conroy describes.
Going home with your bat and ball are you Chris? Just report the news, and stop trying to BE the news. Oh, and start giving equal coverage to both sides of the debate.
That’d be nice too.