I always enjoyed John Quiggin’s columns in the AFR. They were thought-provoking. I was disappointed when his column was terminated. More generally I get much of my news from the AFR. The articles there are punchier and better quality than the mainstream non-bogan press in Victoria such as The Age. The Australian has lost all credibility in recent years and bogan tabloids like the Herald-Sun never had much to begin with.
But the AFR now seems to be following the course of The Australian and the bogan tabloids even if, as yet, to not quite the same extent. This nonsense by Garth Paltridge misrepresenting the science of climate change is an example*. This insidious article argues without a shred of evidence the standard Quadrant/IPA/looney right claim that climate science provides a distorted alarmism.
More generally the number of op eds in the AFR by the IPA nitwits seems also to have increased. Is the IPA dominance because it has created an industry of preparing poorly-written unreasoned critiques of every environmental ands social policy?
The changed tone at the AFR and the ending of the Quiggin column seems to have been associated with the appointment of M. Stutchbury as editor-in-chief of the AFR. Stutchbury has always struck me as one of the better journalists on the right and I would be disappointed if the associations I am suggesting here are real. But there do seem to be persistent campaigns of disinformation being launched in the AFR that do seem out of character. A recurrent thread in editorials and news articles is the alleged high cost of the government’s carbon tax. For example the front page Saturday had the bold claim ‘Threat to energy security. Generators raise alarm on carbon tax’. Generators are getting compensation, can pass higher electricity costs onto customers and face no possibility of carbon leakages through trade. None of this gets mentioned. There is however reference to one ‘unnamed’ company shifting investments to other countries**.
Many of us are focused on the implications of Gina Rinehart taking control of Fairfax and vandalising it with Andrew Bolt-style shock jock journalism. But has a destructive program already begun at least, at AFR? I hope not as it would be a significant reduction in Australia’s quality print media provision.
* The claim is that uncertainties in climate science lead to an inevitable overstatement of the problem – particularly because the ‘left’ of politics can use this campaign as a pretext for global domination. Hence ‘cherry picking’ occurs in valid science that serves international socialism. Scientific journals become biased against politically incorrect contrarian science and the output of sceptics on weblogs becomes undervalued. Moreover, commercial incentives to gain access to funding dominate the ideals of science. It is all a priori claim but then the clinching assertion based on claimed demonstrated truth “But why do mainstream scientists go along with the inevitable overstatement associated with the activism business?” . Who has suggested that they do? Terrible stuff by someone who describes himself a scientist.
** (Update). Here is a response by Sinclair Davidson to this issue. He claims I don’t understand the “impact on the carbon tax on business”. I have (at least) a better understanding than Davidson (not that this says much) because I have at least used GE models to analyse these effects. Here is a short analysis in Australian Economic Review – a more complete analysis is in the forthcoming Economic Record. But the nits at Catallaxy (and the IPA) would prefer to believe the tales of woe from the interest groups that fund the IPA than to think about issues in terms of evidence. The comments on the Davidson Catallaxy post are moronic.
(1899)
More emeritus “no-one cares about me any more so I better be contentious syndrome”.
And how about the ABC. Can’t turn it on without being confronted with the IPA.
I support Douglas. I am sick of the eternal involvement of the IPA on ABC programs. Anyone would think the ABC owned shares in the IPA. Could someone from the ABC please justify and explain why the IPA frequency? Does the ABC really think that the IPA pulls the strings on the LibNats coalition and is therefore highly infuential for one segment of the body politic? I’m not certain that all LibNats would follow the IPA and I would think that neither the majority of the ALP nor all The Greens would either. So why the continual IPA presence? Some of their contributions are childish, juvenile, and smart-ass undergrad. Is this the appeal to similar minds (of five minute memories and no research skills) at the ABC?
do most guest op-eds come to an end? perhaps to make way for the next generation? milton friedman’s lost his op-ed in newsweek in 1984 when he was at the height of his fame.
maybe the price of fame is losing your op-ed? If what is said in the op-ed is already know or has been said or will be said elsewhere before or after the op-ed, exclusivity is lost?
I think Gary Becker started his op-eds at newsweek not long after milton friedman was put out to pasture?
Stutchbury of course was at the Australian for many years. It looks like he’s trying to turn the AFR into a Right-campaigning vehicle, just like the Australian. The rumour at the time was that he had been recruited to take the AFR to the Right. We’ll see if that works.
[...] is HC. He really has no idea about the impact of the carbon tax on business. He is only considering the [...]
[...] is HC. He really has no idea about the impact of the carbon tax on business. He is only considering the [...]
I just read the article and it does not support your claims about the AFR. Sheesh
really Pedro I didn’t find any evidence merely assertions.
Oh dear I think the most generous interpretation of Davidson’s comments is that he mixes up business the plural with business the singular.
Harry most certainly deals with the plural as one would looking at the effects of any policy on business.
I have just read Samuel’s latest rant.
He claims consumers are not spending.
no-one there wanted to look at the national accounts.
household consumption has risen in every quarter over the last 8 quarters. the lowest rise was 0.6%.
Catallaxy has always been an fact free zone but this is very embarrassing.
Garth Paltridge is in his 70′s, Harry. A Max Planck noted: Truth never triumphs—its opponents just die out. Science advances one funeral at a time.”
In every field of science, as Planck noted, it is the aged who hold back progress by trying to shoot down new ideas. It is no coincidence that most of the prominent denialists with science qualifications are retired or semi-retired and in their 70s or 80s.
Ignoring the Catallaxian bottom feeders might also be a good idea, although I must admit poking fun at them can be entertaining in a bear-baiting kind of way.
I didn’t set out to bear-bait these crazies Mel – Davidson commented on my piece and it pinged up here. It is diversion from serious discussion and waste of time to dialogue with this lot.
HC, would this not all be settled by a share price event study?
Is your advice buy, hold or sell?
The AFR is owned by Fairfax whose share price is crumbling for a number of reasons despite Gina Rineharts purchases. You would not see the AFR as a major influence.
Jim,
you are presuming there is an event.
If the pervasive effect of the internet acted like a boiling frog on Faifaxes rivers of gold your event study could well mislead you.
JB, is your advice buy, hold or sell?
one would have to be quite brave to buy equities at present.
Me oh my, yes, Miss Eagle, Miss Lizzie B has to agree. The IPC influence is everywhere at the ABC. So much right wing stuff that a decent leftie can no longer feel at home. We’re all off to hell in a handbasket now. First The Oz, now the AFR, and here comes a somewhat bulky mining-helmeted valkyrie to sing at Fairfax, so aphoristically it’s all over now. Pass me my smelling salts, ladies.
See you on Catallaxy soon then?
… ops, IPA. This alphabet-speak is so confusing.
JB, I am into dollar cost averaging, but part from that, we are in complete agreement.
I’m a drive-by from Catallaxy today, but I’ve been here before.
I stopped reading the AFR some time ago – I still buy Friday’s edition for the Review section (in which the article on Climate Change was printed). The insert is readable, although mostly syndicated stuff, and in fact an article sceptical of climate change (or anything non-progressive) is rare, although there have been some.
With regard to editorial direction, I stopped reading it daily when it became a crusading anti-business paper 2-3 years ago. Quiggin was a symptom that. I then worked in an ASX50 company and they cancelled the head office subscriptions. Stuchbury is slowly making the paper readable to the majority of its intended readership – businesspeople. Deleting Quiggin is also a symptopm of that. I may revert to a daily subscription if he keeps it up.
“cancelled the head office subscriptions”!!
I can see why the new editor had to take the paper in a new direction. falling circulation is more than a hint that your prodcut is going out of favour. adapt or die.
DMS,
you are in lah lah land.
the AFR anti-business. in what way.
It has always been pro-competition.
It is true a lot of business do not like competition.
It may be personal taste JB but while there is some degree of free market support in the AFR I find that they are very uncritical, generally speaking and with the exception of some Op Eds, of (Labor) government policy that is clearly detrimental to business specifically, and/or Australian productivity generally including govt waste.
This can and has included (prior to me stopping reading them) lack of scrutiny of the negative aspects for business of industrial relations relaxation, the stimulus (in my opinion) fiasco, the NBN, mining tax and carbon pricing. There are many arguments supportive of these recent initiatives, but they are clearly not to support business or productivity. The AFR forgot who their audience was.
Add to that a general Fairfax generic soft support for the federal (Labor) govt, which is irritating to me even, even as an ex-Labor voter, and the AFR turned me off. Given their circulation has dropped 10s of thousands over the last few years I can’t be alone (in being “turned off” – others may have fled for different reasons of course).
(“Lah lah land” – I thought this was a friendlier place?)
Jim – yes, the product offering diverged from the expectations (wants?) of the segment of the market they target. Only one path possible when a company does that; any company selling any product.
DMS,
That is a lot different from being anti-business.
There is no such thing as free markets. There are competitive markets which most economists approve of.
I stopped reading the Australian on those issues when I found out they were lying about the issues.
I have never found the AFR doing that.
Thanks JB,
AFR panders to people like you & the Australian panders to people like me. Commercial decision.
you simply do not check anything.
I do.
I have never found The AFR making anything up. I found the Asutralian doing that.
Anyone who thinks the stimulus was a fiasco when we didn’t have a recession, unemployment hardly rose and inflation fell doesn’t want to check anything.
you probably do not read the Economist for similar reasons.
Each to their own.
Is he always like this?
DMS, I honestly didn’t pick up the slant that you did but am interested you saw the AFR in this way. John Quiggin clearly is on the left but I hardly thought he dominated things. If that’s the way business saw the AFR then you may be right.
As an investor I read the AFR for company news – always scan the list of firms at end. I enjoy some of the longer pieces in the Friday edition and would generally read Quiggin, the editorial and the letters page. I like the compact way the general news of the day is presented.
When I subscribed to The Bulletin – a magazine I read for decades and really enjoyed – it had a hard-nosed conservative bias but also some utterly reactionary pieces by people like David McNicholl. The strange thing was that every time I got my copy the first column I looked at was McNicholl. I didn’t agree with him at all but was always curious as to what the old bastard was on about.
For me at least having particular writers who didn’t have my ideological slant has never been a reason to not buy a publication.
I used to loved reading The Bulletin.
I liked David McNicholl too. I read his autobiography. an interesting, but written by a snob.
Newspapers write to their circulations. they give alternative views to tease and to allow people to confirm their beliefs.
Funny how his autobiography didn’t have his famous Telegraph article in it.
A journalist got secret ALP policy for the 1965 state election and handed his reprot to McNicholl his editor.
the next day the Telegraph had it as the main Liberal policy of the election.
McNicholl had completely changed it to Liberal policy the next day.
The Bulletin certainly supported the coalition heavily yet always gave them a hard time.
I remember Peter Samuel humiliating Jim Killen when Killen was Defence minister on channel 9.
mind you this wasn’t hard. Killen was never a details man as we found out.