Talk:The Age/Archive 1

removed this from the article:
 * Since 2004 their stance has mildly changed to be more far-leaning to leftist views and ideologies.

until a sources cited and/or evidence provided. clarkk 15:40, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

removed this from the article:

"The Canberra Times".

The Canberra Times is not a Fairfax newspaper. --Pdwerryh 12:41, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Gerard Henderson sacked:

He states in no uncertain terms here

http://www.crikey.com.au/articles/2005/06/09-1542-8829.html

that he feels this was a politically motivated decision, and gives some compelling reasons

as to why The Age should be considered a Left wing rag.

Update of the 'centrist' position in order? --HC44 12 Jun 2005

The "Guardian on the Yarra" (and other one-liners)
The only place I can find the "Guardian on the Yarra" line is in Henderson's piece on Crikey. And I quote: "In my view, turning The Age into “The Guardian on the Yarra” is bad for the political debate in Australia. It is also a counter-productive commercial decision..." Unless Jaspan or some other senior editor (or, hell, even Leunig) has actually made such a claim in public, it doesn't belong in the article.

The line about "advocacy journalism" added by Newshounder ("The Age is a left-wing newspaper, engaging in advocacy journalism on behalf of many causes including environmentalism, atheism and opposing business.") has been removed pending supporting evidence, and, I hope, an explanation of what, exactly, "advocacy journalism" is (not running enough conservative opinion columns? Paid advertorials for the Greens?).

(While we're at it, I also question raw sales as a method for comparing the success of The Age and The Herald Sun -- the whole point of a tabloid, crudely put, is to sell as many papers as possible, while broadsheets aim for smaller but more affluent markets. As for profits, I'd be more interested in margins. And I'm kind of curious about the exact numbers involved as well.)

&mdash; J.K. 14:48, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree with JK, tabloids and broadsheet newspapers are overlapping, but different markets and businesses. The main figures used to compare them are circulation (no of papers sold) and readership (estimate of total number of people who read each paper). You can check the Sun Herald stats or the Age stats, but both put their own spin on statistics.--Takver 17:37, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

AB readership is another stat that is used to compare readership - I couldn't find a succinct definition of exactly what AB readership is, though.--Takver 17:59, 24 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, Crikey used to overuse it ("the key A-B demographic" was the usual term) describing its readership in order to flog ads in its 5,000-weak paid e-mail list. I'd assume it refers to people richer, classier, more influential and generally bigger wankers (pardon my French) than us average plebs, and therefore entirely worth paying high rates to be seen by fewer people; the first few Google hits are all advertising or marketing reports which back this up without ever actually defining the term. Now how shall we dress that up for an article? ;o) J.K. 00:18, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

This article
This is an appallingly bad article and is being subjected to some very silly editing. Whether the Age is or is not "left-wing" is hardly the most important thing to say about a major newspaper. Its editorials are usually moderately liberal. It certainly runs some "left-liberal" columnists and opinion pieces, and it continues to publish revolting Leunig cartoons, but it also runs columnists like Tony Parkinson and Pamela Bone who take contrary views, and 99% of the paper is not commentary but perfectly straight news reporting. In any case, the Age's politics very nicely reflect the dominant views of its readership - the tertiary educated Melbourne upper middle class. As to Henderson, he is a very bad columnist even if one agrees with his politics, as I sometimes do. He is a shallow, pompous egotist who pursues personal grudges in the guise of high principle. I could hire a dozen better conservative columnists if I wanted one. This article needs to become a proper article about the history and influence of the Age, not just a forum for silly name-calling. Adam 01:05, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Endorsed Howard on 2004 elections?
As far as I remember it was strongly pro-Latham and strongly anti-Howard. What article do you refer to? abakharev 06:30, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Regardless of what their initial coverage was, The Age did endorse Howard. There was some controversy surrounding it at the time, and some accusations of interference from Jaspan or someone higher, as it marked a change from what they had been expected to do. Ambi 07:39, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
 * To be clear, the relevant endorsements here are the ones most papers give before elections in their main editorial columns. J.K. 12:39, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Which almost nobody reads and which even fewer people are influenced by. Newspapers exercise influence by the selection and presentation of news and opinion, not through their editorials. Adam 14:10, 25 July 2005 (UTC)


 * True, though they are quoted a lot more often than their readership would imply, presumably because it's not open to subjective judgment -- either they said "we support Party X" or they didn't -- not to mention that it saves critics the trouble of actually reading the bloody paper every day. J.K. 06:22, 26 July 2005 (UTC)