As Tim Graham wrote in the National Review a few days after Reagan's death in June 2004, Reagan managed to transform America despite an antagonistic media. And critically, Graham noted: "He did it all before Fox News. He did it all before the Rush Limbaugh phenomenon. He did it all before the instant battle cry of his defenders could hit the internet." No doubt, certain politicians, academics and Fairfax journalists will probably avert their eyes at the very mention of Reagan. Yet they are surely in need of a refresher course on Freedom 101, given the new paternalism creeping into Canberra. The latest target of this paternalism is the print media. In fact, the target is narrower than that. The Gillard government and the Greens appear to have News Limited in their sights. Australians should not forget the history to this inquiry. It is a mix of political opportunism, revenge and ideology.
Opportunistic because the idea of an inquiry grew out of the News of the World phone-hacking scandals in Britain despite the absence of any phone hacking in Australia. Recall the Prime Minister announcing the day after the parliamentary testimonies of Rupert Murdoch and his son James in London that News Limited, the Australian arm of Murdoch's media empire, had "hard questions" to answer. By failing to provide details of those hard questions, Gillard's attack was simply an exercise in political expediency.
Vengeful because the Gillard government and the Greens have launched a curious public campaign against News Limited newspapers for daring to report, analyse and criticise its policies. Recall Greens leader Bob Brown, who labelled The Australian the "hate media", and Labor senator Doug Cameron concluding that "the biggest problem for democracy is the behaviour of The Australian and the Murdoch press". And last week Communications Minister Stephen Conroy described The Daily Telegraph as the "worst example" of a campaigning media, best read only for its sports pages. Ideological because there is something in the DNA of left-wing parties and politicians that reveals an illiberal attitude to press freedom in particular and free debate more generally. At the micro level, the Gillard government's focus on the print media is a prime example of its paternalism. Conroy has not ruled out licensing the print media. By succumbing to the Greens, Gillard has effectively agreed with Brown that readers are too dim to read newspapers without an inquiry to guide them. That they are too stupid to discern bias, too influenced by the media and require government-instigated protection from newspapers -- especially those that disagree with the government and the Greens.
At the macro level, the very public protests against News Limited point to an all-too-familiar disregard for open debate. As former foreign minister Alexander Downer told The Australian last week, the Labor government is echoing the ideology of most leftist movements, which "expect a certain level of obedience from the media and when they don't get it they get terribly angry". That anger, so evident in comments from Gillard, her ministers, backbenchers, the Greens and their supporters in the media and academe, has the whiff of totalitarianism. Expecting the media to echo your political agendas, and getting angry when they don't, is rather fascist. Like Reagan, John Howard faced a torrent of media hostility throughout his 12 years as prime minister. Even The Australian went hard against the Howard government on issues such as the bribery scandals at the Australian Wheat Board, the arrest and detention of Mohamed Haneef, the events surrounding the children overboard affair and so on. While Howard ministers corrected inaccuracies, there was no public outcry from the government over bias. Like Reagan, Howard saw it as the friction of freedom. Alas, freedom doesn't count for much in certain left-wing salons. And that's why The Australian's weekend analysis of Robert Manne's Quarterly Essay is so important. Some have asked why this newspaper devoted so much space and so many words to challenge one Melbourne intellectual mostly unknown outside inner-city circles. In fact, contesting Manne's claims of bias against The Australian is an efficient way of contesting a broader leftist mindset long opposed to free debate. On that front, here's a little more history.
The arrival of commentators who challenged left-wing orthodoxy has upset many on the Left. Not just Manne, who has written fondly of the period between the rise of Gough Whitlam and the fall of Paul Keating, when the Australian commentariat was "overwhelmingly of a mildly left-liberal disposition". (Ergo, he bemoans the entry into the national conversation in the mid-1990s of what he calls "the dominant voices", "the attack dogs of the Right".)
Indeed, many on the Left have never quite understood or accepted the notion of diversity and free speech. Barely two weeks after the election of the Rudd government in 2007, people such as Crikey's Guy Rundle and the ABC's Jon Faine suggested we needed to purge conservative columnists at The Australian. It was time to "clean house", said Rundle, because conservatives "have no dialogue with the times". This mob does not really fancy free speech. Unless you agree with their sentiments.
That's why contesting Manne's criticism matters. And Manne and his illiberal comrades are not short on hypocrisy. Those calling for a purge of conservatives were not long ago complaining that Howard had stifled dissent within the media. Howard stifling dissent? No, what the stifling dissent crowd object to is the friction of freedom. Whereas previously people such as Manne had largely dominated the intellectual conversation in this country, the emergence of new voices means they have to share the stage with irritating opinions and analysis that challenge their views.
There are some long faces lamenting Conroy's inquiry will not go far enough. Take Laura Tingle in The Australian Financial Review: "The government has neutered any chance of a decent policy review." In fact, anyone genuinely concerned with open debate ought to be lamenting the Gillard government's eagerness to regulate newspapers. After all, if you don't like a newspaper, you don't have to buy it. And if you want to start up your own, feel free to do so. You can tweet, blog, start up your own online newspaper with little cost. Unless the Gillard government decides that regulation is needed to protect readers from activities at the heart of a modern liberal society. And how terribly illiberal that would be.
