Bias in the press - a good example!

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markis10

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I have been critical in the past of various outlets in the news in terms of accuracy of stories and lack of news worthiness, as a consumer thats a right I have, I am by no means a journalist per se! However I reckon the following takes the cake when it comes to bias and what's newsworthy as featured currently on news.com.au:

NEWS.jpg

An airlines takes a $244m loss and you give it prominence while news that a competitor posts a $2.7B loss is just a related story.....huh? I suppose its all about different priorities ;). I suppose as you move to a subscription model, its what more people care about that gets factored in to what is actually the news!
 
Well most here on AFF would think a QF story much more important than a Fairfax story.Fairfax certainly is irrelevant to me.
But isn't stating that a journalist is biased stating the bleeding obvious?
 
I have been critical in the past of various outlets in the news in terms of accuracy of stories and lack of news worthiness, as a consumer thats a right I have, I am by no means a journalist per se! However I reckon the following takes the cake when it comes to bias and what's newsworthy as featured currently on news.com.au:

View attachment 9138

An airlines takes a $244m loss and you give it prominence while news that a competitor posts a $2.7B loss is just a related story.....huh? I suppose its all about different priorities ;). I suppose as you move to a subscription model, its what more people care about that gets factored in to what is actually the news!

I think the heading of this thread is not correct at all, this is not 'bias', it's about what is considered newsworthy.

This is not about 'bias' Markis10 it's about what most readers care most about. Most readers of news.com.au will simply be more interested in Qantas than Fairfax. Fairfax is not only a much smaller company but it 'touches' Australians much less than Qantas, it really is active only in a few cities, while Qantas is this big iconic brand which touches almost every Australian, and as you would know almost everybody has an opinion on Qantas too. So this is much more 'news' than the Fairfax results.

Another thing, this is also about the audience, and the audience of news.com.au would be more interested in Qantas than Fairfax. But the audience of AFF would of course be more interested in Qantas. This is why I think when you make a judgement about what is news and what is not, you need to consider the audience. What is 'not news' to AFF might still be news to someone reading the mainstream media or AusBT (to pick an example you have recently used) or other websites and publications which are written for a wider audience than AFF.

I come to AFF to get specific information which I would not find through other publications, but this doesn't mean that other publications do not also have something to offer me.
 
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Fairfax is not only a much smaller company but it 'touches' Australians much less than Qantas, it really is active only in a few cities, while Qantas is this big iconic brand which touches almost every Australian, and as you would know almost everybody has an opinion on Qantas too. So this is much more 'news' than the Fairfax results.

Much smaller company, LOL, if QF posted a $2.7B loss, would they still be around? FXP had a very similar market cap to QAN in November and they are hardly active in only a few cities, Fin Review anyone, or for instance their metro radio assets:

Magic 1278 Melbourne
4BH Brisbane
96fm Perth
2UE Sydney
3AW Melbourne
4BC Brisbane
6PR Perth

You might be surprised how big a foot print they have, especially regionally and into NZ, explains Gina's interest, even if you feel the public dont care about their local news or radio from Mandurah to the Murray and up to Katherine!

http://www.fairfaxmedia.com.au/our-assets/PublicationsListfor2011.pdf
 
Yeah, LOL, I forgot about the Fin, but you know what, it has such a tiny audience relatively speaking that this goes back to the impact that Fairfax has versus Qantas, ditto for the radio stations. Walk up to almost anybody in the street and ask them about Fairfax and I reckon they won't know it until you say SMH or The Age or they simply will say 'yeah, dunno, I read the Tele' or something like that, they don't care about it. Ask them about Qantas and get ready to hear their opinion, because they will have one, they will have a story to tell about where they think QF is going, and that's because Qantas means more to them.
 
I understand where you're coming from however I think the slant reflects the community interest in Qantas as the once national (maybe better now called the dominant?) carrier. Fairfax, on the other hand, is but a player in a very diverse media landscape.

Big difference in losses though; I suspect very much I'd prefer to be QF than Fairfax.

An interesting twist too: the report ostensibly downplaying Fairfax's loss was by their bitter enemy, News; so really quite unlikely that News would be intending to give Fairfax anything like a free ride.

I think the most likely explanation is as several posts here have indicated: mass media catering to mass interest.
 
Maybe bias was the wrong word, as things turned put today there was nothing really new apart from the 787 changes, and the market welcomed the news, but for two companies with similar values a year ago, they are dramatically different results. No doubt a case of telling us what we want to hear, rather than telling us what we should here.
 
Qantas suffers the same fate as Telstra. It's an easy target and it's held (IMO for no good reason), to a higher standard then other companies. Why should Qantas be held to a higher standard than say Virgin or Tiger??? And I'd like to hear good reasons, not "they're part of Australia's history" and "because they are so big". So what? They are operating in the same environment and they are in the same business. Even our politicians say that Qantas has a "special place" in Australia to justify holding the line on the QF Sale Act which only serves to make the QF business less competitive.

Just because they were government owned (17 years ago) and because they used to have a monopoly, should not change the playing field.

What gets on my goat is that Qantas can seemingly do nothing right in the minds of many. For example, everyone complained that the cabins were old and needed updating, so they upgrade the interiors and people complain because they took out a toilet. Or people complain that they want to fly one stop to more places, so they start forming alliances and people complain they are cutting routes. When Virgin delayed its order for 737NGs in July, I don't recall a media frenzy or 9 pages on AFF talking about how it means the end of them. Yet QF makes a similar BUSINESS decision and they get lambasted! When Virgin announced the Etihad, SQ and Air NZ alliances, it all good news and pats on the back for JB. Yet QF start thinking about EK alliances and again, it's the death of QFi.

Why the double standard??
 
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Qantas suffers the same fate as Telstra.

One does wonder why the media holds others to higher standards than they themselves can meet.

I would suggest that Qantas and Fairfax share the same fate. Legacy businesses that need to transform to survive. Of course the media don't want us to focus on their own problems!
 
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