Day one of the election campaign and the tabloids have got some great front pages. The Daily Telegraph leaves us in no doubt what it thinks.
To a large extent this must reflect the views of its Sydney based audience - we’ve been hearing a lot about the anger directed towards Labor over issues such as boat arrivals and corruption at the State level.
The Brisbane based Courier Mail has a neutral front page.
This is an accurate and very concise summary of each of the speeches we heard late yesterday. If Rudd’s blurb appears weak that’s because he is starting from a position of weakness - to win the election he must win the campaign. He said as much yesterday.
The difference between the two pages is that Queenslanders are probably not overtly angry about specific policies. Rudd is a local candidate. There is talk that Labor might pick up seats in Queensland. Unlike most elections where government can sandbag marginal seats Labor will have to pick up seats to win. So this page also reflects the views of the Brisbane audience.
The objective in each case is to attract eye-balls and sell newspapers (actually advertising). The Daily Telegraph imagines that it is going to attract angry eye-balls while the Courier Mail doesn’t see its audience as being angry.
How does this insight help either political party? Well it doesn’t much. They already know what the editors know - but it does give observers an insight into local conditions.
So rather than simply argue the Daily Telegraph is campaigning for the Coalition we should see this as a reflection of Sydney views.
Long story short: Don’t shoot the messenger.