I have had the privilege of working on a nice little letter to WA News today. It seems that the West Australian’s blatant bias during the WA Election extends beyond its own pages, and into the Kalgoorlie Miner.
The Greens’ candidate for Kalgoorlie, Peter Burger, has literally been cropped out of a photo in the WA News-owned Kalgoorlie Miner. This follows a deliberate campaign by the West of excluding and ridiculing the Greens in the one-paper-state.
Here is an open letter that we are trying to break into alternative news, such as blogs and Crikey. Do your bit if you can 🙂
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE KALGOORLIE MINER/WA NEWS
Dear Editor
I refer to your Election Countdown article on the candidates’ breakfast
(Kalgoorlie Miner, 23/2/05, p5). It appears that the Greens candidate,
Peter Burger, has been excluded from the group photo, despite being
present at the breakfast and having his photograph taken several times
by the Kalgoorlie Miner.
I am sure that you are aware of the West Australian’s blatant
misrepresentation and exclusion of the WA Greens in their coverage of
the state election, to the point where the Greens actually needed to
purchase space in the paper to apologise to the readership on behalf of
the editors. We have accepted that West will accept our money but not
our opinions, but we are most surprised that the Kalgoorlie Miner would
go so far as to actually chop a candidate out of a photograph.
Has there been a directive from the Perth office to exclude coverage of
Greens candidates in the State election, or have the team at the Miner
arrived at this decision on their own?
This media bias cannot continue without question. The people of WA are
becoming increasingly concerned about the environment, are becoming
disillusioned with the major parties’ approach to social justice,
education and health, and are angry about the global decisions being
made on their behalf. I suspect that WA News is more interested in
representing the concerns of business than the interests of the citizens
of WA.
With people having greater access to alternative media via the internet
(http://wa.greens.org.au), it is only a matter of time before the
Greens’ message gets out. Shame they won’t be reading about it in the
paper.
