Enough with the ”but Rupert Murdoch” excuses. He’s a decrepit old fascist. His newspapers lose over $1 billion a year. Sky News has a channel record share of less than 2%. The only thing keeping him viable in Australia, apart from government handouts, is broadcasting sport. (1/5)

The only real influence Murdoch has over voters is hiring a gaggle of paid propagandists, ex-MPs who can’t find employment elsewhere, and/or certifiable lunatics to produce copy that wouldn’t get them a job writing scripts for Chris Lilley. (2/5)

This is the evil genius who manipulates our democracy? Bullshit.
Sure Murdoch dictates policy to the LNP but Australians put them in government so he could. Why? He didn’t hold a gun to (at least most) people’s heads. He pretty much just asked. (3/5)

There’s our problem. For the most part Australians are wilfully obedient to the whims of the powerful and greedy. We always have been. Murdoch, and the rest of the Australian media, don’t manipulate us because they’re good at it, they manipulate us because it’s easy. (4/5)

We’ve never faced up to that, and until we do and start fighting election campaigns with that in mind, we’ll always be blaming some two-bit billionaire con artist for our shitty governments. (5/5)