Perfection. ABC columnist Tim Dunlop offers his reflections on 2010 and takes out Murdoch’s Australian:
If The Australian was a member of your family you would’ve arranged an intervention by now to stop further self-harm. If it was a bloke you would suspect it of having a very small penis. Has anyone ever seen a major institution so addled with insecurities? How else to explain the amount of space they devote to writing about themselves, defending their actions, and justifying their crusades?
The country’s only national newspaper, and one that provides a home for some of our best journalists, turned itself into a laughing stock in 2010.
From their ridiculous ”˜outing’ of a blogger who used a pseudonym (WikiLeaks, eat your heart out!), to the editor’s decision to sue an academic who reported what she heard at a conference, to last week’s feature article in which they attacked every other media outlet for not being enough like them, it has been a stellar year of own-goals for our self-styled most important newspaper evah.
Unfortunately for the Oz, they lack an embarrassment gene and seem to enjoy casting themselves as a victim, so don’t expect much of an improvement in 2011.
Rumour is they will be erecting a paywall around their content sometime next year. Probably a good thing: their particular brand of onanism is best conducted in private.