2. Key Findings
2.1 Coverage of Climate Change Policy
Overall, negative coverage of the Gillard government’s carbon policy across ten newspapers outweighed positive coverage across ten Australian newspapers by 73% to 27%. (Note: After neutral items were discounted). See Section 4.5, Content of articles: Stance towards the 2011 Carbon Reduction Policy
All papers contained some positive and a substantial amount of neutral material. The highest level of neutral articles was found in The Age and The Mercury, the lowest level was found in the NT News and The Daily Telegraph. See Section 4.5, Content of articles: Stance towards the 2011 Carbon Reduction Policy
After neutral items were discounted, negative coverage (82%) across News Ltd newspapers far outweighed positive (18%) articles. This indicates a very strong stance against the carbon policy adopted by the company that controls most Australian metropolitan newspapers, and the only general national daily. See Section 4.5, Content of articles: Stance towards the 2011 Carbon Reduction Policy
By comparison, Fairfax was far more balanced in its coverage of the policy than News Ltd publications with 57% positive articles outweighing 43% negative articles. See Section 4.5, Content of articles: Stance towards the 2011 Carbon Reduction Policy
The Age was more positive (67%) rather than negative towards the policy than any other newspaper. The Daily Telegraph was the most negative (89%) rather than positive of newspapers. See Section 4.5, Content of articles: Stance towards the 2011 Carbon Reduction Policy
Headlines were less balanced than the actual content of articles. See Section 4.4 Headline stance.
Neutral articles were more likely to be headlined negative (41%) than positive (19%). See Section 4.6, Carbon Tax or Carbon Policy? Defining the debate
Readers relying on metropolitan newspapers living in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane received more coverage of carbon policy issues than readers in Perth, Adelaide and Darwin. See Section 4.2 Number of articles
The Australian gave far more space to the coverage of climate change than any other newspaper. Its articles were coded 47% negative, 44% neutral and 9% positive. When neutrals were discounted, there were 84% negative articles compared to 17% positive. See Section 4.5, Content of articles: Stance towards the 2011 Carbon Reduction Policy
2.2 Language Used to Define the Debate
The words used to describe issues influence the way it is discussed. The carbon emissions reduction policy was originally referred to as the carbon pricing policy, although from the beginning, the Opposition leader Tony Abbott from referred to it as a ‘tax’. Under questioning, Prime Minister Julia Gillard agreed on February 24 that the policy would be “effectively like a tax” (7.30 Report, 24 Feb 2011).
The articles were coded on whether they referred to the carbon reduction scheme as a ‘price’, ‘tax’ or both.
Over half the articles only used the word ‘tax’ (51%), 11% used ‘price’ and another 39% referred to both. Once again there are differences between Fairfax and News Ltd.’s metropolitan newspapers. See Section 4.6, Carbon Tax or Carbon Policy? Defining the debate
77% of The Daily Telegraph, 70% of The Courier Mail and 62% of the Herald Sun articles referred only to ‘tax’, whereas only 29% of articles in The Age and 37% of articles in The Sydney Morning Herald did so. See Section 4.6, Carbon Tax or Carbon Policy? Defining the debate
The Australian used only ‘tax’ in 44% of articles and only ‘price’ in 11% of cases. See Section 4.6, Carbon Tax or Carbon Policy? Defining the debate
The repeated description of the scheme as a ‘tax’ tended to reinforce a perception that the policy was aimed at individual consumers rather than large companies. See Section 4.6, Carbon Tax or Carbon Policy? Defining the debate
2.3 Framing of Arguments Against the Policy
Negative arguments against the policy were strongly focused on the impact of the policy on The Australian economy. Some papers placed more emphasis on broader issues such as fears of reduced investment and job losses, while other focused on rising prices. See Section 4.7, Dominant themes in coverage
2.4 Sources in the Australian Media
These findings are based on an analysis of the first three sources quoted in all news and features.
11% of news and features quoted no source and 30% of the rest quoted only one source. The claims by many single sources about the likely impact of the carbon policy were not tested against the views of other sources. Only 42% of the rest of the articles included more than two sources. See Section 4.8, Sources quoted
Political sources were used more frequently than any other sources (54% of all sources), reflecting the intensity of the political debate. See Section 4.8, Sources quoted
Federal Labor sources were 28% of all first sources. See Section 4.8, Sources quoted
Business sources (23%) received greater representation overall than Coalition political sources (18%). See Section 4.8, Sources quoted
Fossil fuel lobby and other big business sources opposed to the policy were very strongly represented, often without any critique or second source. See Section 4.8, Sources quoted
Clean energy and other businesses sources in favour of the tax received low coverage, particularly in News Ltd papers. They complained during the campaign that they were excluded and adopted specific strategies to address this with some success. See Section 4.8, Sources quoted
Although they played a key role in negotiations, The Australian Greens received low coverage (5% of all sources). See Section 4.8, Sources quoted
Business sources (23%) receive more coverage than all Australian civil society sources together including unions, NGOS, think tanks, activists, members of the public, religious spokespeople, scientists and academics (17%). See Section 4.8, Sources quoted
Business sources quoted 4 or more times over the 6-month period were quoted being negative towards the policy in almost 80% of occasions. Many Australian readers would have been left with the impression that the nearly the entire business community was opposed to the carbon price policy. In fact this was far from the truth. See Section 4.8, Sources quoted
Bluescope Steel was quoted 71 times, substantially more than any other business source. This was more than the number of times all NGOs and scientists combined were quoted. See Section 4.8, Sources quoted
Figure 17 also shows that peak councils such as the Business Council of Australia, Minerals Councils of Australia and Australian Coal Association achieved very strong representation. See Section 4.8, Sources quoted
Academics and scientists were also poorly represented. See Section 4.8, Sources quoted
2.5 Editorials
23% of editorials were positive, compared to 15% of positive articles in the entire sample. See Section 4.9, Editorials
The Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun, The Courier Mail and The West Australian were all clearly editorially opposed to the policy. From the point of view of editorials, The Age was the most positive publication. See Section 4.9, Editorials
2.6 Opinion
Journalists or regular columnists wrote 75% of opinion pieces. See Section 4.10, Opinion
59% of that commentary was negative, 23% neutral and 18% positive. See Section 4.10, Opinion
All newspapers carried some positive commentary. See Section 4.10, Opinion
The Herald Sun opinion writers were overwhelmingly negative (96%). The Courier Mail (89%), The Australian (85%), The Daily Telegraph (85%), The NT News (85%) and The West Australian (85%) were also very negative in their commentary. (When neutral figures were removed). See Section 4.10, Opinion
The Mercury was more balanced in its commentary than other News Ltd papers. See Section 4.10, Opinion
Andrew Bolt and Terry McCrann, who are sceptical towards the scientific consensus on anthropomorphic climate change, published more opinion pieces on the carbon pricing policy than any other commentators. See Section 4.10, Opinion
Together, opinion writers who are sceptical of the scientific consensus on climate change including McCrann, Bolt, Tim Blair, Miranda Devine, Piers Akerman and Christopher Pearson accounted for at least 21% of all words of commentary published by journalists and regular commentators in the ten newspapers over this period. Their columns are prominently featured online, often accompanied by highly negative cartoons and illustrations. See Section 4.10, Opinion
Opinion pieces in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age were more evenly distributed between negative and positive than News Ltd opinion pieces. See Section 4.10, Opinion
The Age was the only paper to publish more positive commentary (59%) compared to negative (41%). See Section 4.10, Opinion
Fairfax newspapers did not publish any opinion articles by climate sceptics about climate policy, during this period. See Section 4.10, Opinion