Our MSM is biased

and this is not simply because I do not like a lot of what is being said at present.

Not so long ago I pointed out that one high profile presenter at our ABC left, stood for election and was elected. She lasted just one term. In that term I suspect she discovered that she had less influence as a mere backbencher than she had on screen. I suspect the party she was affiliated with found the same thing. She has never recovered that level of influence over the rest of us.

"But we have given both sides an equal amount of time," was an answer I once got to a very lopsided campaign. The person I was challenging tried to tell me that an equal amount of talking about both major parties was enough to make it "fair" and "balanced". When I pointed out that what they said and how they said it also had to be taken into account they walked off. They knew as well as I did that their coverage was biased.

In the current election campaign it is easy to see "bias" on all sides if you happen to be a supporter of the one of the other candidates. The media on the other hand will tell you that a hundred "undecided" voters at the "first debate" will give you a better idea of what people are thinking than around twenty-thousand people who read a Murdoch brand newspaper. 

Dare to suggest that those "undecided" voters were not really undecided at all and you get told "yes they were". Ask how they were selected and get told, "We follow the well established guidelines". Really, they were "undecided" and you knew how to select them so as to give a balanced cross section? Anyone who knew why they were being asked for the purpose of the debate only had to lie anyway.

People lie when answering poll questions. It is why the "pollsters" sometimes get it wrong. What they are hoping for is that (a) enough people will not lie and (b) those that do lie will cancel out the others who are also lying. Sometimes there will be so many people for or against an issue that the polls will give a very clear answer but they are not the sort of polls those in authority are interested in. 

Despite all this the polls will continue right up to election day. The media will twist and turn the figures and try to convince us that the present caretaker government should be returned to office. They will tell us sometimes that this "might" be with a majority and at other times that they will be in "coalition" with a minor party or dependent on an array of "independents". Those journalists, presenters and columnists with strong views will go on attempting to influence our vote.

We can look on this as part of their job - or we can damn well make up our own minds. It just becomes more difficult when they keep twisting things. After all they are "wordsmiths" and it is their role to convince us that "red is blue" and "blue is red".