That Oz didn’t survive Paul Kelly’s departure as EiC, and Tom Switzer buried its carcass.

The Oz also reports that “Like Mr Costello, Mr Hockey has a clear advantage over Mr Turnbull with women voters, young people and Labor supporters.”

So, let’s be clear about this.

Regardless of what the most elite journalists and pollies will insist, the likes of Malcolm Turnball and Tony Abbott, both behind Hockey in the various polling being done, would and should envy Hockey’s ability to amplify a message and then distribute that message, rather than dismissing “the Sunrise way” as somehow lowbrow.

An appeal to the Labor voter is also kind of important when the way to win an election is to deliver a more subtle front and centre message than you’ll ever get in the “passionate” op-ed pages.

And whether or not Hockey has the depth of experience (here, Wayne Swan attempts to brand his opposite Hockey as “sloppy” as referenced by blogotariat at Linked text, I haven’t yet heard anyone in the Media acknowledge whether breadth of experience counts as well, yet I did catch New Zealand Prime Minister John Key tell Radio National’s Monica Attard in late 2008 that:

“I came in 2002 which was an absolute disaster for the National party, you know from adversity sometimes you know great opportunities present themselves and that was really the case with me because you know very shortly I was after coming into a very depleted caucus, I was able to have quite a lot of responsibility in essentially being the finance spokesman and then ultimately win, Don Brash stood down as leader in 2006 to assume the leadership.”

Could it be that Joe Hockey’s gradual elevation does mirror the experience of similar centre-right pollies like the New Zealand Prime Minister?

Wow, fancy a Labor-leaning voter like me putting up a more positive vision for the Liberal Party leadership than a conservative like Andrew Bolt

…From Justin

I actually think the Oz was the first bit of the major newsmedia in this country to play a role that the ultraconservatives like Bolt call ‘Leftwing’ or ‘elite’. Going by what I’ve read from the likes of Bridget Griffen-Foley and Bruce Page, Murdoch’s national paper was questioning the postwar tory hegemony before either the ABC or the Age or Nine.

The treatment of the ‘75 crisis is before my time, but I’ve seen the op-ed pages of that paper go into the toilet over the last decade. As I’ve said before, it will go the way of the Bulletin when Rupert leaves his job. His successor won’t see the sense in continuing to prop up a loss maker that is now so reviled.

Did that make it “paranoid”? More accurately “liberal”, “broadminded”, “non-conservative”, “sceptical” I’d think.

Not to say its character hasn’t changed in mre recent years.
But it still breaks stories. It’s their commentators and Canberra reporters who “let he side down”.

Bah to knee-jerk Oz-deriding.

Jeeez, nothing changes much apart from now they have mud.
Mud and fog.