"It is just running a campaign on regime change," he said.
"As John Hartigan [News Limited Australia CEO] admitted in the papers on the weekend, arising from the conference they had in Carmel, they decided to do more issues-based campaigning.
"I think the Daily Telegraph is probably the worst of the examples at the moment where it is running a campaign."
Senator Conroy said Labor voters should continue to read the Daily Telegraph - but for its football coverage, not politics.
"If you are a Labor voter out there reading the Daily Telegraph you should keep reading it for the footy coverage but you shouldn't take seriously any of its front-page headlines," he said.
"It's decided it wants to have an election. Ignore the fact that we had an election nine or 10 months ago. Ignore the fact the Australian people put in place a parliament with a minority government. It has demanded that it knows best and that people should just fall into line with what the Daily Telegraph [says].
Senator Conroy accused the newspaper of ignoring the basics of journalism - accuracy and balance.
"The problem you have when you run campaigns in newspapers is that you are not prepared to give equal coverage to both sides of the argument," he said.
"But the Daily Telegraph is interested in distorting the debate, it's interested in demanding an election campaign purely intended to try and get rid of the Government."
"This is a democracy. It is entitled to choose to go down the path it's going, and equally people like myself and Wayne Swan are entitled to point out their coverage is biased," he said.
On Friday, Mr Swan began the attack on the newspaper, describing it as "unbalanced".
"The Daily Telegraph in Sydney is constantly opposing a price on carbon. It doesn't care how it does it," Mr Swan told reporters.
"There are some outlets that have a political agenda. They've made that very clear. They say it openly. They just shouldn't pretend that they're balanced."
No comments:
Post a Comment