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Speaker 1: Welcome to Ask Fear and Greed, where we take your

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Speaker 1: questions and do our best to answer them. I'm Michael Thompson,

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Speaker 1: and good afternoon, Sean Aylmer Hi, Michael, Sean. Today's question

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Speaker 1: is it's a bit different today. Today's question it comes

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Speaker 1: from Scott and he has sent it in via LinkedIn

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Speaker 1: and he says, I've been reading about the decision by

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Speaker 1: the Washington Post not to endorse a candidate for the

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Speaker 1: US election. Do newspapers normally do this? Do we do

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Speaker 1: it here? I haven't really noticed it much in the past.

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Speaker 1: It is a good question, Sean. I thought it was

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Speaker 1: a good question for you, considering you are well, you're

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Speaker 1: a big fan obviously of US politics. You have worked

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Speaker 1: in the US in for Australian media, but you've also

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Speaker 1: worked in Australian newspapers, so you are probably the most

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Speaker 1: qualified person I know to answer this question right. Well,

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Speaker 1: I've really said to us said you're happy. Broadly, newspapers

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Speaker 1: do come down on the side of someone. So if

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Speaker 1: you look at the Financial Review, the Australian, The Age,

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Speaker 1: the Sydney Morning Herald, the laed Advertiser, those organizations of the

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Speaker 1: West Australian they will tend to come down in an editorial,

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Speaker 1: often the weekend or a week before the election in

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Speaker 1: Australia and say this.

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Speaker 2: Is who you should vote for. That is tradition. In

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Speaker 2: the US, it's exactly the same. They do tend to

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Speaker 2: come down. The conservative media comes on one side, the

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Speaker 2: liberal media comes on the other. So the bottom line

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Speaker 2: is yet that does tend to happen. But it's a

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Speaker 2: lot of fun because I used to run the Sydney

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Speaker 2: Morning Herald and at one point, about six months out

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Speaker 2: from the election, we decided that we probably knew which

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Speaker 2: side we would support, and our op ed op ed

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Speaker 2: writer came and said, you know how we're going to

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Speaker 2: support this person. Well, we've been writing all this other stuff,

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Speaker 2: so we're going to have to sort of change our

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Speaker 2: view a little bit over the next six months. And

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Speaker 2: so we then spent six months changing our view on

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Speaker 2: things so that when we actually supported the person that

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Speaker 2: we supported, it was appropriate and people couldn't say, hey, hey,

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Speaker 2: you know, you've changed your mind all of a sudden.

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Speaker 2: It's funny. My counterpart at the age got in all

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Speaker 2: sorts of trouble because he supported the other person at

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Speaker 2: the time, and not many people were happy about that,

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Speaker 2: and there was all sorts of internal dealings with the

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Speaker 2: board and things like that.

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Speaker 1: Can I ask you about that process, Sean, of how

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Speaker 1: you decided who you were going to support, because I

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Speaker 1: imagine it would be an assessment of various policies, the

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Speaker 1: projected kind of impact, kind of how long different parties

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Speaker 1: have been in power for. I imagine there's a whole

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Speaker 1: lot of things that go into it. It's not just ah,

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Speaker 1: I like the look of this guy.

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Speaker 2: You're right, but there's one other factor which I'm almost

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Speaker 2: ashamed to admit it. Right, you want to pick the winner.

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Speaker 2: So if if you have got an editorial and there's

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Speaker 2: going to be a clear winner and you say vote

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Speaker 2: for the other person, and that's like in our instance

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Speaker 2: it was clear who was going to win the election,

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Speaker 2: it's sort of you don't really want to be on

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Speaker 2: the losing side. But broadly it is about policies and

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Speaker 2: you will find the Citney Morning Herald in the state election.

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Speaker 2: Last with the recent state election where Chris means one,

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Speaker 2: the Cinnemony Herald campaign ferociously around gaming advertising and so

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Speaker 2: rather than have a really strong view on which side

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Speaker 2: they had a really strong it had a really strong

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Speaker 2: view on particular policies. So you do get that a

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Speaker 2: little bit. But everyone comes down on one side or

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Speaker 2: the other. Always want to be on the winning side.

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Speaker 2: It should be on the policies and stuff like that.

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Speaker 2: But you also, I mean, you can imagine some of

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Speaker 2: the journalists, they're kind of they lean one way or

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Speaker 2: the other, and these rosist debates you have very funny Well.

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Speaker 1: Can I ask you then in that case, what you

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Speaker 1: make of what is happening in the US then, because

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Speaker 1: obviously with Jeff Bezos, the Amazon billionaire who owned the

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Speaker 1: Washington Post, and it appears to have been a decision

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Speaker 1: that he made because he's also then pender and op

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Speaker 1: ed as to why he has decided to stop the

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Speaker 1: newspaper from endorsing a candidate, and he's basically said, it

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Speaker 1: is it is about independence, and it is about being impartial,

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Speaker 1: and we want to actually, we want readers to see

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Speaker 1: our newspaper as being an impartial kind of a conveyor

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Speaker 1: of news. And obviously the editorial team was not happy

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Speaker 1: about that. There are a number of senior resignations from there.

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Speaker 1: What do you think about this? Is it a move

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Speaker 1: that we might see happening here, this kind of push

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Speaker 1: to make the newspaper's more impartial or is it something

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Speaker 1: that could benefit Donald Trump, which is a lot of

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Speaker 1: the criticism of that move.

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Speaker 2: It's not unprecedented like that has happened in Australian newspapers before.

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Speaker 2: They say we're not going to we're going to be independent.

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Speaker 2: I think it's sort of a soft way out because

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Speaker 2: mostly op ed pages, if you read the Wall Street

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Speaker 2: Journal op ed pages, they are totally different to the

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Speaker 2: news pages. They are extremely right wing and that's their opinion.

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Speaker 2: I like it when media outlets have an opinion, and

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Speaker 2: the op ed pages and the leaders are the places

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Speaker 2: for that. However, Jeff Bezil saying's the paper, he can

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Speaker 2: do what he wants with it, really and so you know,

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Speaker 2: I think it's a bit extreme to actually resign. You

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Speaker 2: can kind of get on your high horse and say

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Speaker 2: how dare you? But there'd be a bunch of people

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Speaker 2: within the Washington Post who would disagree with whatever the

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Speaker 2: decision was, Democrat, Republican, or you know, don't favor anyone.

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Speaker 2: So it's a healthy church. And I think I like

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Speaker 2: the idea that papers come down or media outlets come

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Speaker 2: down on one side or another, but they are influential.

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Speaker 2: What I think diference now to when I was running

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Speaker 2: newspapers other Taylor Swifts of the world, so ten years ago,

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Speaker 2: and prior to that, a newspaper editorial was really influential. Today,

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Speaker 2: Taylor Swifts as influential as any newspaper editorial would ever be,

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Speaker 2: particularly from millennials and younger And so in some ways,

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Speaker 2: that whole idea of getting Taylor Swift's endorsement and a

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Speaker 2: bunch of other celebrity endorsements, which certainly Carmla Harris has

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Speaker 2: done better. Mind you, Donald Trump got hul Cogan, So

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Speaker 2: credit where credits due.

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Speaker 1: So there are big names on both sides, that's right.

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Speaker 2: I think that endorsement in some ways replaces what newspapers

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Speaker 2: used to be able to do in terms of influence

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Speaker 2: at least.

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Speaker 1: All right, I think, Scott, well, I hope we have

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Speaker 1: answered your question. Look, and it ended up just using

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Speaker 1: this for my own education. I find this whole thing fascinating,

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Speaker 1: and the fact that you actually say that they were,

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Speaker 1: that newspapers were influential in that because I wouldn't have

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Speaker 1: thought that too many people would change their vote necessarily

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Speaker 1: based on an editorial in the paper, but as you say,

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Speaker 1: it's probably also then it might be the six months

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Speaker 1: leading up to it and the editorials as well, and

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Speaker 1: the information that's conveyed through those as well, rather than

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Speaker 1: just that one editorial saying this is the side that

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Speaker 1: we're coming down on. So anyway, great question, Scott, and

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Speaker 1: great answer, Sean. Thank you, Michael, Thank you Scott, and

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Speaker 1: don't forget if you have your own question that you

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Speaker 1: would like us to answer, it can be as broad

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Speaker 1: as you like. I mean, obviously this one was pretty broad.

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Speaker 1: You can send it in via LinkedIn, as Scott did,

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Speaker 1: or you can head along to Facebook or Instagram or

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Speaker 1: go to Fear and Greed dot com dot au if

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Speaker 1: you like. I'm Michael Thompson and this is ask Fear

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Speaker 1: and Greed