Feedback to Crikey, one of the few truly independent media voices left in Australia.

I have been asked how I'm finding my Crikey news subscription. I think Crikey is a breath of fresh air in a media landscape dumbed down by simple minded sound bites and 'gotcha' moments and traduced by political bias. My only complaint is a tendency at times to fall in with the group think of political journalists, who have pointed the bone at this Labor Government:

"I greatly enjoy your news analysis venture. My only criticism is the relentless bagging of the Govt by your political correspondent, Bernard Keane. It is bad enough we have to put up with the constant propagandizing of News Ltd outlets and many other MSM carriers on behalf of the Coalition. A largely ill-informed electorate swallow the sound bites and media grabs of this shoddy bunch and are conned into believing their life-styles are under threat by a carbon tax. BK's constant banging on about Labor's shortcomings may satisfy his political predilections, but Labor is opposed at every turn by a media campaign to deliver power to Abbott. The purveyors paint a picture of disunity, betrayal of the body politic, a 'stab in the back' for decent citizens by a government beholden to 'special interests' and unspecified 'elites'. More coded dog whistling to convince the electorate that their government is weak and incapable of protecting the country from outside threats and the export of jobs. Our PM is branded a liar, wooden, childless and weak. Actually, I think she is making a pretty good fist of the job and is a quick learner.

It is difficult to counter the constant barrage of negativity hurled at her by Abbott and his conga line of media buddies, including within the ABC, and she has been forced to adopt hard-line stances on refugees and several social policy fronts to blunt the extreme campaign of Abbott. The body politic has drifted to the right as a result of the Howard years and it is difficult for Labor to differentiate a progressive identity while hanging on to middle ground voters preoccupied with bread and butter issues and inundated with simple-minded political sound bites from every quarter. Crikey, give her a go.. "