Bias in the Letters pages

June 14, 2024

“… the denying of Israel’s Gazan starvation strategy (a longstanding affair) may have been too much for the normally acquiescent letters editors to bear.”

I wrote letters to The Age from 1999 until 10 May, 2024, and agree 100% with author Evan Jones’s comment. It was extremely difficult to get any letter published that refuted outright errors of fact previously published in the letters pages on the Voice to Parliament, or that expressed alternative views on China, defence or Gaza. I still don’t know why the anti-Voice brigade got such a free run. But for the rest, if you’re not following the US/Israel playbook, you’re extremely unlikely to be published. I readily concede that not all my letters have been well written but I cannot believe only a handful of people have been writing with thoughts similar to mine. It very much smacks of bias.

Should anyone wonder why I stopped writing to (and reading) The Age on 10 May, there were two last straws: Lisa Visentin on China and David Crowe on the Palestine protests, both regurgitating the mainline propaganda. I stopped reading Peter Hartcher when a year’s supply of red ink was used on his anti-China hysterics.