Long live the alternative media, especially P&I

August 11, 2025

Re John Menadue’s criticism of the media in his article on the occupation and ethnic cleansing of Gaza…

Since 1999 I wrote letters to and was regularly published in The Age. Those letters included some about Israel going back over the years. That changed on 7 October 2023. Initially, letters on the nascent days of Israel’s genocide went unpublished. All reporting was biased in favour of Israel and actively against Palestine.

As time has gone on, it became impossible to ignore what was happening and reports filtered through and letters appeared. As an avid reader and writer of Letters to the Editor, I was furious at the “balance” in the letters. Much like climate change, errors of fact were published supporting those in the wrong. I’d half given up on The Age after Peter Hartcher’s red-ink anti-China series. Giving up was complete with the abysmal reporting on Israel when many other sources showed what was really happening.

I rarely write to The Age now, and get published even less. Probably accounted for by my telling them in no uncertain terms what I thought of them publishing patently false content from readers. I’d have preferred they stopped publishing falsehoods. But c’est la vie.