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The Daily Telegraph (Sydney)

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For other uses of "The Telegraph", see The Telegraph (disambiguation).
The Daily Telegraph masthead
File:Daily Telegraph front page 12-12-2005.jpg

Front page of The Daily Telegraph
on 12 December 2005
TypeDaily newspaper
FormatTabloid
Owner(s)News Corporation
EditorDavid Penberthy
Founded1879
Political alignmentConservative
Headquarters2 Holt Street,
Surry Hills, NSW, Australia
Websitewww.dailytelegraph.news.com.au

The Daily Telegraph is a tabloid newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, by Nationwide News, part of News Corporation.

The Tele, as it is affectionately known, was founded in 1879 and was a staple in Sydney print media right up until 1990 when it merged with its afternoon sister paper The Daily Mirror to form The Daily Telegraph-Mirror with morning and afternoon editions though the afternoon editions were later discontinued.

The new paper continued in this vein until January 1996 when reader pressure for a shorter title caused the name of the paper to revert to The Daily Telegraph, despite staff concerns that former Mirror readers would now feel disenfranchised. The circulation of the newspaper in the first half of 2004 was around 409,000 per day, the largest of a Sydney newspaper.

Its Melbourne counterpart is the The Herald Sun.

The Saturday edition is called The Saturday Daily Telegraph and the Sunday edition is called The Sunday Telegraph.

Politics

The Telegraph's most high-profile columnists, among them Piers Akerman, are politically conservative. The Telegraph has a particular focus on issues such as crime, and primary and secondary education. [citation needed]

A Roy Morgan media credibility survey found that 40 per cent of journalists viewed News Limited newspapers as Australia's most partisan media outlet, ahead of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on 25 per cent. The survey found that readers took a generally dim view of journalists. In response to the question "Which newspapers do you believe do not accurately and fairly report the news?", the Daily Telegraph came third (9%) behind the Herald-Sun (11%) and "All of them" (16%).[1]

Controversies

John Brogden allegations

The Telegraph was widely criticised for its coverage of former New South Wales Liberal leader John Brogden. After Brogden resigned in 2005, the newspaper ran a front-page headline, "Brogden's Sordid Past: Disgraced Liberal leader damned by secret shame file," detailing past allegations of misconduct by Brogden. The following day, Brogden attempted suicide at his electoral office.

Rodney Tiffen, an academic at the University of Sydney, described the newspaper's coverage as an example of "hyena journalism", judging Brogden's personal life to be off limits following his withdrawal from public life.[2]

Editor David Penberthy claimed that his source was from inside the Liberal Party and that none of the events would have happened if no one leaked from inside the party. [3]

Mount Druitt High School

On 8 January 1997, the Telegraph published the headline, "The class we failed" concerning was the Year 12 class at Mount Druitt High School in outer Western Sydney in which no student scored a Tertiary Entrance Rank above 50 (the top mark is 100). Although the article made clear that the newspaper believed that the state had failed the students, many accused the Telegraph of branding the students themselves as failures and showing a full year photo identifying students.

The story led to a renewed focus on the quality of public schools in Western Sydney. and precipitated several reviews of schooling in the area. [4] But for many, the headline highlighted problems with interpreting Higher School Certificate results and the accompanying TER. [5]

The students successfully sued the newspaper in the Supreme Court for defamation. The Telegraph subsequently apologised and settled for damages out of court. [6] The published apology stated:

In that story The Daily Telegraph suggested, among other things, that the students in the class of 1996 failed their HSC. This is wrong and The Daily Telegraph withdraws any such suggestion. The Daily Telegraph also withdraws any suggestion that those students acted without discipline or commitment in their HSC studies. "he students in the HSC class of 1996 successfully completed their HSC and contrary to the suggestions in the original article many of those students performed very well scoring high marks in the HSC.The Daily Telegraph apologises to each student in the class of 1996 at Mt Druitt. It also apologises to their parents and friends for all the hurt, harm and suffering it has caused them. [6]

Later, criticising defamation laws, News Limited CEO John Hartigan said that

The words in the story pointed to deep-seated problems within the education system, but a barrister convinced the jury that, regardless of the words before him, what we really meant to say was that the entire class was too stupid to pass the HSC."[7]

Call Centres in India

In October 2006, the Telegraph claimed in a front page article that ANZ were using call centres in Bangalore, India. The paper even sent a journalist to Bangalore, Luke McIlveen, and a photographer to verify this claim. [8] ANZ strongly denied the claim, stating that they do not employ overseas call centre staff in India.[9] Subsequently, ANZ "pulled all of its advertising from News Limited, including Foxtel and News websites. Our advertising with News Limited is worth $4 to 5 million and accounts for about 10 per cent of ANZ's advertising budget".[10]

Editor David Penberthy leapt to McIlveen's defence saying that McIlveen was not to blame at all and that it was Penberthy's fault.[11]

Plagiarism

Former Telegraph journalist, Matt Sun, was caught out for significant and ongoing plagiarism by the TV program Media Watch.[12][13] Editor at the time, Campbell Reid, refused to acknowledge the accusations of plagiarism, instead choosing to attack Media Watch.[14] Subsequently, Sun was sent to London to work for the tabloid newspaper The Sun.[13] Sun now writes for the free afternoon tabloid Mx in Sydney. This is seen as a demotion as he has been unable to gain employment back at a major newspaper.

Staff

The Telegraph is edited by David Penberthy. His predecessor was Campbell Reid, and prior to that the Tele was edited by Col Allan, who now serves as editor-in-chief at the Murdoch-owned New York Post.

Columnists include Piers Akerman, Tim Blair and education specialist Maralyn Parker. Journalists include Malcolm Farr and Luke McIlveen.

Past writers for the newspaper include Mark Day, the late Peter Frilingos, Miranda Devine, Mike Gibson and David Luff.

Website

The Managing Editor Online is Glen Stanaway. The Daily Telegraph is distributed in a number of online formats:

  • Online Website - [1]
  • RSS News feeds - updated every 15 minutes. [2]
  • Email Newsletter - a daily snapshot emailed to subscribers each afternoon. [3]
  • Mobile Edition - for wireless digital assistant. [4]
  • Video - daily video clips. [5]

Blogs

The Daily Telegraph website hosts the blogs of several columnists.

See also

References

  1. ^ Why Australians Don’t Respect The Media
  2. ^ The Daily Telegraph, John Brogden and hyena journalism
  3. ^ Editor rejects attack over Brogden coverage. 31/08/2005. ABC News Online
  4. ^ New South Wales Public Education Inquiry: Final Reports: Second Report: 22: Chapter 4: Impact of the Restructuring of Public Education in NSW since 1988
  5. ^ Policy Spring (Sept-Nov) 1998
  6. ^ a b NSW Teachers Federation: Education Online: November 2000: Telegraph apologises to Mt Druitt students
  7. ^ Press freedom under attack
  8. ^ Media Watch: Front Page - Bad Line For Bangalore (16/10/2006)
  9. ^ http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/ep36anz2.pdf
  10. ^ http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/ep36anz3.pdf
  11. ^ The Age of disbelief | The Australian
  12. ^ Media Watch | Armed Holdup
  13. ^ a b Media Watch | Campbell Reid's Standards
  14. ^ Media Watch |
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