Will It Make Media Watch?

News Limited loyalist, Bernard Slattery, has joined a certain nursery-rhyme cow, thanks to reports in The National Rupert that journalists at The Age are in open revolt against the sale of the newspaper's soul to commercial interests (reports here and here). According to Bernard:

A common but wrong accusation from lefties is that News Corp editors and journalists are commanded from the top to publish the company line. Such a claim is never directed at the luvvies’ preferred news outlets. Thus, there was a certain smugness in News offices this week when the left-preferred opposition was caught disseminating propaganda.

Bernard's first sentence is incorrect - the standard "leftie" accusation against News Limited editors and journalists is that they're a bunch of ignorant, group-thinking sheep whose faith in the company line is so deep-seated that no command from the top is needed to keep their toes where they should be.

The ructions at The Age have been caused, in part, by Fairfax's participation in the promotion of Earth Hour, and the way “Reporters were pressured not to write negative stories and story topics followed a schedule drafted by Earth Hour organisers.” Bernard looks to that other favourite news outlet of "the luvvies" and asks:

Will it make Media Watch, though?

It already has, Bernie. Us "luvvies" knew about it by Tuesday night at the latest. And The Age journalists' grievances about the treatment given to published correspondence from a certain R Walker of Melbourne didn't come as a complete surprise either.