Pure Poison IconNews.com.au editor David Penberthy offers a solution to progressives worried about newspaper balance in Australia:

The people who gave evidence to this committee are welcome to start their own paper. It is, as they say, a free country.

If they can’t inherit their own newspaper like Rupert did, then whose fault is that? If they can’t get investors to bankroll them the massive amounts of money required to actually set up a newspaper in a time when newspapers are losing money, then whose fault is that? If they can’t compete commercially with a newspaper empire prepared to lose money on its papers in order to give its proprietor the political power he desires, then whose fault is that?

If “the left” doesn’t have its own billionnaires prepared to lose huge amounts of money to establish newspapers that don’t make any money, then it doesn’t deserve to be heard.

And anyway, if punters didn’t like being given a relentlessly one-sided perspective on politics, then they wouldn’t buy the papers with the best football coverage. We give them quality sports reporting, and in return they gradually believe what relentlessly insist is the case about political matters. If they didn’t like being fed misleading propaganda, they wouldn’t buy it! The market has spoken. As long as people presented no alternative information to challenge our smears are happy to keep buying them, who are you to have a problem with it? Elitist!