According to Brendan O’Neill, (“Elite few spearhead the anti-Murdoch campaign over phone-hacking scandal”, The Australian, 17/7 ) there is no hacking scandal and no media monopoly problem; the whole brouhaha is the invention of “cosmopolitan…city centre elites” whose “cliquish crusade” to crush press freedom is motivated by a distaste for page-three girls.

Aside from Hugh Grant, who exactly are these elites who have managed to fool the whole British parliament and Rupert Murdoch himself? More importantly, how does opposition to media monopolies and illegal invasions of privacy threaten freedom of the press?

Real elites have money and power; for example, they own newspapers. O’Neill’s “cultural” elites are straw men and his “crusade” is a fantasy.

A media enquiry is unnecessary, says Dennis Shanahan, because a Fleet Street culture is absent in Australia (“Not a time for the PM to bow to Brown”, The Australian, 15/7). But his employer will not get off the hook so easily: there are other serious concerns which this country shares with the U.K. and the U.S.. How much control should one corporation have over a nation’s information? When does the expression of editorial opinion cross the line into bias, distortion and propaganda? Is regime change a legitimate media objective? The big players’ refuse even to acknowledge the validity of these questions. This is proof of their urgency.

Frank Furedi (14/7) and Brendan O’Neill (11/7) assure us that the hacking scandal is an invention of “cultural elites” who forced Rupert Murdoch to close his own tabloid because of their distaste for page-three girls.

Besides, says Stephen Brook (14/7), it wasn’t only Murdoch papers wot done it.

Anyway, argues Daniel Finkelstein (14/7), it doesn’t matter who controls the media because they don’t change views, they only reflect them. Gee, all that money wasted on advertising.

This no doubt ongoing series shows The Australian’s touching loyalty to its owner.

With scrutiny of News Limited intensifying, the Melbourne Herald Sun has assured its readers of “transparency” through a new Code of Conduct. The Australian, on the other hand, while condemning the hacking, has not felt the need for any such soul-searching and has remained silent on the subject of its own function within the News empire.

They are entitled to hire whomever they want, but it is not by coincidence that The Australian’s commentariat is predominantly drawn from a very narrow ideological range, featuring many ex-Liberal staffers and high-profile conservatives. Transparency demands an open and ongoing declaration of the political affiliations and objectives of the newspaper’s management, so readers can interpret political coverage accordingly.

If Green Left Weekly can do it, so can The Australian.