News Corp denies Malcolm Turnbull claims over bushfire coverage

News Corp Australia has rejected former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s allegations that its newspapers blamed last summer’s deadly bushfires on arsonists.

Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull. Picture: AAP

News Corp Australia has rejected former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s allegations that its newspapers blamed last summer’s deadly bushfires on arsonists.

“This unsubstantiated statement is blatantly untrue. The facts demonstrate starkly the falsity of Mr Turnbull’s claim,” a News Corp spokesman said on Tuesday after the former Liberal leader criticised the coverage during ABC’s Q&A program.

News Corp’s newspapers including The Australian, The Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun, The Courier-Mail and The Advertiser published 3335 stories about the bushfires from September 1 last year to January 23. Only 3.4 per cent of the published stories mentioned “arson” or “arsonists”.

Over the same period, News Corp’s national news site, news.com.au, published more than 300 bushfire stories, of which only 16 mentioned arson, equivalent to 5 per cent of stories.

“Not one of these small number of stories stated the bushfires were ‘all the consequence’ of arsonists,” the spokesman said.

Earlier this year, News Corp Australasia executive chairman Michael Miller refuted claims that the media company did not believe in climate change.

“Contrary to what some critics have argued, News Corp does not deny climate change or the gravity of its threat,” Mr Miller said.

“However, we — as is the traditional role of a publisher — do report a variety of views and opinions on this issue and many others that are important in the public discourse on the fires.”