ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr gets his news from Crikey, not ‘conservative’ Canberra Times

The ACT Chief Minister says he dropped his subscription to The Canberra Times years ago, due to its “conservative outlook”.

ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr has hit out at journalists and the mainstream media. Picture: Kym Smith.

ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr has revealed he dropped his subscription to Fairfax’s Canberra Times “some years ago”, because of its “conservative outlook”, and instead gets his news from left-leaning Melbourne-based outlets, The Saturday Paper and Crikey.

In a statement defending comments he made last week declaring he “hates journalists” and is “over” the mainstream media, Mr Barr said his ACT Labor government would target Canberrans through alternative media strategies, including social media.

“Given there is such interest in my views on mainstream media, I can confirm that I cancelled my subscription to The Canberra Times some years ago,” Mr Barr said.

“One of the reasons for this is I believe the Canberra Times has a conservative outlook in their reporting. Any material they publish that is of interest to me is given away for free on their website.

“In relation to other print media available in Canberra, I find The Australian to be very right wing and favour the conservative side of politics. The same can be said for commercial talk back radio. I would not be alone in reaching that conclusion.

“I do subscribe to the Saturday Paper and Crikey.”

Mr Barr said it was good that there was diversity in media ownership.

“Overall, concentrated media ownership, and particularly newspaper monopolies in cities or regions, is not good for democracy,” he said.

“The days of newspapers telling their readers how to vote, or how to think, should be long gone.”

Mr Barr said Canberra was a “diverse community” and the traditional media no longer engaged with it.

“Audiences for traditional media are ageing and disappearing. This means trying new things,” Mr Barr said.

“The ACT Government will delve deeper and work smarter to reach our target audiences, using market research and audience analytics to help us create meaningful localised content that resonates with its target audiences.”

Mr Barr said his government aimed to reach “hard-to-reach audiences” and include them in its decision-making, “demographically representative engagement becomes standard practice.”

“The government wants to embrace new technologies and more direct ways of communicating with our community.

“Our communications will be concise, engaging and delivered using the most appropriate channels to reach our intended audiences.”

Mr Barr told communications specialists at an event at the ACT parliament last week that he wants to bypass traditional media in favour of social media.

The Chief Minister took particular aim at Fairfax’s Canberra Times and ABC Canberra, which dominate the media landscape in the ACT.

“I hate journalists. I’m over dealing with the mainstream media as a form of communication with the people of Canberra,” he said.

“What passes for a daily newspaper in this city is a joke and it will be only a matter of years before it closes down.”

Mr Barr claimed that average age of viewers of ABC Canberra’s 7pm TV news bulletin was in the mid 60s, and that the circulation of the print edition of the Canberra Times was less than 15,000.

Earlier, the ACT Liberals branded Mr Barr a “little dictator”.

Opposition Leader Alistair Coe said he did not believe Canberra media had ever been biased towards the Liberal opposition, saying he believed Mr Barr was “uncomfortable” over scrutiny of land deals his government has done, including the purchase of CFMEU headquarters for $3.9 million.

“I don’t think historically you could say that local media has been bent towards the Liberal opposition,” Mr Coe told Sky News.

ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr. Picture: Kym Smith.

“If anything we’d say the opposite, but I’m sure the Labor Party would say that we get a good run, but the reality is at the moment there are a lot of important issues being discussed in Canberra.

“One of them is the need for an anti-corruption commission. That’s made the Chief Minister pretty uncomfortable, and I think uncomfortable for good reason.

“He’d much rather not have scrutiny on his government and not have the media or opposition unearth too much more stuff about him.

“In the last few years you’ve had the ACT Labor government purchase the CFMEU lease it back for $3.9 million, and then lease it back for $1 per year.

“This is on top of dozens of other property scandals. So when you have the ACT government giving fellow travellers of the Labor Party multimillion-dollar free kicks there certainly is grounds for a corruption commission in Canberra.

“Unfortunately there is a very real need for an anti-corruption commission in Canberra, and understandably Andrew Barr doesn’t like the reporting of it.”

Mr Coe said the ACT government still largely depended on traditional media to get its message out.

“Even today when there’s reports of Andrew Barr saying he hates journalists and traditional media, the government keeps putting out media releases, and who are media releases for if not for traditional media?” he said.

“So I think when you have a head of government, such as Andrew Barr, albeit a little dictator, come out and say something like this, I think it’s right that it does get attention.”

The Australian has contacted Mr Barr’s office for comment.