Does News Ltd get the 'bloggers' it deserves?

A comment on Meganomics Blog | The Australian after the journalist (George M) launched an attempt to get bloggers on his site to be more civil:

I’d just like to say, though, that your own employers have been something of a standard-bearer for the dumbing down of debate in Australia, and so deserve as much derision as the bloggers. The voice of your own newspaper, the editorial, has been as guilty as any. For instance, anybody with legitimate concerns about the Iraq war, or Guantanamo justice was dismissed as knee-jerk anti-Americans or appeasers; anybody with legitimate concerns about WorkChoices was dismissed as being riddled with the “politics of envy”. How insulting is it to have your genuine, heartfelt beliefs written off by a professional wordsmith in a one to three word cliche?

George, News Corporation feeds on polarisation and hate (check out The Sun in Britain or The Weekly Standard in the US), so it’s hardly surprising that the feedback is crude and nasty. In the past year, for instance, one of your leading columnists, Janet Albrechtsen, has declared anyone of a ‘progressive’ mindset to be dumber and unhappier than their conservative counterparts. Futhermore, they’re apparently “addicted to self-flaggelation” (March 12, 2008) and “do the bidding of terrorists” (March 21, 2007). George, this is your own newspaper making money out of publishing this shit. It might be funny if it weren’t so relentless, if it didn’t threaten to have an impact on the real world.

All credit for trying to get civility back into the debate, though. But the bloggers are just taking cues from the main story.

A great comment. I agree with the effort to improve the quality of comments (by editing out the worst ones) but the commenter is right the newspaper could start by reviewing its own 'civility' standards.