SUPPORTERS of Julia Gillard and the Labor Party have flooded the Port Macquarie Independent with phone calls and emails in response to last week’s front page.
The headline “New PM an Ironman?” got some people hot under the collar.
One reader questioned whether there had been a secret election.
“Your front page headline is misleading and ridiculous. Has there been an election in Port Macquarie that the rest of Australia has missed out on? Poor form,” she wrote.
That short email was one of 58 that came into the Independent inbox.
A pro-Labor Facebook page posted a picture of our front page last week and drew more than 100 comments online.
Port Macquarie Independent Group Editor Garry Howe said the the headline was provocative, perhaps mischevious, but the story was accurate.
Mr Howe explained that story simply said that, should the current polls be accurate, Tony Abbott would almost certainly be the next Prime Minister after the 14 September election and, as such. woud be the first world leader to compete in such an event.
“The reaction suggests some people may have taken the front page story as an endorsement of Tony Abbott as Prime Minister, which is clearly not the case,” he said. “We had a letter come across the desk the previous week accusing the paper of Labor bias.”
Mr Howe said Star News Group, which recently took ownership of the Independent, has regularly campaigned over community issues in the 104 years it has produced newspapers, but never on political lines.
He said the Independent would strive towards a fair and balanced coverage in the lead-up to the election.
“The angle of last week’s story was clear and the headline probably took it to another level,” he said. “Headlines are designed to attract attention; perhaps this one did it a bit too well.”
