This caught my eye on the weekend in The West Australian and if it’s true it is totally outrageous.

Under the headline “Fairfax hires Labor lobbyists” it read (the story does not appear to be online):

“Eastern States media group Fairfax has hired Labor strategists Hawker Britton to help in its negotiations with the State Government as part of its plans to set up a news website in Perth.

The West Australian also understands Hawker Britton has employed former premier Geoff Gallop’s chief-of-staff Sean Walsh, who ran Dr Gallop’s office for five years.

Hawker Britton’s Perth office is run by John Whitelaw, the former chief-of-staff to Police Minister John Kobelke. Former Labor MP Megan Anwyl was a director of the lobby group before leaving the position last week.

Mr Walsh could not be contacted yesterday, while Mr Whitelaw did not respond to requests for comment and Mr Anwyl refused to comment.

The West Australian revealed yesterday that the WA Government and its senior public servants were meeting senior Fairfax executives to discuss plans for their online service.

Paul Giles, acting manager of strategic communication in the Government Media Office, said in a letter to the public servants that the meeting was a chance to “discuss news format, editorial stance and media mix along with advertising opportunities, promotional activity and any other matters of interest.”

There have been rumours of Fairfax coming to Perth for some time, I blogged about it in March. So the move into the West Australian market is not so surprising, but what are they talking to the Government about? Since when do news corporations talk to the government about editorial stance?

There is no need for Fairfax to talk to the Government about launching an online news service for any legal reasons – online news remains out of the scope of media ownership laws.

The West Australian has a somewhat strained relationship with the current Labor Government – Health Minister Jim McGinty called for editor Paul Armstrong to be sacked over a health story that eventually made its way to the Press Council and which The West subsequently lost. So the doors are open for another news organisation to court favour with the Government – after all they are one of the biggest spenders of advertising dollars.

I don’t think replacing one media bias with another is a positive thing. And mainstream media wonders why we are so cynical? They make it too easy.