It’s still hard to digest the fantastical news reporting that plagued Australia in 2014. From The Courier Mail’s front-page photograph of transgender murder victim Mayang Prasetyo to Fairfax Media’s use of an incorrect photograph in their reporting on the death of Numan Haider, it was a year to forget for Australia’s mainstream media. This was seen most clearly in December’s ‘Sydney siege’, which sent them into overdrive.

Earlier this week, the Age published an opinion piece by former Howard government immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone. Vanstone has a regular column with Fairfax now and generally uses it to argue predictably about the failings of the Labor Party. On Monday, she decried not only the actions of asylum seekers – ‘a sad story does not entitle them to come to Australia’, she argues, except that, well, it kind of does – but those people who ‘use the media’ to help the cause.

When it comes to the mass uprisings in the Arab world, much of the Australian media has followed the US agenda. Our media pays close attention when an anti-US government faces mass protests – like in Iran.