Google and Facebook should abandon Australian news

Twenty-two years ago this year I first published On Line Opinion. We beat Crikey into cyberspace by a month or so, which makes us the first online-only journal of politics and current affairs in this country.

My partner in crime, Lionel Hogg (junior, and not to be confused with senior who edited the Brisbane Telegraph) and I could see that all news would migrate to the net, and that this was the biggest disruption since the introduction of the printing press.

We didn’t want to die wondering what it would be like to be part of that revolution.

Over the last 2o years I’ve seen legacy media make the most elementary mistakes which have contributed to the dumbing down of political culture and the hyper -sensationalising and…