Hear it from Fairfax's Peter Hartcher, who's spoken to more ministers than'll speak to me. Reports Hartcher: "Labor's leaders wanted to punish enemies - the Murdoch empire - ... as they head for the exit, runs the theory held by some senior ministers." Asked for examples of media sins that need taming, Communications Minister Steve Conroy gave the ABC just two - both involving journalists criticising the Government. Of course, the proper reaction to a government using state power thus should be horror. How dare it act like some tinpot tyranny, telling us what we may read or write? But check the reaction when Sydney's Daily Telegraph made that point in a brilliant front page lampooning Conroy, picturing him alongside Stalin, Mao, and Mugabe. This was legitimate mocking of an astonishingly arrogant politician planning to appoint a government commissar to monitor media standards and strip legal protections from journalists who refuse to recognise its authority. Yet some senior journalists treated it as exactly the reporting Conroy's law was not only meant to stamp out, but perhaps should. Take Leigh Sales, the ABC's 7.30 presenter, who attacked News" editorial director, Campbell Reid. Subscription required to read full article.