Sydney’s Daily Telegraph was not standing for election but it must be feeling defeat as surely as any deposed MP.

It campaigned vigorously for Malcolm Turnbull almost every day of a long campaign before the inevitable editorial endorsement. It also delighted in using its Photoshop skills to make the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, look incompetent and the prime minister presidential. Shorten was a liar, a reckless big spender and his campaign had “come completely off the rails”. “We know where the smart money is,” the Tele boasted as its front page on Friday declared Shorten was “Going down”.

Front page of The Daily Telegraph pic.twitter.com/1EMVGxjE0S — Christopher Dore (@wrongdorey) June 30, 2016

But the Telegraph’s heartland of western Sydney wasn’t listening and it turned its back on Turnbull. The Coalition lost three seats in the area and did not make any gains, robbing Turnbull of what the paper had believed was almost certain victory.

The ALP enjoyed a swing in New South Wales that was higher than Queensland and Victoria and the opposition leader visited western Sydney on Monday to thank voters for coming back to Labor. Both Turnbull and Shorten campaigned hard in western Sydney up until and including polling day.

In May the Telegraph’s political editor Simon Benson, who spearheaded the campaign against Labor, reported that the first poll of crucial western Sydney electorates put Turnbull ahead. “Labor has failed to win back the hearts and minds of western Sydney, despite a strong showing by Bill Shorten in the first leaders’ debate in Windsor last night … The ALP has not been able to make significant gains in the west’s crucial marginal seats.”

On Monday, forced to report the loss of three western Sydney seats, Benson said the so-called Mediscare campaign, local western Sydney issues and the switch from Tony Abbott to Turnbull were to blame for the “shock loss”.

In Monday’s editorial the Telegraph ignored its pre-election stance and insisted it had “repeatedly noted” that Turnbull’s campaign was “unimpressive”. The Telegraph conveniently forgot that on Friday it had awarded Turnbull a gold trophy for winning the campaign. “Our final winner of the day award goes to the man who has timed his run to the line with perfection, as the Coalition yesterday leapt ahead in the final poll of the campaign. Here’s your trophy, Mal. We know it’ll have pride of place in your pool room.”



The tabloids, once seen as wielding enormous power, have found that their schoolyard taunts and cartoonish coverage is falling on deaf ears.



Rod Tiffen, the author of Rupert Murdoch: A Reassessment, says the Murdoch newspapers’ influence is declining due to falling circulation and because readers have become immune to the biased coverage.



The emeritus professor in government and international relations at the University of Sydney argues that the Telegraph’s readers are disproportionately older rusted-on Coalition voters and younger voters don’t buy newspapers anymore.



Tiffen says both Victoria and Queensland ejected first-term Liberal governments despite the best efforts of the Murdoch press in those states. “Their slanted front pages, unbalanced coverage and combative editorials only highlighted their growing irrelevance to the electoral process”.



Chris Dore, the former editor of the Courier Mail in Queensland, sees himself as the master of the art of the tabloid front page. Now in Sydney, he appeared determined to make his mark in this, his first federal election campaign as editor of the Daily Telegraph.



There was “Billy Shorten and the Money Factory” in which Shorten was portrayed as a big spender. And “Billnochio” in which the former union leader was accused of telling “blatant lies for power”. The paper said Shorten was running a “brazen strategy of fear” and the most “blatantly deceitful campaigning since Malcolm Fraser in the 1980s”. An inside page featured “Casualty Bill” in which Shorten was pictured battered and bruised being wheeled into an ambulance.

The paper even wrote about the newly slimmed-down Shorten’s “man boobs” and sought out image consultants to shame him. “His workout gear reveals lingering weight in his pectoral area,” the Tele reported in May. “Commentators have labelled this problem ‘man boobs’, or ‘moobs’. Image consultant Imogen Lamport warned images of Mr Shorten running could undermine his recent makeover. ‘It doesn’t make him more attractive and that’s the problem. He’s still got an achilles heel – he’s got man boobs’.’’



The Greens were simply dismissed as lunatics, and a pre-election guide to voting in the Senate described the party as “leftie rabble who still think they are a proper party”.



The paper kept score during the election campaign, with a dedicated Who Won The Day column awarding points to either Turnbull or Shorten. The Greens had their own dedicated column too, simply headed Greens Madness. Richard Di Natale was described as “leader of the leftie rabble off with the pixies” and criticised for his dress sense. “Does he have to wear such an ugly tie?”



At the start of the election campaign in May the Telegraph declared the readers had a clear choice: Turnbull was offering hope and optimism and Shorten was offering fear and class warfare.



“Australians will go to the polls on 2 July in a class-war contest between the promise of prosperity and the defence of the working class,” the Tele thundered. If the votes are anything to go by, their readers – or at least the places where their readers live – chose the latter.

