The Herald Sun, a Melbourne-based newspaper owned by Murdoch’s News Corp empire, has managed to publish the wrong referendum result after Saturday’s ‘No’ vote on the Indigenous Voice to parliament. Truly impressive stuff.
In the print edition of this week’s Sunday Herald Sun, pages six and seven featured a massive graphic breaking down Australia’s voting patterns by geography.
However, under a heading that read “National Result”, the percentages were flipped.
The text under the header actually read “Yes 60%” in green, and “No 40%” in red.
At the time of writing, the printed copy is still viewable online.
It has also been shipped out to newsagents, milk bars and cafes across Victoria if you’re looking to snag yourself a piece of cooked history.
According to one of its own articles, the Sunday Herald Sun was the “most read newspaper in Australia” in 2021 with over 700,000 people consuming the rag each weekend.
Assuming those reader numbers have bubbled away at a similar pace in the intervening two years, thousands of papers would have been printed displaying the ~wrong result~ for a national referendum.
Don’t worry mates, you’ll get it right next time!!! In 2089!!!
*Sigh*.
This isn’t even the first time the Herald Sun has been busted making outright mistakes, or just simply goofing super hard.
Back in April last year, the paper posted the following polling results graphic.
As you can see, a few artistic liberties were taken with how much of the pie chart 35 per cent actually took up.
Lol.
In case you weren’t perched in front of a TV last night, the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum was not successful, and the Voice will not be enshrined in the Australian Constitution.
The result has been deeply disappointing for many members of the First Nations community, with leaders from the Yes campaign penning a heartbreaking statement after the loss.
