Is The Age newspaper still considered SAE?

[Mattjbr2]

I'm not aware of this, but apparently The Age has been associated with a relatively more sophisticated audience than many other newspapers in Victoria.

In the A+ essays that I've studied, they all seem to state the same thing, that The Age "strictly adheres to the Standard variety". None mentioned the clearly non-Standard, informal and often dysphemistic language used in many of its articles.

A few quick examples I found: https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/sunday-explainer-wtf-is-up-with-all-the-swearing-20160108-gm20rp.html https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/from-shambles-to-september-20180914-p503wc.html https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/morrison-s-biggest-problem-is-he-s-stuck-in-the-past-20180914-p503vx.html https://www.theage.com.au/sport/tennis/forehand-backhand-and-heat-stroke-20180831-p500zb.html

Some quotes from the articles..
"Where its predecessor would crank out two big yarns and 20 huge lunches a year, this mob produce massive revelations"
"Meantime, Novak Djokovic, in the process of changing his shirt, sat bare-chested in his courtside chair for 10 minutes, nipples on full view, navel too. One rule for, etc. At length, Cornet got an apology."
"The Morrison government reeks of the 1950s, a boofheaded men's club led by a bloke who carried a lump of coal around in the Parliament."
"Can't we all just take a chill pill?"
"These are footballers, FFS, not the SAS, or F1 cars."

That does not seem Standard and professional to me. It doesn't at all read like what I expect from professional newspaper.

A VCE god (99.95, 50) consistently stated, in his essays, things like: "The Age newspaper strictly adheres to the Standard variety to establish an authoritative and professional identity. This is reflected in the sentence constructions employed in the newspaper, with complete phrases being mandatory for journalists." He calls it a "formal academic text" that "enhances the authoritative persona of the newspaper". But as I'm reading it, I'm thinking "uhhh.. is this the same newspaper we're reading!?"

The past VCAA examination reports also frequently make mention of the high standards of The Age and how it is supposedly formal in register.

The essays I'm studying are pretty old - has The Age changed recently?

Would I lose marks if I spoke about its formal register, prestige, sophistication, upper class audience, professional standards, etc. in the exam, without mentioning the contrasting features?

[sadcats_club]

Hey Mattjbr2,
I'm not an expert on newspapers/media but it's likely they may have been referring to the Age print newspaper (the big and boring one with super small font) and not their online articles.
Perhaps have a look at one print newspaper and confirm whether they hold up to these 'journalistic standards' so that you can write about them with peace of mind
as a bonus example, you could compare the register differences between the Age online, and the Age hardcopy newspaper- think about the mode, their different audiences, and thus the different social purposes/functions these serve. For example, what does accessing a newspaper in hard copy say about the person who does, and what they expect from it versus online?