Days before ex-prime minister Julia Gillard was ousted as the leader of the Australian Labor Party, The Age newspaper editorial called for her to resign from her prime ministership, and she did. Now, PM Kevin Rudd suffered the same plight, even worse.

In the wake of his announcement of September 7 electoral date, The Daily Telegraph had Mr Rudd in the front cover of their August 5 issue with this headline: Finally, you now have the chance to KICK THIS MOB OUT - hinting for voters not to put Mr Rudd on their ballots.

"At last, the opportunity looms to put an end to two terms of political chaos and economic decline. At last, the time is up for Kevin Rudd and his Labor government," The Daily Telegraph said.

This was going to be a big hurdle for Mr Rudd and the Australian Labor Party, as The Daily Telegraph has about 800,000 weekly readers.

"For the Coalition it's priceless publicity, especially in western Sydney, where it hopes to grab marginal seats such as Lindsay and Reid," Mark Colvin of ABC Radio reported.

Together with Mr Trembath was a senior research fellow in journalism and political science at the University of New South Wales, David McKnight.

According to Mr McKnight, Mr Rudd's picture was not just in the cover of the magazine.

"On page three we've got a pin up of Tony Abbott kissing babies. Four and five we have "the Western suburbs is sliding from Labor's reach" headline. On page six and seven we have a story saying that the National Disability Insurance scheme is a financial disaster. On page eight and nine we have Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott with boxing gloves..."

"And then on page 13 there is a full page attack on Kevin Rudd's personal integrity by one of the, by Tim Blair, one of the columnists on the Daily Telegraph."

"It wouldn't be the first time a Murdoch newspaper has had an antagonistic headline, but Associate Professor McKnight says it does set a tone," Mr Trembath added.

Mr Rudd already expressed his reactions regarding The Daily Telegraph's front page through ABC Radio, saying that the newspaper's owner Rupert Murdoch had always express his disapproval of the ALP.

"He wants to see the government removed and he wants to see Mr Abbott as prime minister. We have a free press in this country so Mr Murdoch's media is free to say what it will and of course we disagree with the proposition they put," Mr Rudd defended.

Meanwhile, in a separate interview with ABC Radio, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said that Mr Murdoch is not expressing his support for the Coalition.

"Over the years I've copped a fair bit of criticism from news Limited papers along with some support. I know that there are some people in the Labor party who are paranoid about criticism, who see conspiracies against them, but the fact is some media outlets will be for the coalition and some will be against," Mr Abbot said.

Deputy Prime Minister Anthony Albanese came in for the rescue.

"I think Australians are a bit smarter than looking at that headline and going oh well, that must be right. They will look for what the agenda is behind the headline. It's not terribly subtle and in terms of the media, I reckon Telegraph readers will be picking that up and thinking, 'Well I deserve better than that as a Telegraph reader'. That is an extraordinary intervention on day one of an election campaign."

Rubbing salt to the wound, the Fairfax-published Australian Financial Review August 5 editorial, too, attacked Mr Rudd.

"The economy is in trouble. And the dysfunctional politics of the past three years must end. Under both Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, Labor has shown itself to be structurally unfit to govern," the editorial read.