Laura Tingle’s Friday Fin Review column, ‘This Week in Canberra’, has caused such a stir today that someone has gone to the trouble of posting a photo of it on Flickr.
Tingle hones in on the virulence of the partisan campaign, not just in the Opposition Organ but across the News Limited tabloids, that has been evident since pretty much the day after the election. Noting that the anti-Labor push was ramped up after Julia Gillard became PM, she writes:
But this was nothing compared with the rage of the News Ltd papers since voters delivered an outcome they clearly didn’t like.
It took just two days before various News Ltd papers started calling for a fresh election and predicting the demise of the nation into chaos and anarchy under a minority government.
She goes on to cite the polls commissioned of the rural Independents’ seats and instanced The Australian‘s downplaying of a Newspoll which found a majority of respondents supported the country MPs’ allowing Julia Gillard to form a minority government. Malcolm Fraser and Bob Brown’s questioning of the ethics and conduct of The Australian are also discussed:
Greens leader Bob Brown – another target of News wrath – has had enough. The paper, he says, “sees itself as a determinant of democracy in Australia. It believes it has replaced the people and it’s time to bell the cat.”
“It’s stepped out of the role of the fourth estate to think it’s the determinant of who has seats in the Parliament, and it needs to be taken on.”
Whether Labor will, in fact, take News on is the central question, according to Tingle.
She notes that Kevin Rudd had refused to put The Australian‘s columnists and journos “on the drip” on coming to power, and that he went public with criticisms of the paper and News Limited’s journalism more generally. Labor figures were first puzzled, but now the company’s stance has become clear as day. Tingle doesn’t go into the way in which The Australian campaigned for Kevin Rudd’s downfall, but she does point to the fact that there’s serious discussion within ALP circles about how to tackle News Limited:
Labor believes it is confronted with the prospect of a ferocious and apparently continuing campaign against its legitimacy.
At some point, senior figures in the government argue, it will have to make a decision about whether it takes that on.
Tingle’s article largely speaks for itself, but I’d add a few observations (as well as noting that the “ferocious… campaign” is surely already evident).
First, I think that people who sometimes argue that we in the blogosphere ought to ignore the MSM alarums, in the hope that they’ll go away, or that we can somehow squeeze them of legitimacy, are on the wrong track. It is vitally important, I’ve always thought, to watch the so-called watchers, and where possible, given the limited resources we have, to expose the artificiality of ‘the narrative’. If you consider that furphies such as the BER “Waste” no doubt helped the Coalition to get as close to government as it has were only possible on the back of a sustained campaign in The Australian, in particular, and how difficult it is for sites like this one and Crikey to correct the record for anything like the same sort of audience, then you have the essence of the dilemma in a nutshell.
Secondly, I do think the degree of expressed dissatisfaction with the MSM, and the refraction of News Limited’s themes through other outlets (including but not limited to the ABC), has reached a critical mass, and is an interesting phenomenon in itself.
Lastly, perhaps that dissatisfaction has crystallised around two events – the absurdity of the heights of “look, over there! shiny!” behaviour by the press during the election campaign (where discussion of policy was foregone almost completely in favour of obsessing over leaks and Latham – with the trope of “but the Prime Minister’s policy announcement was overshadowed by x” employed on a ritual basis), and then the way that the interruption in the game of politics as usual exposed not just a lot of lazy assumptions but a lot of power structures outside their normal context.
Interesting times indeed.
Update: Laura Tingle will be on Lateline tonight (along with George Megalogenis).
I created a pdf file of the article if someone wants to print it.
http://accidentalaustralian.bravehost.com/tinglemedia.pdf
I agree that it’s important to watch the watchers. The idea that the MSM doesn’t matter anymore because of the fragmentation of audiences and the rise of the internet simply isn’t true, I think. A huge swathe of people get their information through News Ltd publications and SkyTV. The blogotariat doesn’t have the resources into research, writing and publication that Murdoch. And yes, I use the word ‘research’ loosely.
How does the government counter it? Certainly not by ignoring it, or cosying up to it. A little bit of the recently lauded disinfectant of sunshine, I think. The government needs to speak out about the lies, Brown has. Let Gillard point out the lies that are told and be really assertive when tackled by journalists.
As for the ABC24 News channel. This irritates me immensely. The ABC doesn’t have the finance the run its already existing commitments properly, without starting up new channels. But I very much disagree with the idea of selling it off that’s being promulgated by some here. The ABC is much more than just its NewsCaf division. I’d argue that the ABC needs an independent board, with strong staff representation and much more money, so that it can actually fulfill its charter properly. I say this with a bit of bias as someone who sometimes sells programming to the ABC.
I think if the OO wants to be a player – then treat them like a player.
Go ‘em hard. Treat their articles as coalition press releases, and critique as the govt would any other.
Dont donate money to them in the form of govt advertising. Its a clear misues of public funds, and indeed, its probably unlawful to fund organisation clearly affiliated to political parties using govt advertising reveneue.
Find a represetnative article publicshed in th election peruiod and run a test case to see whether prnting it without authorisation (eg spoken Dennis Shanahan for the Liberal party) was in fact a breach of the Electoral Act.
Ridicule their nonsense in parlimaent, as you would many other coalition press releases.
Bugger em I say.
and before the leaks and Latham the continued insistence of reporting every little thing the Prime Minister wore as if it signified something deep and meaningful, or comments on the fact that she likes to change her hair style.
ABC National Newspaper. Now.
It’s quite simple, tear up their corporate registration. Corporations only exist at the licence of government.
Yes, I agree Lefty E. Labor should go in hard and question their journos instead of being so acquiescent as they have been. Perhaps a united front of all the non-Coalition forces together with support from disinterested elders such as Fraser really bell this particular cat.
Confront them.
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.
Ok might get sunk but really, what essential difference would that make [except to some well padded bums on seats]?
And ….might actually win. Sheesh, imagine that.
And what skip said, been a pet idea of mine for yonks.
Currently any proposed ABC National Newspaper would be a watered down version of The Australian, as are their current news sevices.
Good post, Kim. It sure is about time that not only the Labor Party, but also concerned members of the general public took on these media groups including the ABC.
@4 –
Still going, Mindy.
Ludicrous article in the Oz about JG not carrying a handbag:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/julia-enjoys-the-high-life-free-of-old-bags/story-e6frg6nf-1225916057081
@skip #5:
I don’t know that an additional right-wing organ would improve matters.
Do we see Julie Bishop carrying a handbag? Nah, didn’t think so.
No use mounting a case against their coverage in the Press Council – they’re not a member. But maybe the PC can initiate an independent review just for the hell of it. It would be a measure of the industry’s concern if they did. Get someone like John Menadue to head it, an ex-News elder?
Quick disclosure – I used to work in the Policy Division of Alan Carpenter’s office, although I was not involved in the matters I’m about to discuss and so feel free to comment and speculate on it
When Carpenter became WA Premier, it was an article of faith with many Labor members, staffers and not a few MPs that the local ‘West Australian’ paper was an anti-Labor rag (not one, incidentally, to which I necessarily personally subscribed). After some years, the Government appeared to have made a decision to retaliate – Minister Alannah MacTiernan issued a press release called ‘Is it true, or did you read it in the West?’ at one point, Premier Carpenter publicly bagged the paper at another.
It seemed to me – and I have no inside or privileged information here – that the choice had been made to treat the publication as a political actor, and to diminish its impact by calling it out as such. Presumably, if there had been such a decision, the intent was to create a public attitude of “oh, its just the West being the West, they’re always brawling with the Government” and to remove the cloak of “impartial journalism” that the paper operated behind.
Under Premier Gallop, I seem to recall there had been a decision to withhold Gov’t advertising from the Sunday paper, but that could be a faulty memory on my part.
The moral of this story? The true believers cheered, the paper didn’t change much and Labor lost the election. Make of that what you will.
Good on Tingle. Seriously, the Fin is only paper worth half-reading left in the entire country, it’s a bloody sad state of affairs. But, I do think to zero in on the Australian gives to much of a free ride to the not deliberately partisan – but equally shitty – journalism elsewhere. The ABC is no frigging better.
Example this “news item”. The lede in the piece is Oakeshott’s opportunity of a ministry, and yet the whole thing is about Nick Xenophon warning that it “might compromise Oakeshott’s independence”. Might. It might not, too. Shall we write an article about that? Or the fact the Xenophon’s – a guy who’s most famous for riding a pig to parliament house – opinion is about as relevant as mine.
And yet this piece, which a) belongs in Opinion, and b) buries its lede so successfully as to be about nothing, is written and passed off as “news”. Sigh.
Kim goes: “(and she could have added The Australian‘s downplaying of a Newspoll which found a majority of respondents supported the country MPs’ allowing Julia Gillard to form a minority government).”
She did. Second column, two thirds of the way down, parenthesised.
“(then gave much less prominent, and delayed, coverage to another, national poll which showed the majority of voters actually wanted a Labor minority government)”
Yes, it won’t work by the government publicly bagging News Ltd. It needs to work in ways that the organisation understands, and that’s by hitting hit in the hip pocket.
Obama nearly got into an all-out war with Fox News a year or so back and was pulled back by wiser and cooler heads, who cautioned that direct confrontation with the Fox talking heads was just what News Corp wanted.
Whether it be Shanahan or Piers Akerman or Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity or Janet Albrechtsen, these people are just paid glove puppets for the News agenda. Going into war with them just gives them credibility they don’t deserve.
Shrieking at News Ltd executives at private dinners (as Rudd did during a function at Crown Casino last year) won’t help either as you just give them fresh gristle to run a “government unhinged” line.
Tingle’s column provides an insight into how the government could make life more difficult for News Ltd. And that involves largely refusing to engage with it. Like any bully, the best approach is to pretend it isn’t there.
In the meantime, the government should be doing what it can on the policy front to hurt Murdoch’s business interests – Bob Brown’s inquiry into News Ltd’s very deep connection with the Storm salary rorts would be a very good start.
Talk back radio is even worse. Elderly relatives report many of their friends and acquaintances get their news’ and ‘views’ almost exclusively from shock jocks and that the one-sidedness and vitriol of those programs is sickening.
Kim at #10
Re the ‘ludicrous’ [that is very restrained of you] article in the Oz about JG not carrying a handbag, hannah’s mum wrote a comment on that at the site.
It hasn’t appeared.
Same with me, Hannah’s Dad.
Three guesses as to how long Laura Tingle will hold onto her job. Murdoch influence within and on Fairfax is very strong and it is unlikely that an article such as this will escape without retaliation.
The anonomously vindictive spitting post entitled “Cut & Paste” in The Australian has already had a few goes at Laura Tingle recently, as it does with anyone who dares to utter any criticism (or perceived criticism) of that stable.
They don’t have the guts to put a name to this section of the paper, or of their variously written “Editorials”.
The point made by Malcolm Fraser in relation to Murdoch interests and bedfellows (the Koch brothers in the U.S) bears some closer scrutiny. In the U.S. the Tea Party has evolved with many believing they have the support, stated or otherwise, of both Murdoch and the Koch interests – which are widespread. Recent articles eg.the New Yorker this week and elsewhere, have much to say about their operational style.
While current Labor Governments may wish to take them on but hesitate because of lack of public support (read apathy on the part of the general public), it would be good if grounds could be found for legal proceedings to issue, whether or not associated damages could be claimed.
Public Interest Legal and Advocacy Groups may be reluctant to take on such a matter (if in fact one could be found) but is there anything which factually would preclude the Gillard Government calling for one of the Judicial Inquiries the Opposition and News Ltd. are so fond of calling for? Wishful thinking probably but the stakes are very high, and possibly even higher now that News Ltd. might claim some success in it’s latest campaign.
We can cancel the ABC National Newspaper once it’s put the Australian out of business.
I agree with Tingle, if Labor doesn’t come up with an effective strategy to neutralise the OO then I reckon they are doomed.
The press attacking the government is not ideal, but the government attacking the press is decidedly worse. The ideas (above) of the government boycotting a newspaper or, even worse (@6), tearing up their registration make me decidedly queasy. That is the behaviour of tyrants, not democrats.
The issue is not whether News Ltd is right, left or centre, it is that its dominance in the newspaper market is denying a platform for other, competing views and so preventing effective free speech.
This issue should be addressed through media and competition policy, not by petty and vindictive actions by a government which doesn’t like the message.
If the government does attack The Australian News will simply claim that free speech and democracy are under threat and claim to be the underdogs battling an out-of-control government.
Can’t we just turn it into a grain silo or something?
So you don’t think outright lies are an issue then I&U?
@16 – thanks, Andos, was reading her piece and writing this post in my lunch break at work (see comment about resources!) – will correct.
Mr. Denmore, do you have children and do you advise them in this way? Because in my experience the very least effective thing you can do with a bully is “pretend it isn’t there.” The very best thing you can do is smack them as hard as you can in the face, in front of all their mates. Also kicking them in the balls till they puke works (I did that once).
You then have to stand up to the retaliation, which is usually vicious and supported by their mates. But once you’ve weathered that (preferably, again, in front of all their mates, and preferably giving a bit back), they leave you alone forever.
I don’t know if schoolyard experiences of bullying are really the best model for dealing with a national newspaper, but it certainly seems like ignoring them hasn’t worked up until now.
Well we appreciate your hard work, Kim. Keep it up.
I’d like to also add the idea posted elsewhere ( FB group: “Tell the media to report the news…not make it or take sides…” http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=157351244282150 ):
Let’s target the $$$!! It is time to start targeting the advertisers and revenue streams for these propaganda rags. And let’s start with the Australian, already and for ever run at a loss.
So who’d like to help us compile a top 5 or top 10, advertisers we should be contacting to complain and to get them to stop their $$ keeping these bastards going?
Among the first, certainly needs to be the Australian Government Departments that run “Executive” and “Careers” ads!
Er that analogy is a bit …un-moderate .. for me sg but I broadly agree that assertive confrontation is absolutely necessary.
“Like any bully, the best approach is to pretend it isn’t there.”
Henceforth to be known as Lovell technique.
Agreed, #24.
There must be a legitimate case under competition principles to split News Limited into smaller corporate entities.
thanks Kim for the post.
I’m astounded by the partisan coverage of News Limited. Its the worst its ever been.
Can I add another example: the Jon Sullivan (Longman-Qld) front page in the Courier-Mail in the last days of the election and subsequent headline coverage re comments about parents of an alleged disabled child. The father came out and admitted it was all a lie.
My question is where were the News Ltd ‘fact-checkers’ on a front page splash?
Did News Ltd interview this man?
How did they test the veracity of his claims?
What was the extent of the background checks before the Editor chose the front-page for the story?
A member of parliament lost their seat on the back of a lie that was readily promoted by the city’s only daily newspaper. Is your News Limited?
The conduct of News Ltd is a threat to Australian democracy. Citizens, and our representatives in parliament, should do everything they can to defend our democracy.
CarlitosM I would suggest ANZ Bank. I know they buy advertising there and were persuaded not to support Gunn’s.
Who, I hear, today, are moving out of the old growth logging business. Maybe Rupert can be persuaded out of the democracy cull.
And remember large Newscorp shareholders, including super funds, might be contacted and told of the new concerns around their plans to destroy a freely elected party including, with that, a minority government.
Molte grazie, Guido.
In Laura Tingle’s article was the following statement by a Labor frontbencher just before the election:
It doesn’t really matter because he never gave a fig for Labor. But if one has to compare Frank Packer’s and Rupert Murdoch’s feelings towards Labor, Frank Packer hated Labor to its inner core and expressed this view through his media outlets, whereas Rubert Murdoch’s hate is only at the lower mantle level.
Be very careful, those calling for canceling of licenses or censoship or for any kind of government retaliation. Just how would you feel if the Libs had got one more seat, they formed gov with the independents and then tried to take on Crikey (like Costello did!) or this blog, for example.
By the way, loved #29 sg’s analogy of the bullies!
Let’s do it!: “kicking them in the balls till they puke”
Mindy @ 27,
The lies are an issue, but only because of News’ dominance. I’m sure there are plenty of lies in the blogosphere, but we don’t worry about those, because there are plenty of competing views and it is usually possible to find out the truth.
Russell W @ 34,
I am not a competition lawyer, but my understanding is that the ACCC is not empowered to dismantle monopolies, it is only able to prevent anti-competitive mergers/takeovers in the first place.
I think that there is or was some media policy about how much common ownership of newspapers/radio/TV is allowed in each capital city, but others will know more about this than me.
What sg @ 29 said. I thought the technique of pretending they weren’t there was generally what Rudd did during his term, and we all saw how effective that was.
What we need is an Australian version of The Daily Show. Making fun of them would be the best technique, but no Australian medi outlet would have the guts, not to mention the talent.
“@16 – thanks, Andos, was reading her piece and writing this post in my lunch break at work (see comment about resources!) – will correct.”
Shucks, Kim. I thought Larvatus Prodeo owned a gleaming corporate tower in downtown Sydney and had dozens of Clark and Clara Kent style reporters at its disposal. Phew, was I deluded.
I agree with those who say that the government should make a point of treating information from The Australian as if it had an asterisk or scare quote around it.
The tone should not be bullying, but it should be pointed.
eg.
Journo: The Minister for Silly Walks, Frederick Nerk is quoted as saying that huis ministry is underfunded compared with the Ministry for Fish Slapping. What do you say to that?
Pollie: You didn’t read that in The Australian did you?
Journo: Well as a matter of fact, yes
Pollie: Oh, I see. [pause ...]
Journo: So do you agree?
Pollie: About what?
Journo: Mr Nerk’s remarks about his ministry
Pollie: Oh I’m sorry. I used to read The Australian, but these days I’m focusing on the quality journals. Perhaps you can email me the contents and I’ll get back to you.
Do that a few times — make The Oz a get out of question free card and the journos are going to stop using them. I’d also accidently on purpose ignore journalists from The Oz at pressers until one of them got the hump and then condescend to answer him Rudd-style while giving others straight answers.
All of it should be done without obvious anger, but with the manner one adopts clearing up after your dog.
patrickg @15, I have long thought Wankerphon is a waste of space and I wonder if his “warning” to Rob Oakeshott doesn’t have a tinge of green.
Mr Denmore @17, I agree. The government is never going to win against Ltd News unless they can shut them down.
Perhaps ignoring them and starving them of access while rewarding their competitors could work, provided the competitors are prepared to report objectively.
Flatulus @18, my husband listens to the car radio and loathes the Parrot, calls him an ignorant *(insert insulting term of choice). Another LNP bully-boy.
hd @19, I wrote a comment, too. Haven’t checked to see if it’s appeared.
Ideally, if the government proposed banging through legislation tightening up media share, it might force Murdoch to pull his head in.
“You can have print or Fox, Rupert, and you’ve got until cob today to decide. Nasty talking to you!” Bangs down receiver in a satisfyingly dramatic way. Stalks into corridor, spots *(insert LNP knuckle dragger of choice) smacks him/her upside of the head, skips down the corridor whistling a cheery tune.
A few points.
From memeory, not a good source, the media laws were changed back in the 70s when Rupert did some buying, found himself in contravention of the existing media ownership laws, summoned the heads of the 2 parties [separately] for a drink and a chat at his rural retreat and the hey presto the laws were ‘reviewed’ for his convenience.
I remember at the time thinking the line from gospel “Luke” 7.8 seemed entirely appropriate.
Maybe someone else has a more accurate memory or good research skills.
Thinking about what Luke Walladge at #14 said about the ALP and the West Australian I reckon that the ALP did the right thing there.
Really exposing the bias etc of the West A or the OO in this case does not carry a down side because the bias is operating already.
Exposure simply brings it out in the open and the public deserve to be informed.
Heads the OO is going to misinform, tails the OO is going to misinform.
Whats to lose?
Finally, thank you Laura Tingle.
@Adrian at 39 – maybe Andrew Denton’s company, the ones that put together ‘The Gruen Transfer’ could be persuaded?
ewe @6, really… huh? Tearing up their corporate registration? I know it’s cliche and all, but still: we’re not China.
Carlitos @ 37 is right: what’s the consequences of the conservatives doing the same? Can/could they justify it?
hannah’s dad, you should try it some time. There are few feelings on this earth to rival the satisfaction of seeing a bully’s eyes glaze over because you clocked him one in front of his mates (not to mention how his piggy little face glazes over when you kick his balls up into his liver). The sight of his whole fragile ego collapsing in on itself is truly exhilarating.
In media terms, it might lead some of the class bully’s supporters – and particularly the ABC – to make a decision to keep better company, and show a little independence and spine of their own. You never know. But I think they all need a good kick to the treasures at the moment.
Maybe their response to the election indicates they’re already scared. Time for the good old aussie standby of a kicking a man when he’s down, if you ask me.
(Incidentally, I have a terrible flu today and much of what I say is being filtered through a very woozy brain).
Yes Ms Laurie@44, but who would broadcast it?
This is what I’ve been saying for some time Carlitos, but it’s important that we let the advertisers know that their expensive display advertising is costing them good will.
We ought to publish the names of the companies prominently under a “shame” file.
Mr Denmore wrote:
- Revision of the anti-siphoning laws around sports telecasts to be far more stringent, kills Fox Sports while also giving Telstra a slap via their joint ownership of pay tv interests.
- Rescinding publishing contract with the ABC.
- Purging of News Ltd. associated buffoons from the ABC board.
- Sack Mark Scott but pour millions into ABC24 on the condition that journalists must not become “names”. We don’t need any more Fran Kellys or Chris Uhlmans and the personality based bullshit that goes with elevating journos to celebrities. Nobody cares for their opinions. Make Sky look like the underfunded joke it really is.
- stop ministers appearing on Sky. Only send underlings.
Send ministers to ABC24
- Shut down “The Insiders” and sue Bolt personally for every cent he made on there on some flimsy pretense. Doesn’t have to stick, just has to hurt.
sg@29, I wasn’t suggesting the govt walk away from a fight. I just don’t think, as others have observed here, that governments delicensing or shutting down media outlets is a good look in a democracy.
The way to approach it is to distinguish between News Ltd’s masteads and News Corp, the corporate mothership. The journos are just wage slaves like the rest of us.
So you make life difficult for Mr Murdoch in a business sense. It was the Hawke-Keating govt as I recall that allowed the News takeover of the old Herald and Weekly Times Group in the mid-80s, so Labor has already done enough favours for Rupert (and got no thanks for it).
So if it were me sitting in Conroy’s office, I might decide it was time for a review of media ownership laws. I might encourage tax concessions for media start ups to foster a plurality of voices. And I might propose the low-cost leasing of bandwith on the NBN for alternative media.
As for Fairfax vs News Ltd, take it from me there is very lost between the editors of the AFR and The Australian, which has been using Rupe’s deep pockets to poach all the talent at the Fin. And they would steal Laura as well if they could.
Slightly OT, but I’m alarmed at the continuation of the
NBB cost myth.
It started with a “every house needs re-wiring @ $3000″ and had grown since. Govt needs to crop dust this one with some facts, stat.
I am sure that I am not the only voter who would be uneasy if the government of the day started using it’s financial clout to attack a media company let alone using tax payers money to attack. Too easy for the government to be seen as the bully and the media to be the poor weak victim.
Think of how we all felt when Richard Alston was bullying the ABC. Many of those who were uneasy about Alston would have been coalition voters who value media independence.
This doesn’t mean that Labor shouldn’t develop strategies to deal with the distortions of the Murdoch press – Just that it is just too easy for the strategy to backfire.
Flatulus @18, my Dad is legally blind and gets his news & news discussion from talkback. While he is often entertained by the ignorance displayed by the callers and so on, sometimes it gets more serious, even though he refuses to listen to the most egregious of the ‘hosts’.
I haven’t forgotten discussing the CPRS with him; Dad asked rhetorically, “And all that tax money that they collect, where’s it going to go?” So of course I said, “The idea is to compensate poorer people who will be affected relatively worse by price rises.” Dead silence from Dad (which is remarkable in itself). Not once had this little fact been mentioned.
The gov picking a fight with newscorp – messy
The gov using its power to hurt newscorp – not a good trend
The gov doing nothing – they won’t be a gov for much longer if they do
The gov changing media ownership laws – that might work
Now how to do that? The NBN is the prime opportunity I suspect but I think the free to air ownership liscence rules could be looked at.
With the current minority gov. the Sun King has lost his influence because he wants their heads. So what has the gov to lose by changing the ownership rules. It could get through the senate next year with the Greens help and the Sun King can rage as much as he wants but they won’t be listening.
Another idea, what about a website like Julia’s glorious schools ratings one. Get ACMA to host it and the public can rate journalists according to accuracy, relevance, bias etc. Prob not that effective but it would be fun. Oh, and fix up ACMA while we’re at it.
For international context, here are the words of UK Labour MP Tom Watson, on dealing with a Murdoch press that has now openly turned to a life of crime:
“Here we sit in parliament, the central institution of our sacred democracy, between us some of the most powerful people of the land, and we are scared… They, the barons of the media with their red-topped assassins, are the biggest beasts in the modern jungle. They have no predators, they are untouchable, they laugh at the law, they sneer at parliament, they have the power to hurt us and they do with gusto and precision.”
Give the Chaser boys a free rein to hit Murdochracy and the shock jocks as often and as hard as they like?
Oh OK, but it’s fun to imagine what they’d come up with. The thought of the technicolour explosion as they set their unrelenting sights on the Parrot-his bluster and bullying would be no match for the Chasers! Sigh!
As raised by several others, any government needs to tread very, very carefully when it comes to dealing with feral media magnates. Using the law heavy-handedly in order to suppress ideological opponents is never right. That doesn’t mean that a review of media ownership laws, or an enquiry into the Melbourne Storm pay rorts shouldn’t happen, just that they need to be framed very carefully.
In the meantime I recommend politely amused contempt for any simplistic talking point coming from the Murdoch stable as the way to go. Every Labor and supporting cross-bench MP should drill themselves in refusing to get defensive when such talking points are raised, and instead aim to simply raise an eyebrow instead and call out ridiculous or offensive questions for exactly what they are. The Indies showed themselves well able to do this during the last few weeks, and wasn’t it refreshing?
So here’s some wacky thoughts on how one might be able to flush the political allegiances of journos.
Many newspaper articles already have a by line so conceptually it should be possible to monitor a journos track record and possible biases (or should I say “perspectives on issues”). That’s what intuitively what many people do as they read a paper. The by line becomes a journos “brand”. And so as you go down the media supermarket aisle you make your choices.
Extending the supermarket aisle concept a little. Think of Choice Magazine where they compare and rank products against a standard set of measurable criteria. The journo becomes the product and their opinions the criteria.
Opinions are subjective so how do you measure them? There is qualitative market research software around that uses key words and phrases to analyse interview transcripts and documents.
Maybe you could establish an index of journos opinions. Transparency International has a country corruption index (sorry with the analogy) and we have the index of city liveability. These indices are calculated on set criteria, some objective some subjective but they are measured and then put into the index.
Maybe one we could throw to Possum Comitatis for comment?! If you could manage the data analysis (i.e. convert the qualitative into quantitative) I could see some truly spivvy charts and diagrams! Brand Shanahan vs Brand Oakes vs Brand Bolt!
The only way to stop corporate media (Murdoch or otherwise) running the agenda is to change the media ownership laws. Taking the existing structures ‘on’ would be counterproductive and impossible – after all they control the public agenda – there is no possiblity of getting any story out to a mass audience that is not consistent with the agenda of the current media ownership.
The govt can change the media ownership laws without in any way shutting down a single outlet. No-one – even someone who hates the Murdoch press – should be allowed to own mega-multiple TV stations or newspapers. There is no need for media magnates,quite the opposite.
Murdoch’s role in all of this is curious. The Australian is, as far as anyone can tell, losing money. And a lot of it. And it has been for some time. Its continuance is presumably a function of Murdoch’s ego.
One of its few constant income streams are the executive level job advertisments from both Fed & state governments but particularly the Feds. Tanner and Faulkner did much to reduce waste in this area, but it is salient to remember as was being reported a couple of days before the poll, that had Abbott gained government and enacted his promised PS recruitment freeze, The Australian would have been in significant trouble, losing as mch as $60 million in revenue.
This suggests that money/income isn’t quite as important a factor as one would expect if the owners were say private equity and secondly that the actions of the paper are far more partisan than we have supposed. To what degree that is a reflection of Murdoch’s worldview or the fashionably Randian babblings of the supposed Fourth Estate intellectuals clustered around Holt Street’s water coolers is a mute point.
Labor + Greens + Independents have a problem – they will need to be very careful how they tackle it. The bravery of journos such as Tingle speaking out (and Crabbe to a lesser extent) shouldn’t be underestimated.
Update: Laura Tingle will be on Lateline tonight (along with George Megalogenis).
Thanks Guido, for putting Tingle’s article on here for all to read.
I have wondered if there’s any chance of a class action against the Australian for selling what they know to be fiction labelled as news. In an ideal world the ACCC might be concerned about this maliciously false advertising but they’re not up to taking on big business.
tigtog @ 58
The plain, direct, ‘look them in the eyes’, delivery of the Indies has been most refreshing. There was a good example for MPs also from Simon Crean today. Knows his facts, studied, deliberate and respectful. I don’t expect his remarks to be reported widely, esp. in the oo (why should we attribute faux importance through caps?)
@65 – It’s one thing worth doing, Fascinated, and I agree. Tv has much more audience reach than newsprint. Sure, the tv journos tend to follow the press pack, but give up on the “win the news cycle” style of media management, talk sensibly and openly, stop repeating the soundbite lines, and see what happens…
Mr Denmore @ 51 made a particularly important point.
The NBN is one real area of attack on Murdoch.
I suggest that one big reason for the vitriol is that the NBN will enable a much greater degree of competition to Murdoch than most people realise…but that Murdoch’s execs DO realise that once the NBN is up and running and people can source and produce news in competition to him (Al Jazeera streaming video anyone – it’s surprisingly good), then his revenues will take a major hit.
It’s all about the money and NBN will hit his hip pocket hard.
So, perhaps the best thing that the ALP can do is accelerate the NBN – redouble the efforts to roll it out over the next few years.
It is something that many will like, is not an obvious attack on Murdoch (even though it is), and is something that will keep the independents on side. (Hey we sided with the ALP because it would bring high speeds to our electorates, and we have now delivered).
Getting the NBN up fast will deliver the kick in the financial cods that SG was talking about.
I also like Fran’s idea of referring to the Oz in a slighting manner. Not so sneering as to get people off side, but enough to get the message out that it is not something that one should take seriously.
“Oh, you read it in the Australian? But is there somewhere reliable that I can read it?”
That’s very good Mr Denmore. Even announcing a review might lead to a revision of how the anti-Labor war is conducted. I like the idea of plurality of voices. And I like the idea of a second front such as Brown’s Senate enquiry into the Melbourne Storm and News Ltd.
I know that finding money is hard, but I would dearly love to see the ABC News set up as an independent source of news, instead of the pathetic echo chamber it is now.
It once was, you know, back in the pre-TV days of radio, and it was highly valued as authoritative. Probably its origins went back to similar problems driven by Frank Packer. In the first generation of TV, ABC news and current affairs had a similar mantle. Even today David Salter would love a meatier version of Media Watch.
I think the easiest way to devalue what the OO says is to do what Abbott so effectively did before the election.
With a demure look of butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, he told everyone:
“Look, get ready for an ugly election. The Labor Party is going to throw everything but the kitchen sink at me…”
Conveniently air-brushing the fact that he is a habitual verbal abuser of women and cancer-sufferers, this line managed to set the scene of him as the poor, innocent victim, and the Labor Party as the bad guys.
When the insults started, it was a case of “see I told you how bad they were’. I cannot believe how he gets aways with all this.
The government should adopt a case of “Yep, broadband will be great for doing this and this, but just wait for the Australian. They’ll be up to their usual shenanigans…
Does anyone remember when NSW Premier Neville Wran cut all government advertising from The Sydney Morning Herald and refused to speak with journalists from the ABC back in the 80s?
I remember it went on for a long time but no longer remember what effect it had, if any. In those days government advertising (jobs, tenders etc) was an important source of revenue for newspapers
@58
I completely agree with this. A full-frontal attack on news ltd of the sort some are talking about would be extraordinarily counterproductive and would almost guarantee that Labor loses the next election comfortably.
The best thing that Labor (or any progressive politician) can do is not be knocked off course by the inevitable partisanship and dot all the “i”s and cross all the “t”s when developing policies and rolling out programmes. When Labor started to concede the point on waste, or appear to, it was guaranteed that the electorate would see it in those terms as well. Similarly, the process and timing of the release of the Henry Review made it much easier to run a scare campaign on it. One thing that Kevin07 did somewhat successfully was change the narrative to suit Labor’s agenda not the coalition’s. That lesson was lost over the past 3 years.
“That which does not kill us makes us stronger” Nietzsche
It hasn’t killed us. We must be stronger. We are stronger. They are striving to become stronger. They in their lack of wisdom would kill us but we the wise need them to keep us stronger.
Many media outlets fear being completely shut out by leading politicians. It is a wise politician who can recognise the value of vigorous challenge vs absoloute bias and act accordingly.
Of course, one can also be a little more subtle.
Give News Ltd information a little later than anyone else. Just fifteen minutes or so.
Make availability of briefings etc just a little harder for them. Not an outright prohibition, just plausible delays.
Make their press handouts a little less comprehensive.
etc.
I cannot believe that I am reading some of this rubbish. This is ludicrous if you lived in the UK you would be a Guardian reader (equivalent Fairfax) or you are a Telegraph reader (The Australian etc) I could mention other semi equivalents big deal does Laura Tingle think readers cannot tell the difference does she think we cannot work out the difference between her point of view or Piers Ackerman. When I read the Oz each morning I already know which way George Meglogenis is going to slant his article or Dennis Shanahan. At fairfax I know how David Marr is going to pitch his stories or Gerard Henderson.Does Laura think were all morons. Personally I liketo read different points of view that’s why I read Lavartus whereas I find Crikey to be boring mono think.
The clash of ideas is healthy in a society and all those who think we should censor journalists , networks and publishers should emigrate to Iran or somewhere. People know what their getting when they listen to talk back radio they get what they want to hear. would you be upset if you listened to Philip Adams and thought him biased one way or the other.
Finally Laura Tingle should acknowledge that a good number of News Limited publications endorsed Labor in their final editorials including the Sunday Telegraph and Sunday Herald sun two huge weekend papers so what is she on about. And as for any paper commenting on Julia Gillards appearance you cannot be serious look at the commentary on Abbott in Budgie Smugglers lycra etc that he is the mad monk some kind of right wing crazy the cartoonists draw him as a hairy neanderthal. What are we supposed to do ban all commentary that we dont agree with that is an insult to a dynamic grown up democracy.
Laura should address her bile to the young and disengaged who are happy to just coast along without any idea about the policies of any of the parties because our country to strong economic management thanks to Hawke/Keating and Howard/Costello are coasting along recession free at the top of the pile. I remember a real recession like 1990 to 1993 with unemployment of over 11 per cent now that wakes anyone up and keeps you focussed on politics.
Lavartus readers actually care about this country but many people dont just ask them anything about politicians and their policies they havent gat a clue despite absolutely massive numbers of news sources compared to ten years ago.
Wake up Laura you dish it out and you can cop it too thats called democracy and civil liberty you should feel lucky you live and work here.
$10m of funding for The Australian each year is Federal Government advertising.
Like Kennett did to The Age in the ’90s and Wran to the SMH in the ’70s, cut the ads. Then, perhaps, all that IPA shrieking about the nanny state might have something to it.
What Ron #70 said. Remove a great chunk of their income via advertising all government positions on a single government vacancy website, instead of in the pages of the Australian would be a killer. Didn’t rabbit have a “hare-brained” policy that would have had the same consequence?
Simon @ 74, you make some very good points but I don’t think anyone here is trying to censor News Ltd, just even the balance a bit as they see it and there is plenty of variance of views on balance.
This government has gone from one of the most popular in recent history to just hanging on by the skin of it’s teeth in a very short time thanks largely to the MSM’s ability to completely misrepresent nearly everything it does.
Every success has been spun as a horrendous failure and the government have been unable to defend themselves since the MSM have ownership/control of most of the channels of information that reach the public.
Every lie and distortion that the government has been unable to counter (which is pretty much all of them) has become the truth in the minds of many for that very reason – they have not sought to refute the accusations (they have but it has scarcely been reported) so that confirms their guilt in the eye of the public.
The most common comment I hear: “this government has just stuffed everything up”.
The fact this this government went to the polls presiding over one of the most successful economies in the world – especially given the global situation – has not amounted to a hill of beans. Such is the power of the negative press.
Whatever they choose to do, they had better do it pretty quickly because the chances of them surviving another election under these circumstances are probably in the realm of zero.
@74
Not when there is the sweaty scent of a bully about.
We don’t know exactly for what reasons, and they maybe complex too just as with any other bullying behaviour. However, bullying is innately about irresponsibility and immaturity, be that in the schoolyard, business or politics.
NewsCorp is such a huge entity, with probably a life of its own never mind family, which begs the question how much is Rupe in on this?
Who within News has the maturity not only to think, but also act responsible in the matters of how it interferes with the governing of a nation which, according to IMF, has the 11th highest GDP of all countries.
I think that the current “strategy” of ignoring it in the hope it will go away has clearly not worked. It has merely made them more cocky.
If this situation had happened in the Hawke/ Keating era, there would have been any number of Labor MPs cutting them down.
The “advisors” need to stop trying to bend and adjust to every twist and turn the Murdoch press creates (followers can never lead) and simply tell it like it is. The BER IS a success, with only 3% of projects commented on and an average 5% overrun (unheard of in government projects). The Batts “debacle” had less issues pro rata in the 18 months than the average, even though 15 YEARS worth of installations were done.
I am amazed that the Labor Party has become so toothless, so beholden to the MSM, when that had always been the domain of the poll driven conservatives.
GET OUT THERE AND TELL IT LIKE IT IS!!!
This current environment is ideal to do this. As Annabel Crabb wrote on The Drum yesterday, the MSM has no idea how to handle this new era where conflict is the norm and therefore not actually newsworthy. The Gallery will have to work that much harder, research, listen, be there all the time. Hopefully the lazy hacks from the Murdock press will be so unable to cope with actually REPORTING rather than slagging that they will become irrelevant.
I look forward to the day that people such as Christopher Pyne are actually asked things like, “So where do you get that figure of $8B waste on the BER when you are also saying that it has been a waste of time because only $9B worth of projects have been started and the GFC is over?”
Surely there is something to be done about the ABC. It’s apparently owned by us and we fund its programs. So why can’t we influence hire and fire?
I’m sure there are employees nobody would regret being given their marching orders-Fran Kelly and Virginia Trioli spring to mind. The rumble of the tumbrils might be enough to cause a little self examination among the remaining staff.
And with Rodent board appointees like Albrechtson due to finish their tenure in the near future, the board can be re-stocked with non-partisan people, who will hopefully restore balance at the national broadcaster.
Is this the high tide for Murdoch? In the UK, News Ltd is finally being confronted over its widespread illegal bugging and smearing during the Labour years. He has been kicked out of China. Kick in the whole rotten facade.
“I think that the current “strategy” of ignoring it in the hope it will go away has clearly not worked. It has merely made them more cocky.”
Exactly bennyg.
But what to do about it? Some comments seem to suggest that these people are completely untouchable. If that is the case then this government are fucked because there will be no let up until elements in the MSM have achieved their aim of destroying Labor/the current government and installing the coalition. They will see to it that the government that has delivered some of the worlds best economic outcomes among some of the worst global conditions will nonetheless be remembered as the most incompetent in history. Indeed, many see them as that now.
Certainly, ignoring them has not worked and nor will it – like the terminator, they are on a mission to destroy and absolutely will not stop until the mission is completed.
Methinks Tingle is attributing just a little too much of the MSM’s current malaise to the News Corp press, when in reality it’s, well, a problem with all of the mainstream organs that send representatives to the gallery.
I know I was watching and raging at the SBS evening news during the election campaign at the very same time as people here focussed on Kim’s open threads about the Channel Nine bulletins. Elite media group think isn’t confined to Murdoch’s rags.
Anyway, keep your eye on Bruce Hawker. Watch what he does after the NSW state Labor government is turfed out next year (fingers crossed). Watch how he travels compared to Karl Bitar and the ‘faceless’ senators.
If we’re sitting around next year writing about Hawker being Gillard’s leading strategist at the expense of the formal Labor Party structure then I see a way for the nation out of the mess the fourth estate has gotten us into. Sorry, but a coherent response to the media’s anti-progressive jihad isn’t going to come from ALP officials and faction leaders desperate to cover their arses. And it won’t happen merely because Leftwingers hate Murdoch as usual for the thirtieth year in a row. It’ll only happen if Gillard is willing to look at new and creative ways of influence peddling to force the corporate MSM into a corner.
Though I have a good feeling about the possibility that the ‘faceless’ men have figured out that something monstrously unfair has befallen Labor. They can’t help but realise that Abbott was given free kick after free kick, that there was a systemic bias against their government that was pretty unwarranted, and totally not ‘politics as usual’. These are hardmen who’ve been raised to believe the early 90s state ALP governments and Keating in ’96 got everything that was coming to them—my gut feeling is they know enough to realise that a 2010 federal Labor government led by Rudd or Gillard or Fred Nerk just should never have received such a hardcore bollocking from the Conventional Wisdom. It’s pretty obvious they deposed Rudd precisely because they thought the electoral fundamentals were either pretty sound or could be quickly manipulated back to their advantage, i.e. politics as usual could be quickly rejigged.
Though the ALP secretaries and ex-secretaries realising there is something wrong with Modern Unrepresentative Power In Australia isn’t quite the same as them deciding they’re willing to put their careers on the line to do something proactive about it. Hence my desire for Gillard to recruit Hawker and give him a roving brief to work the system from the inside.
Does anyone know who puts out the sticker “Is it true or did you read it in the Courier Mail?”
I saw this just a few days ago, the Courier Mail of course being one of Rupert’s rags, unfortunately our only morning paper here.
It isn’t even worth using to line a birdcage.
Substitute “The Australian” for the Courier and you could have some fun putting this up on noticeboards etc etc.
Good idea to remove government advertising from the press onto government websites – popular, as it saves money and would be just as effective.
But trying to control the popular press won’t be very effective, and could be made to be seen as big-brotherish.
Instead I would improve the ABC so that it was obviously the quality leader. TV, radio but especially website.
First, I would increase the funding to buy vastly better programs, of all sorts, than the rubbish now broadcast, which would attract more viewers generally. (This would, incidentally, hurt the Murdoch empire in various ways).
Second I would have managers/producers who know what quality journalism and current affairs is, and that’s what would be broadcast. Quality journalism doesn’t use the techniques of drama/entertainment to try to attract the large audiences that entertainment can attract. Audience size is not as important as quality, when it comes to news.
@65, I do wish people wouldn’t conflate capital letters with importance; proper nouns, i.e. names, get caps, not Important Words. The OO is clearly the name of a publication, it gets caps. Conversely, random things that people think are important don’t.
I dont agree with the view that either Fran Kelly or Virginia Trioli are a problem in any way at the ABC. It is pretty clear in any case that the ABC and News Limited are at war with each other right now and not just because of Sky News and ABC 24 Hours fighting a massive turf war. The ABC has many superb journalists and in my view had a very strong election with outstanding overall coverage and audience numbers. Q and A ran up massive numbers and shows like this and Lateline and 7.30 tested all politicians quite significantly certainly more than I can ever remember. Due to these ABC shows in particularly many people got their real feel for the politicians who were up to the job like Conroy, Bowen, Roxon, Morrison, Turnbull and those who were not Hockey, Smith, Albanese, etc. The ABC held the politicians to real scrutiny the only problem I had with any of the election was the presidential style of contest represented and therefore, the lack of policy debate which therefore derailed Labor’s woeful campaign. The Labor strategists not News or the ABC are entirely responsible for the final result and their American style strategies of negative attack adds and small policy targets demean the debate one which Labor cold easily have won if they had used either Roxon or Swan as effectively as did Conroy who virtually won them the election and almost entirely on policy and the “vision thing”.
Obviously Simon was watching the ABC in a parallel universe that’s almost exactly like this one, except that they have quality media
The ABC should be made to sever *all* financial contracts they have with News Ltd and Fairfax, with the exception of licensing raw footage.
News Ltd and Fairfax employees should never be able to sit on the board of the ABC while they work for those companies.
They should not be doing business together.
If the Government really wants to take on the Murdoch press, they could try addressing the fact that so much of the Australian media is owned by a US citizen.
@ 74
Way to delegitimise the healthy competition of political ideas you disagree with, Simon.
Though I’ve noticed that this attempt to fashion a permanent economic elite ruled over by emeritus PMs and emeritus treasurers is quite widespread, and indeed is a very effective gambit for certain op-ed page writers and commentariat types. It allows them to (a.) declare the incumbent government lacking in legitimacy should it—cough, not-the-Liberal-party, cough—supposedly attempt to break with Orthodoxy, and (b.) further disenfranchise those people who want either non-major-party politics, or perhaps even old party competition that doesn’t conform with Orthodoxy.
And it’s been a long time since this tendency decided it must exercise tough love towards self-described political conservatives. Funny, that.
Simon – I can’t remember which was the first ABC program I decided to avoid, but it was either Breakfast when Fran Kelly got it, or LNL with the insufferable Phillip Adams. That was years ago, and now it’s been 2 years since I listened to any ABC news or political current affairs.
It’s the whole ‘gotcha’, negative, superficial tripe that they go on with. No one can speak for more than 15 seconds before being interrupted, there are no extended discussions or explorations of anything. (On the other hand the rehearsed repetition of cliched ‘talking-points’ by public figures isn’t very enlightening either!)
Either this morning or yesterday ( just one blur) I was driving to work listening to Classic FM when something unbearable came on, so I stabbed at a button and got local ABC which was talking about football, so I stabbed again and got Radio National which was talking about movies, so I stabbed again and got News Radio. Ah, it was a measured, intelligent voice, perhaps a scientist, talking about last winter’s flu vaccination – not so interesting, but OK – then interjects the interviewer/moron with the question “So it was just another example of government waste and mismanagement, just like the BER schools ……”
Didn’t hear a word after schools because the tone and stupidity of the interjected question was enough for me to turn it off. I’m allergic to it now. Let’s have intelligent discussion about anything but not that attacking, negative, dumb, predictable, wrong superficiality. It skews the direction of public debate to a place where no one can explain or learn anything.
How about the Labor Government actually adopting social-democratic policies and implementing them instead of neoliberal ones and thus changing the whole political landscape? That might be the best way to challenge reaction, rather than pandering to it.
On “Lateline” Leigh Sales raised her column with Laura T, then asked George Megalogenis to comment.
If I heard correctly, he said that several Federal Ministers are more concerned that the “ABC just cuts and pastes stuff from The Australian and puts it all over your bulletins.”
At that point the interview ceased.
***
He has a point. The listening and viewing audience of the ABC far exceeds the readership of The Australian . But perhaps it was the suggestion of plagiarism by the ABC that stopped Ms Sales in her tracks?
And laziness, stupidity, etc.
Yes Ambigulous, but GM was being rather disingenuous also, although he of course has his job to think of.
George M was very keen to concentrate on Rudd’s supposed dysfunctionality, aka that autocratic nature which was just sooo, sooo totally out of place for a harddriven political figure.
Okay, even granting the notion that KRudd was a regular Vlad the Impaler, that doesn’t really explain much about the NewsCorp coverage of the election campaign, does it? (Though I have to admit there are Labor supporters in denial about the unfairness of the whole campaign coverage who might desire to clutch at these “KRudd is to blame for Abbott’s easy ride!” straws. Maybe George M is one of them.)
adrian, Mega shouldn’t have to be answerable for News faceless men.
Up thread someone mentioned shockjocks…solely focusing on NewsLtd & it’s echo chamber ABC (possibly should be renamed DEF) is to forget about the role majority shareholder John Singleton and his Macquarie Radio Network also play out there in embattler land, particularly in Sydney.
2GB with Alan Jones & Ray Hadley leading from the front & all other announcers make the OO appear quaint & old fashioned in their partisanship.
When Oakeshott & Windsor made their decision it was labelled the next morning ….. The Day of Infamy on 2GB !!
Jones & Hadley are daily unhinged hysterical boosters for the Liberals. No lie will not be retold over and over again. Personal scorn is heaped hourly on Gillard & Co.
With radio being so much more personal in it’s delivery, and with 2GB content being syndicated on 60 other radio stations – this exposed cash for comments – riot enabling creep & his fellow announcers – spend every single working day screeching anti-Labor Govt bile into homes, workplaces, taxis and so on – in Sydney his culm. audience is est. around half a million people.
The anti-ETS email campaign to coalition MPs was initiated and coordinated by Jones – giving out email addresses on air – explaining how to do multiple sends – when Abbott said he didn’t care – Jones railed that everyone was to send Abbott emails until he changed his mind.
As I said here a few months ago – we often forget that an Australian is the worst person on the planet…. we also forget that the worst person in Australia has access to more than half a million people.
Ban foreign ownership of media?
Also, just saw the Lateline interview. Looks like MegaGeorge is tied just as tightly to the News Ltd line as all the other hacks. Laura Tingle is refreshingly sensible, as always.
The concerning thing about Bob Browns “bell the cat” line is that it is not reported anywhere online except for Crickey and the Fin (and LP of course). The ABC deserves some complaints about this.
Very good point, Jo. There is absolutely no reason that country radio should be subjected to the same poisonous bile that Rush Limbaugh et al have managed in the US.
Although Queensland has suffered more of a recession than the other states and this clearly was a factor in Labor’s vote collapse there (which did not occur markedly anywhere else), I wonder if having Jones syndicated throughout country Queensland was also a factor.
This one could be resolved by Conroy and without resorting to censorship. He could simply look at reframing the local content part of commercial country licences.
In western Victoria, one investment company with bugger all staff runs a whole host of stations. They have token local content and the rest is piped down from 3AW (at least not as reactionary as Jones but still tory) and 2GB or 2UE. It’s just a money-saving venture. These stations should be forced to run their own programs and maybe suffer tax penalties for syndicated ones.
Something like that might clear the airwaves of a bit of poison.
“The thing that really concerns Labor ministers from what I’m told by some of them is not what’s in our paper but the fact that the ABC will take a cut and paste and broadcast our line across the rest of the country.”….G.M.
You did well Ambi@95! The Lateline transcript is up.
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2010/s3008990.htm
LAURA TINGLE: Leigh, I think that there’s been a long history of tension particularly with The Australian with Kevin Rudd, and it was always seen as an issue with The Australian rather than News Limited.
The News Limited tabloids have seemed to have escalated their sort of aggression towards the Labor Party during the election campaign, but I think it’s really been the post-campaign push against the attacks on the credibility of a minority government as an idea, the attacks on the independents and the Greens which have made people think this isn’t going to go away.
We’re not quite sure why this is happening, but we’ve gotta decide whether we actually confront this or whether we just let it go through to the keeper.
This is what Laura Tingle said that is relevant here.
Fascinated @65 There was a good example for MPs also from Simon Crean today.
This was clever. Mr Crean had good unemployment numbers which were ignored/sidestepped in the questioning; he immediately said he would be happy to answer those questions after some questions on this historic fabulous “good economic record” set of numbers. He got out the positive sound bite, sounded co-operative and not defensive/evasive. Delayed gratification works for kids and dogs, so perhaps journos can be trained.
Sorry about my blockqote stuff up @105.
I also think that jo makes a great point @99. Fertile ground and all, though. Look at what has happened to right-wing radio in Victoria. Bolt and Price Flop!
http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/radio-host-defends-ratings-flop-20100622-ytw1.html
George Megalogenis definitely risked embarrassing his host with the frank observation about the ABC echo chamber but I think his attempt to portray the ALP/NEWS problem as Rudd specific was textbook misdirection.
Frankly the ABC habit of legitamising the opinions of other media players instead of independently investigating the issues is boringly tedious.
Thanks to joe2 for the link
I posted a comment with the Oz on Friday calling for them to openly declare their preference for a one party state. I doubt it was published. Look, this post is spot on in its observations and a lot of the commentary is intelligent and useful. But, IMHO, it comes as no surprise that News and the other MSM clarions, to a greater or lesser extent, are succumbing to an outbreak of tabloiditis.
After all, big media organisations can only survive on the strength of their Neilsen numbers. Even the public sector media has to justify its existence in quantifiable terms. IMO, the problem is less about editorial policy than it is about commercial imperatives. Remember, Murdoch is resolutely old media. He failed to see the rise of new media in the 90s and has struggled ever since to find a viable commercial model for his stable. Thus we have the mooted pay wall for the Oz. Likewise Fairfax, whose rivers of gold model is leaky as more competition opens up online forcing the monoliths to engage in endless speculative acquisitions of cheeky, risky start ups. So I think what we are seeing is, by and large, a commercially driven phenomonen. After all, we are all talking about News and bemoaning the ABC which indicates we are reading, watching, listening and that is good for business.
Having said that, it is undeniable that Murdoch is ideologically driven and will strategically consort with vested interest, whether it be the global resources sector, the neocons, the banks or any of the other free market champions that seek to sustain, if not boost, the political status quo. However, the Left will never counter the MSM and the corporatist juggernaut by moral outrage alone.
Since the Hawke Accord of the 1980s, workers have been largely disenfranchised by the trade union movement as it has moved to the right in its accommodation of Richardson-led cosy cosy with the top end of town (and some in NSW would suggest the bottom as well). The absence of a vigilant, articulate representation of labour has created an enormous vacuum to be filled by the ‘Howard’s Battlers’ (soon to become Abbott’s Army) rhetoric which plays very neatly to the objectives of corporate vested interests for which News is the dominant mouthpiece. As News sets the agenda, and therefore pulls focus on its product, the remainder are forced to respond in a similar vein. I’m just saying.
Brown has come out of the blocks with an open criticism of News and it will be very interesting see if Labour has the courage and strategic nous to do likewise.
Very sorry for sounding off at length like this.
I probably should have posted my spray.
The problem is not that News Ltd are running a fierce anti-Labor/Greens campaign, but that the company owns too much of Australia’s media and is therefore able to squeeze out alternative viewpoints.
Having one company owning an overwhelming majority of the country’s media is a DIRECT threat to the health of our democracy.
The government has a duty to encourage greater diversity of media ownership. They can do this by introducing new rules about how much a single company can own, therefore forcing a sell-off of some News Ltd holdings. They can also do this by accelerating building of the NBN, to enable new forms of media to propagate.
The minority government offers the perfect stage for all this as the push for new media ownership laws can even come from the Greens or the Indies, not necessarily from Labor directly. I think this is one reason News Ltd fears a progressive minority government. And Australians will always support competition because after decades of neo-liberal economics – heavily promoted by News Ltd – if there’s one thing Australians understand, it’s that greater competition ostensibly leads to greater choice and better prices for them.
I’m a Greens voter. I have absolutely no problems with having a diversity of views in this country. The conservatives need to be represented, as do progressives. The problem is a lack of balance and diversity, which needs to be fixed urgently so that everyday people can have a variety of information and opinions at their fingertips.
It’s now or never for reforming media ownership laws. If Labor don’t win the next election, a Coalition government may look for ways of giving Rupert an even greater slice of this country’s media, further destroying the health of our democracy.
Noocat@110
Agree. Open up the commercial environment to a wider range of voices. Entrepreneurs with an eye to the future should see the opportunity presented by a shift in the 18-30 demographic to a left of centre political agenda. The rising Green vote is the clearest indication of this trend. Australia needs its version of The Guardian.
This has been a fascinating discussion. I’ve picked up on some of the themes over on my blog The Failed Estate.
BK, it’s the only feasible way. Anything else the government does will just look petty, and therefore counterproductive. The great thing about promoting media diversity is that it’s something that the public can value and support, as well as striking at the heart of News Ltd’s dominance.
An Oz version of the Guardian would be brilliant. We are in a crazy situation in this country where the largest voting bloc is Labor/Greens and yet all these millions of progressive voters have little representation in the media. Either these voters aren’t interested in progressive media (unlikely) or we are seeing ideology taking greater importance over business…
I was listening to commercial AM radio news bulletin this morning and the newsreader was reading a story about the forthcoming cabinet announcement. She got around to Rudd’s likely portfolio and said “blah blah blah … before he was knifed by Julia Gillard”.
This wasn’t a comment piece. It was a straight out reading of the news.
It’s times like these that I miss Uncle Joe.
BK @ 109
There is no doubt that while there is an ideological bent to the anti-labor writings there is also the need to create a reason for people to buy a newspaper. That is why so much of the press is geared to the celebrity and the shock horror.
Prior to Kevin Rudd being replaced by Julia Gillard the Oz had portrayed him as hopeless and her as wonderful. When people acted on this they first of all had a dalliance before turning on her for such important matters as earlobes and the like. Something that is totally outside her control unlike a deliberate decision to be seen in budgie smugglers.
Julia Gillard handles the press very well but ignoring them won’t stop the stories coming. Rather than being like the rabbit caught in the headlights a different and proactive approach is called for. Some of the ideas in this blog would be effective whilst avoiding a head on confrontation which is completely unwinnable.
while it’d be great to read more newspaper diversity with something like an oz guardian, the punishing costs to establish a reliable paying readership/audience will probably require more than what the guardian’s scott trust foundation underwrites… and the closest scenario here might be morry schwartz and his ‘monthly’ et al empire – but seriously?
probably better to push for internal ABC news-caf reforms, tho as others have suggested, this will require a delicate multi-prong approach redolent of good citizenship rather than the easy reproach (eg, some fine 21st-century methods curbing anti-establishment fervour can be learnt at singapore’s dominant media company, SPH, for example)
I agree with June Just, the Australian were almost egging on the ALP to dump Kevin. He’s hopeless, he should just resign. Julia is great, she should become PM.
Surveys say Julia would be a great PM, blah blah blah.
And then they started on her.
I’m also getting sick of Chris Ullmahnn’s prolonged Rudd bashing. All we are hearing today is how Rudd (an experienced diplomat) was given the Foreign Affairs portfolio to basically shut him up, and stop Rudd from wilfully destablising the party.
Who is “leaking” this Rudd information to Ullmahnn, and why isn’t THIS leaker being condemned???
C.U has been asking “how will ministers be able to work with Rudd given they all hate him”.
Give it a bone, mate!!
He paints Rudd as an egomaniac who chases the limelight, today stating: “you watch, Rudd will dominate the evening news tonight blah blah..”
Well, STOP obsessing about Rudd and then he WON’T dominate the news!!!!
Interesting times indeed. As a lot of people have pointed out new media and the proliferation of channels has led to a kind of Balkanization of opinion with many people barricaded in behind one particular point of view and able to filter out anything they disagree with. News has simply chosen it’s niche – angry old white men. It’s a model working well in the US where Fox News is making a fortune attacking Obama 24 hours a day.
“The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it.”
— Karl Marx, The German Ideology, 1845
Seemed apposite, really.
David #118: “News has simply chosen its niche — angry old white men.”
Gotta love how that racist hate comes flaming right out the front of the ol’ cave hole, whenever it’s convenient… for leftists.
Remind me again why you hate-poisoned creatures should ever be taken seriously, for any reason, under any circumstances?
Oh, that’s right, there isn’t one. Silly me.
“Gotta love how that racist hate comes flaming right out the front of the ol’ cave hole, whenever it’s convenient… for leftists.”
Racist hate?
WTF?
Japerz, are you hitting the sauce again?
The whole reason for the Australian’s existence is to lead the media agenda – in particular, to publish stories that the electronic media (including the ABC) picks up. Remember, The Australian has been a loss-making paper for much of its time and has the circulation of a regional city’s paper.
Take the BER: nobody was convering waste in the school building program for the simple reason that it didn’t exist. That didn’t stop the The Australian and it’s campaign to discredit both Keynesian economics and the Rudd Government. Repeat a lie often enough….
P.S.: The Australian will be after Tingle now. Just ask the likes of Robert Manne and David Marr. Fortunately, The Oz is usually the one looking sillier when they pick on someone who can defend themself.
But good on Tingle for saying it. Guts and brains. It needed to be said and more need to join her.
….it’s? Damn errant apostrophes.
FDB — well, no, bud.
But let’s review.
“Angry old white men”
Do you see a blanket category, or do I see a pink elephant?
Do you see a population dehumanized and reduced to its age, gender and racial attributes, and stripped thereby of its rational claims (and stripped of them specifically BECAUSE OF those attributes?), or do I see a funny imaginary carousel crowned with stars and sea-lions?
Careful how you tread, laddie. This sort of thing bites people in the ass historically all over the place.
I’d expect leftists to understand that, except that I don’t expect leftists to understand a damn thing about the world.
” or do I see a funny imaginary carousel crowned with stars and sea-lions?”
I wish I could see that jpz. What’s your drug of choice this evening?
Holly @ 117 – Uhlmann is married to Gai Brodtmann, newly elected ALP HoR member for Canberra. Her campaign had a lot of direct input from Hawker Britton – presumably someone like her at HQ.
‘likes’ not like, though that may also be true. Come on Swannies you useless bastards – 77 to 64. Sigh.
Yes, good on Tingle!
While somoenes having a go do you think we could get the media to stop inciting hatred!(??)!
It really does destroy us all and is a Global Phenomenon!
Can’t we utiltise the internets/e.g.email to develop a grassroots move against this hate speech and demand change, I mean: aren’t we many and they are few! ?????!
… just saying! [...someone surely had to say it, didn't they!??!]
Thinking about these matters and going back to my favourite ideal, of setting up a genuine competing independent ABC news service, I wondered:
Scott has set up some infrastructure such ABC-TV News 24 and radio News channel which might be very useful in the right circumstances (not as The Australian Cut and Paste as currently used) …
The problem, which Mr Denmore has alluded to, is that a real independent news service and genuine research reporting costs a lot of money…
Would it be feasible, for this specialty service only, to allow structured-time commercials such as SBS and community radio have? That way there would be a budget to help pay for proper reporting and editing.
I’m not suggesting that it be used in mainstream ABC general broadcasting – only in those news services. It may also be possible for the news services copyright to recoup some costs through syndicating.
Before Keating rather dumbly pushed through the privatising of the Commonwealth Bank, it had served a rather useful function of a competing brake on the more aggressive banking activities [and as a side-benefit its executives performed at least as well as those in the private sector for only a fraction of the packages and bonuses applying to them).
Maybe something of the same principle could be applied to news. As Mr Denmore and others have said the NBN and new technology may provide some of these options anyway. But given the current attacks, which may in fact be based on heading off this threat by gutting NBN, another line of counter-attack may be useful.
Thanks for the PDF Guido! FINALLY someone in the media stood up to the Murdoch media!
They are so biased it is an utter disgrace and embarrassment to this country.
Let’s hope Australia sees through them now.
Perhaps if financial circumstances force the ABC to “cut and paste” then at least they should be encouraged to do the C&P from a variety of sources so as to not make it that obvious….and give us a bit of variety….and make their plagiarism a little less obvious.
I for one have found Al Jazeera to be pretty damn good (although compared to Fox, my cousin’s junior school age kids with the video cam are pretty damn good).
If the ABC must C&P then how about a combination of the Beeb, CNN, Al Jazeera, and perhaps a selection of other Oz media?
j_p_z – it wasn’t so much the ‘racist’ part (although <mentioning race is only arguably and trivially racist) as the ‘hate’ bit.
Now that can’t have come from David’s fairly dispassionate observation of demographics (“old, white men”), so it seems the entirety of your vivid and evocative description of a defenceless group exposed to the fiery lashings of racist hate!!! is premised his use of the word “angry”.
Now I wouldn’t normally want to suggest that you lack empathy, but your overreaction has me thinking you’re taking this personally.
You’re not… angry are you, old white man?
Think this thread is probably the appropriate place for this:
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/dark-days-as-the-media-plug-into-a-mob-mentality-20100911-155vq.html
(Don’t know if some-one else has linked it above recently. Just sat down to read through the thread.)
Good point Marks@134.The frequently heard excuse for the ABC that it’s woeful standard of reporting is a result of laziness and/or lack of resources is absolute crap. They chose to cut and paste from a news service that will provide the level of bias required.
Like any news organization the ABC makes deliberate choices, and most of us know what those choices are when it comes to the public broadcaster.
Thanks for the pdf Guido, printed and distributed…I am tickled pink about how tantalising the Word of Tingle has become behind that AFR paywall…
The question we really should be asking is why does the ABC pick up and run with so me stories that originated at The Australian?
Julia Gillard was asked about the extreme partisan path that News Ltd and The Australian in particular, chose during the campaign and in the interregnum of 17 days after it, and she played a dead bat.
Certainly, she didn’t draw any explicit conclusions that Bob Brown did. Nor did she hint at any retribution, as did Brown, who said that an inquiry into News’s role in the rugby league salary debacle may be on the cards. Indeed, it will be interesting to see if Bob’s threats actually eventuate in a Senate committee room. I wouldn’t mind seeing Harto answering some questions under oath.
It is intriguing that News should mobilise its huge forces to such an extent and with such vehemence against the ALP this time around.
If we look, below, at the distribution of pub. titles across population centres, it is clear that where the company is most pervasive and therefore most influential – indeed where it has a district monopoly on newspaper titles – it is strongest in Queensland and that is where Labor’s fortunes ebbed most strongly too.
The Australian (Nationwide)
The Weekend Australian (Nationwide)
The Courier-Mail (Queensland)
The Sunday Mail (Queensland)
The Cairns Post (Cairns, Queensland)
The Gold Coast Bulletin (Gold Coast, Queensland)
Townsville Bulletin (Townsville, Queensland)
Innisfail Advocate (Innisfail, Queensland)
Tablelander (Atherton, Queensland)
The Daily Telegraph (New South Wales)
The Sunday Telegraph (New South Wales)
The Herald Sun (Victoria)
The Sunday Herald Sun (Victoria)
The Weekly Times (Victoria)
mX (Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane CBDs)
Geelong Advertiser (Geelong, Victoria)
The Advertiser (South Australia)
The Sunday Mail (South Australia)
The Sunday Times (Western Australia)
The Mercury (Tasmania)
The Sunday Tasmanian (Tasmania)
Northern Territory News (Northern Territory)
The Sunday Territorian (Northern Territory)
News Ltd also owns a huge chunk of suburban and local newspapers in NSW via Cumberland Newspapers and Courier newspapers group.
Again, News’s local newspapers were just as virulent in their rejection of Labor members at a local level and just as embracing of the Coalition.
Never mind The Australian, which has a small, and diffuse circulation. The Daily Telegraph truly poisoned the well with its Der Stuermer-like vicious caricatures of Gillard as a full front page, and which were calculated to demean and ridicule the prime minister as an individual. It is instructive to actually call up Der Stuermer (“The Attacker”) in Google and compare. The techniques are identical and this is a bit of a worry.
A Wiki article says that the intention was for Der Stuermer to “appeal to the common man, to the worker with little time to read. Thus, Der Stuermer’s articles used short sentences and a simple vocabulary. Ideas were repeated. Headlines grabbed a reader’s attention. And the cartoons were easily understood.”
In the case of 2010 political campaign, News Ltd had at its disposal not just the 23 metropolitan newspapers but also a hundred or so of locals throughout Australia, including 32 in Sydney.
Check this out for yourself. Wherever you go, be it a sandwich shop, a motor repair customer waiting room, coffeshop, a takeaway, doctor’s waiting room, a hospital emergency, bush shelters, trains – there is always a News Ltd pub., creating a wall of propaganda that is hard to resist on both a conscious and a subconscious level.
Human beings, being hardwired pack/group animals, obtain their clues on how to proceed from reinforcement. To test the veracity of messages from the environment on how to survive, we constantly test input for reinforcement. Hence, a repeated or similar message from seemingly disparate sources tend to formate ideas which appear to be validated by way of repetition.
This is why advertising works best if a campaign is simultaneously spread across different media (billboards, buspaks, radio, TV and newspapers) and why News Ltd is so powerful nowadays: they have seized control of mass communication.
Since the last election, News has grabbed another swatch of titles with its absorption of Courier newspapers, for example. Its stranglehold on what ordinary people read and see in print at least is almost total. It is an opinion-forming behemoth. Its mind-control mechanism is totalitarian in its scope and reach.
No wonder that Gillard was evasive on The Insiders earlier today when invited to dump on News. She chose to gently chide rather than unload.
But it will not do any good to suck up to News. Like Robocop, News cannot be cajoled or charmed. Even its best journalists are ultimately beholden to their employer. They owe their $150,000+ living to the company and even though in their heart of hearts they know they are participating in what is a travesty of news delivery, they are forced to defend it: this was evident to those who saw George Megalogenis when confronted with, and asked about what Laura Tingle wrote in the AFR his was uncharacteristically weak and mealymouthed rationalisation of his paper’s stance, someone obviously primarily concerned with protecting his meal-ticket. And again, Dennis Atkins, on Insiders today.
OK, we know that News is doing it, but why is it doing it? Clearly, News does not have an ideological issue with the current Labor Government like it did with the Whitlam government.
Fear of exposure over the salary cap through some sort of inquiry? This is unlikely to be the reason. Labor wouldn’t dare to take News on – it is essentially gutless these days, only daring to eat its own rather than take on its enemies outside, and anyway, the question of payback only would have arisen after the election, after most of the damage to it was done, not before it.
So what is it? Why has News gone so hard, and so viciously and indeed, so desperately with the possibility of a backlash against it – which is gathering a bit of momentum, as we speak.
I reckon it is the rollout of the National Broadband Network (NBN). Once the full ramifications of NBN to its bottom line dawned on News it quickly got a total compliance to kill it from Abbott as a quid pro quo.
(And of course it is ironic, is it not, that NBN was cited as the reason the senior partner in the independents’ alliance, for supporting Labor.)
NBN threatens News’ position as a pre-eminent controller of thought because it has the potential to demolish barriers to entry into virtual-MSM from myriad of players.
Already blogs such this have become a thorn in the side of MSM generally and News in particular. What was once an oracular position is now spoiled by heckling from the blogosphere, which spoils the total concept as outlined above.
With NBN complete, everyone can potentially become a broadcaster in high definition.
Already, in our household, we have a powerful computer with a 27-inch screen and a fast broadband connection that allows us to stream and watch movies and programs in HD.
NBN will allow netcasting – in real time.
NBN will make the provisions contained under legislation about ownership regulations contained in the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 obsolete.
We know that Murdoch hates the web (as it is now) because it costs him money. NBN will add insult to fiscal injury.
Here is what I did with News Ltd. Just sent the fax to them.
Tuesday 20 May 2008
Fax: 92883843
Attn: John Hartigan, CEO News Ltd
Dear Mr Hartigan,
or whoever in charge of ciruculation, if there is any,
As owner of XXXXX Newsagency I am writing to complain about the late arrivals of Limited News’ publications to our shop, especially on Saturdays and Sundays.
Due to some inexplicable alignment of stars, we happen to be at the butt end of your delivery run therefore we are always the last to receive your papers on your already late run. This morning the Sunday Telegraph, the Sunday Pravda of the Liberal Party arrived at 5:30!! Yesterday the Daily Telegraph the Daily Pravda of the Liberal Party and the Australian the Australian Press Release of the Liberal Party got here not much earlier.
How on earth are we supposed to manage the three hour long delivery run, let happy customers read their Sunday Telegraph Sunday Pravda of the Liberal Party while having breakfast when they get the papers at Lunch Time ! Who is gonna pay for the extra time and extra petrol of our delivery drivers?
Who is gonna tell my tearful 5 year old daughter, all dressed up for her 9am non-refundable dancing lesson “oh, honey, you can’t go dancing today, because daddy has taken the only family car to deliver Liberal Party propaganda” “why? Honey, this is a long story. Long long ago, in a far far way kingdom called Adelaide, a prince was born and he grew up to run his billion dollar empire named Limited News. What is Limited News? Oh, honey, it is called Limited News because apparently the editors and reporters there have only limited skills and they can only write stories which are biased, unfair, unbalanced, one sided and corresponding only to their inner beliefs that only the Liberal Party is entitled to govern and we should hold election again and again and again until we get the result right. But how is it related to your dancing lessons? Sorry honey I got carried away. Though their ability to report straight news is limited, their talent for making money (and breaching NRL salary cap) is not. They have billion dollar profit and they want more. How? By squeezing every penny possible. By laying off truck drivers and having insufficient resources to distribute their papers. What can I do? Honey I can write Mr Hartigan a nice letter and ask him to take a 1 per cent pay cut from his million dollar salary and hire an extra god damn truck driver!! Oh if he can’t find anyone willing to do that job at 3am in the morning maybe just he should get off his fat ass and drive a truck to deliver himself!”
Well I maybe exaggerate a bit in the above paragraph but then as supreme Ayatollah of tabloid journalism you guys should just take it as a compliment.
Regards,
Which, Ginja@139, is precisely the point that George Megalogenis raised on Lateline…
“The thing that really concerns Labor ministers from what I’m told by some of them is not what’s in our paper but the fact that the ABC will take a cut and paste and broadcast our line across the rest of the country.”
Some people have been critical of his performance on another thread. Sure he is drawing attention away from the Newscorp biased part in recent media coverage but even Tingle has not gone this far in public.
I think he has done the cause a great service and does not deserve to be branded as cowardly.
The ABC will be trying to run a mile from this exposure. Even if it has been spoken about on blogs for ages.
I agree with Sir Henry. I think the FFR (Forces of Fascist Repression) are in a bit of a twirl right now because technology is driving changes to all sorts of business. Established companies that have lots of infrastructure dedicated to delivering their profits are unable by their nature to move as quickly and as adroitly as small start-ups.
Yet they find themselves facing up to a future where companies with agile and creative approaches will be supported by an NBN which is going to be available to all. Suddenly there’s going to be a lot of competition from a bunch of folk who have almost no overheads and a superb communication system.
The dinosaurs are flailing around in the tar pits. They are terminal, but they’re deadly dangerous nonetheless. Is there anything that can be done, other than standing well back and making the kiddies look the other way?
What an extraordinary article. I take it as seriously as I take all those articles about ABC left-wing bias.
FFR?
FFS.
Al Jazeera has Sir David Frost, don’t they? That’s a pretty sharp programming decision, particularly with the success of ‘Frost/Nixon’.
Yet News Corp in the US has jumped on board the free Internet bandwagon by putting Fox TV programmes online, on demand. If the print-heavy Australian branch of News Corp has decided they don’t like these trends then this would mean Rupert is running a very incoherent media empire strategy. Even they must know you can’t ‘localise’ Internet policy.
It’s important for we Rupe-phobes to remember News Corp is pissing into the wind with things like Paywalls for garden variety newpaper articles. Another decade of that and we won’t have these guys to kick around anymore…
Holly, welcome back to Australia. Looks like you have a lot of catching up to do.
Apropos of absolutely nothing – or maybe again quite a lot – does anybody have any info about Mr Murdoch’s philanthropic credentials, especially in Ozland?
His mum’s are well-known.
I’ve done work for Al Jazeera. They’re good to deal with and they’re interested in Australian material. Interestingly, their Kuala Lumpur office is almost entirely staffed by ex ABC and SBS people.
AC @147, am I the only one that’s angry about this? Insiders today was a absolute Rudd bitch-fest. Ivan Milat gets better media than Rudd.
I am soooo over that show.
I do not think this is an issue of ideology but a principle of marketing: to protect and defend the brand. News is doing whatever it can protect its profit centres and if it has to do it through a coup d’etat, so be it. This is the main reason why it has assiduously collected and built political influence. It works.
On the other hand NBN is a total game changer. There have been other game changers in the media before, ushered in by technology, current (slow) broadband itself being one.
In many such instances the existing players do not fully understand what is afoot, they do not understand or believe in what is about to happen.
The transistor changed radio. Radio stations that didn’t alter their programming, died. Radio had been a family medium, the main target being “housewives”, hence the reliance on the soap opera ( Lux Hour). The young were not factored into the equation. The transistor being cheap and portable was quickly adopted by teens, and the Top 40 happened and changed the game. Radio stations that did not quickly adapt went out of business. Then FM happened and killed AM music stations. The latter became “talk radio”. TV killed the radio plays. The net is killing newspapers. Etc, etc, etc.
But the NBN – a very very fast broadband with no capacity constraints, and subsidised by the government is revolutionary in that it is the mother of all game changers.
That’s because all the MSM outlets have high barriers to entry: newspapers because of the astronomically high cost of web offset presses required to print a million newspapers an hour plus a distribution system via newsagents; for radio and TV you need government licenses that are granted to the chosen few.
Now we have broadband that is penetrating most households. A fibre-optic cable is a super-fast broadband which will allow those with talent and interest and something to say to be able to broadcast high quality material (technically speaking) into the home without any licence whatsoever and fairly minimal start up cost. If you can launch a website, you can launch a radio station.
Portable reading devices picking up signal from fibre-optic hotspots and way stations will diminish the tremendous profitability of an old media in a few hands by allowing downlaods of the latest news in a few seconds.
This must be worrying to News. They are preoccupied with the seemingly uncontrolled and uncontrollable nature of the internet – we know this because of what Murdoch pere and fils have said, and what Harto has said about paid gateways, and how the content is filched and “stolen”; and what Murdoch has said about ABC 24.
NBN, – think 10+ gigabytes of data per second (two full-length movies in HD) – is their worst nightmare.
No Holly, you are not the only one. For some reason Ulhmann has detested Rudd ever since he was opposition leader. For the ABC in general, he’s just become yet another stick with which to beat Labor.
Holly, even the bloody ABC tv news was running this perpetual, contrived, hogwash. You are not the only one pissed off, believe me.
Henry
AIUI they are talking 1Gigabit not BYTE. (Units of speed)
That would be 1/8 of a GigaBYTE per second.
Sir Henry
Gee thats a good comment you wrote at #140.
I don’t agree with all the latter part of it [I would suggest just merely waving the stick at those willing to tentatvely flirt with fixing up climate change is just one of the many motivations for ALP/Green/"horrible lefty" bashing] but that is nit picking and the info and analysis of the front is first rate.
Ta Sir
Sorry Adrien 152 and Joe 153. I’m probably overdoing the whinging lol, but I was a huge fan of the old Ruddster. I live in a Labor-hostile area, so I need to frequent anonymous political blog-sites to vent.
Ok, Rudd was overbearing and highly irritating, but he had vision, and I believe, a decent heart. A dysfunctional, diseased, battered heart. He was also a easy target.
I can already see the vultures circling towards their next easy target: Robb Oakeshott.
Holly, you clearly are not the only one angry. And your position is not extreme and, when posted in a thread about muzzling or destroying the press for publishing dissenting views, your heated and frothy view is by contrast an exemplar of moderation.
That would be what we used to call “irony”.
I thought this was a thread about encouraging politicians to be upfront about giving “gotcha” loaded questions from the Murdoch press the contempt they deserve instead of caving into them, and encouraging the ABC news editors to stop just cutting and pasting outrageously biased Murdoch media talking points.
The Murdoch media should remain absolutely free to spout all the biased bile they wish. Other people should just be braver about calling it for what it is.
And when the Murdoch media does come up with something that’s actual substantive news, hooray. That should be praised.
I’d suggest that no-one is leaking to Uhlmann because there is nothing to leak. Clearly Rudd wanted Foreign Affairs, Gillard gave it to him. If you asked Uhlmann, he is probably unconscious of any bias. He thinks he’s just calling it like it is. Which means he’s a lousy journalist.
There is no evidence that Rudd is or wants to destabilise the party. What evidence we do have is to the contrary.
On investigating the Storm affair, I don’t see much coming out of any investigation. In the context of Newscorp’s operations, The Storm is a pisspot affair and wouldn’t have taken up much, if any, of senior management’s time. Probably they really didn’t know, because it seems the scam was quite tightly held between a few officers within the Storm. And if anyone is implicated, they’ll simply be excised and the corporation will roll on.
Brian, when investigations began into the News of the World phone hacking affair, it was agreed at the time by police that the scam was quite tightly held to a few Newscorp underlings who were to later spend time in jail for their sins.
Things are now looking decidedly dicky for the ex-editor of the paper who is now director of Conservative Party communications & planning. Just saying..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_of_the_World_phone_hacking_affair
Surely part of the solution is to encourage people to read more than a single news source?
Anyone who reads multiple sources knows the biases etc of each media house. It’s only a problem when people rely on a single source for all their news.
joe2, in an analogous affair, a few years ago Leighton Holdings stuffed up on a couple of contracts – the Spencer St rail remake and the across harbour tunnel in Sydney. No corruption, just a failure to get the sums right in the tenders, so the company lost money.
The people responsible at a very high level in the company got the arse and the corporation moved on. I’d say, right now, with reputation unimpaired.
That’s how these outfits work. If The Storm became a net liability, they’d just spit it out, along with the people who stuffed up.
j_p_z – I should have said “disguntled, aged, Caucasian, males.” Interesting how the unhinged right gets all politically correct when I suits them …
That’s true Kaf, but it’s also the problem. Read Sir Henry’s post @ 140 again. Not only do News Ltd control the bulk of the print media, but talk-back commercial radio relies largely on them for talking points in their sessions/beefs. Fairfax is an alternative in the major cities, but even that often echoes whatever News Ltd has got rolling.
And as if that wasn’t bad enough, ABC radio and TV seem to be relying on The Australian for its stories. And this is what galls a lot of the posters here. The ABC is supposed to be an independent source; it’s supposed to be quality not populist/sensationalist, but it’s not.[How long is it since they had a "Cash for Comments" story? - they did once, and led on it with their evening news, much to John Laws' dismay.]
This might matter less if The Australian had not embarked on a campaign to destabilise the government and to try to make Abbott credible. Hence the home insulation melodrama and the so-called BER “wastes”. To put it all in perspective, the biggest story of the campaign, the Liberals” uncosted promises and $11B black hole was ignored by the media until the independents pinned them down.
We would love an alternative, not just for us (who can use the net) but for the average punter. There is none currently. There may be one if we can get NBN up before Murdoch stops it, but that seems to be his aim at present for commercial more than ideological grounds.
The other option might be to beef up the ABC, and Howard drones will mostly be finishing next year, to provide a national alternative.
So basically, to sum it all up, some of the (sensible) strategies suggested were to give Fairfax and independent media exclusives in every single opportunity possible in different ways, changing the media ownership laws, and for the journalists to stop asking silly questions by having the Labor 76 beating media with a verbal stick whenever they ask one.
Just as I’d given up on the ABC, along comes Marieke Hardy:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/13/3010334.htm?site=thedrum
Nice to know an alternative can get a run, even if not in the mainstream news bulletins.
Such hatred of a free press here! That’s the bottom line. Some of the suggestions here are chilling.
I’ve appreciated The Australian’s recent call for the current Labor Federal Government to be true to the Hawke/Keating policy legacy of economic reform and promotion of growth. It is because the Australian Greens are so clearly opposed to that, that the Australian editorialises against them. Sometimes their news coverage might be open to criticism but that’s true of Fairfax and the ABC as well.
You seem to feel powerless and yet Mediawatch seems very happy to do your anti-NewsLtd work for you…