So the much foreshadowed media inquiry has been announced. Here’s the press release from Stephen Conroy.
Some idea of the way it’s stirred the pigeons can be gleaned from the reaction reported in New Matilda.
Elsewhere: Tim Dunlop.
NB: Previous discussion on LP can be found here.
As I understand it the inquiry won’t be looking into ownership re: Rupert Murdoch owning around 70% of newspapers here, so what’s the point?
The ABC and Fairfax must also be quite relaxed about this.
Well, I took a couple of cynical pills, and then read the Inquiry terms of reference:
Well, everybody within earshot of Alan Jones and John Laws *cough* cash-for-comment has known since the days that David Flint ran the former ABA (now ACMA) that media codes are a toothless tiger. So, this one will be about government having a bigger stick to regulate media, surprise surprise.
This one is about politicians looking for ways they can shower some taxpayer largesse upon media organisation (all the better for them to do their ‘democratic duty’, you understand…)
They need an Inquiry to appoint a Blogging Ombudsman?? WTF??
See (a) and (b) above.
This Inquiry has the potential to set the scene for a cosy new accommodation between media and government (oh, sorry, I mean public) interests. Smart media operators will smell the money and line up to “assist” the Inquiry.
so what’s the point?
To do the minimum possible to keep the Greens happy?
The print medium is shrinking daily, so the ‘do nothing’ option means a rather vestigial print medium.
In some ways having an inquiry might shed some light on to why this shrinkage is occurring and perhaps do something about it – assuming it’s a problem of course. OTOH, I figure that the newspapers themselves have been scratching their heads trying to stop the (financial) rot, so what would a government inquiry uncover that the newspapers themselves have not?
A lot will depend on the way they interpret “online publications”. If it is restricted to print publications moving online, it sidesteps normal blogs, crikey etc. To be honest, it seems to be pointed directly at Bolt.
It’s also a neat way of saying, ‘Murdoch done it’ without doing much about it.
The thing about the press is that if you suppress it, it will go underground and gain credibility with the populous, unless you have the means of enforcing bans, which has its own negative connotations.
The Greens tend towards censorship, this is clear. Silence the critic and everything becomes legitimate.
Finkelstein, the retired judge to head the inquiry, is a leftie from the old school, and a very sharp operator. This could be fun.
MALCOLM TURNBULL:
Malcolm Turnbull really made an ass of himself at his doorstop. Really, if this is as much as he can say — essentially channelling the Murdochracy‘s omnibus defence, then what use is he to anyone? Why do we need him when we can read Chris Mitchell or Andrew Blot?
To reduce this discussion to a matter of ‘bias’ casts him as a vacuous talking head.
Facelift offered:
This is the intellectual equivalent of leaving the loo with your fly undone or toilet paper adhering to your skirt. One is tempted to begin, but then again, perhaps one should simply look away and quicken one’s step.
What problem do they claim this inquiry will seek to solve? Where is the evidence of this problem that this inquiry will seek to solve?
A Claytons Inquiry into an imagined bias.The poor diuddums of Labor a just don’t like criticism but feel obliged to keep breast feeding the Leader of the Latter Day Luddites.
Well, Terge, it is rather obvious that the Internet is killing the traditional business model of newspapers. I don’t think that anyone denies this, and this problem features heavily in the terms of reference.
To anybody who is tempted to read FaceLift’s entire comment – don’t. That’s 6 and half minutes of time not wasted.
@ Adrian, I think you mean FaceLift’s quote of Malcom Turnbull’s doorstop speech (just reformatted with some blockquote tags). But yeah.
When they’ve finished they will then enquire into the buggy whip industry and chimney sweeps.
The inquiry is a pointless political quick fix that won’t resolve anything. indeed, nothing will change until News Ltd’s unhealthy market dominance is broken – and that’s outside the inquiry’s remit – which rather proves the point.
See my post on this at The Failed Estate:
http://thefailedestate.blogspot.com/2011/09/untouchables.html
So who are we to believe?
Stephen Conroy when he says the enquiry has no remit to investigate ownership of newspapers (ie: the Murdoch papers), or Bob Brown on Lateline when he says the enquiry is not a door ajar, but rather a door wide open to investigate ownership.
Perhaps the terms of reference are unclear. Unlikely.
Perhaps they both have an outcome they desire. Possibly.
Perhaps the enquiry is less about the result, and more about using it as a big stick to media proprietors. Maybe.
Either way, it would be useful and professional to ensure the message is consistent about exactly what this enquiry is designed to achieve.
daniel
http://www.spinspun.com.au
Senator Brown welcomed the establishment of an inquiry independent of Parliament. ”It’s a good thing for Australia’s democratic processes, it will serve the public interest.”
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/national/national/general/media-inquiry-waste-of-money/2292612.aspx?storypage=2
Speaking on Lateline, Bob Brown also seemed to think that the TOR were broad enough to encompass a look at ownership.
My personal opinion, this is an attack on the free press AND a waste of money.
To see the Greens giving this the big thumbs up makes me wonder about the wisdom of parking my vote with them.
“To see the Greens giving this the big thumbs up makes me wonder about the wisdom of parking my vote with them.”
I am sure they would prefer you didn’t anyway.
Why do many of the same people who want fewer regulations (or no regualtions) on the Internet want more regulations on the media?
I would have thought it is odd in 2012 to be approaching ‘the media’ and ‘the Internet’ as completely different things.
What regulations on the Internet would those be Terry?
I can’t speak for The Greens as a whole, but personally, I’d much prefer tssk supported someone else. Some friends are much more trouble than they are worth.
Terry asked:
Assuming the premise is correct (and it’s too poorly specified in your passage above to say that it is) … because they are different (albeit overlapping)? The internet is principally about individual choice and “the media” is largely about the interests of large and very powerful cross-jurisdictional corporations, who typically have commercial interests reaching far beyond media and into the business community as a whole.
Fran, methinks that is because, at heart, you are still the authoritarian Spart of your yoof.
Fran,
Google isn’t a large corporation? Apple isn’t a large corporation?
Channels Seven, Nine and Ten are large corporations/owned by large corporations – as indeed is the ABC – but they are all completely excluded from the media inquiry.
The five most accessed online news sites in Australia, according to Alexa, are ninemsn.com.au, news.com.au, abc.net.au, smh.com.au and theage.com.au. Yet only three of the five are of interest to this inquiry.
And cynics may suggest that it only one of those five i.e. the one Bob Brown and Stephen Conroy don’t like.
Zoot, with ‘regulating the internet’, I refer to mandatory filtering.
Stephen Conroy has of course long supported more regulation of the Interent and more regualtion of the media.
Until recently, Scott Ludlum was on the side of Interent freedom. Where is he now?
Channels Seven, Nine and Ten are large corporations/owned by large corporations – as indeed is the ABC – but they are all completely excluded from the media inquiry.
No they’re not. The ToR don’t restrict the inquiry to the print media.
I see people keep saying Murdoch owns 70% of the print media in this country and that this is a problem.
People also argue that the papers do not print facts and make up figures and “facts” to suit their own agenda and bias.
Well what is happening in this and other posts?
You claim Murdoch owns 70% of print media.
It is actually 32%.
Why do you practise the very same publication of lies that you are arguing against?
Sam, if (a) and (d) of the TOR entails this Inquiry reviewing the Commercial TV Industry Code of Practice and s. 123 of the Broadcasting Services Act, then it definitely cuts across the work of the Convergence Review, established last December.
In which case the question of what it is doing that is not already being done by that Committee becomes a relevant question. Also, why then does TOR c) only refer to the Press Council, and not to the ACMA?
“The Convergence Review is taking a broad and considered approach to a range of regulatory issues across the broadcasting, telecommunications and radio-communications sectors,” Senator Conroy said.
“The Media Inquiry I am announcing today will focus on print media regulation, including online publications, and the operation of the Press Council.
“The Government believes a separate and distinct examination of the pressures facing newspapers and their newsrooms, including online publications, will enhance our consideration of the policy and regulatory settings Australia needs to ensure that the news media continues to serve the public interest in the digital age,” Senator Conroy said.
http://www.minister.dbcde.gov.au/media/media_releases/2011/254
This inquiry is not about TV or radio, despite the fact that both media have a considerably greater audience reach than newspapers and print media.
I deserved the responses I got I guess.
I’d prefer an invesitgation into media ownership and concentration which I think is more of an issue than content.
For instance I find some of the opinionistas at News Ltd offensive, but the larger problem is that there isn’t room in the market for opposing voices. Which does make News Ltd kingmakers. Which is why it’s so serious when you have one of their major papers tossing journalistic integrity aside and declaring that they now regard it as their duty to destroy the Greens. Can you imagine the 7.30 Report or The Age getting away with saying that about the Coalition?
My other concern is that if the shoe was on the other foot I’d be worried about the results. Can anyone imagine if the Coalition had gone down this path? Licences for left wing bloggers? Destroying the ABC? (OK, Howard and Co succeeded in that to an extent.)
If this is seen as a witch hunt against News Ltd then it’s not only doomed to fail but it will make News Ltd even stronger.
And before people say “Murdoch stooge”, I’ve had the chance to read Bernard Keane’s analysis of the inquiry, and think he has some valid points. Its conclusions could be as much to rein in Internet-based operations as it is to place some kind of check on The Australian.
http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/09/15/the-logic-of-an-inquiry-into-a-media-model-under-siege/
People don’t think there was a discussion between the Minister and the Press Council before this was set up?
“If this is seen as a witch hunt against News Ltd then it’s not only doomed to fail but it will make News Ltd even stronger.”
Seen by whom? News Ltd? Aren’t people smart enough to realise that when News Ltd starts squealing like stuffed pigs, they can be ignored? Especially when their empire globally continues to disintegrate around them?
I would think that Jonathon Holmes – again, not a Murdoch lackey – has a point when he says:
“Yet, just as, for the first time in decades, genuine media diversity is being made possible by the new technologies, we are suddenly talking about licenses, and regulations, and codes of practice, and statutory enforcement, and state regulators, for the printed word?”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-09-15/holmes-media-regulation-from-within/2899904
The Media Inquiry has a vaguely nostalgic feel to it. A harking back to the days when Australians did not know what had happened in the world until the thwacking sound of the rolled up newspaper landing on a grassy front lawn could be heard.
The commercial broadcasters aren’t primarily news organisations, unlike newspapers.
Radio and television journalists, with a few exceptions, take their cues from the daily press and add sound and vision. They do very little independent reporting. It has always been thus. As for the shockjocks, they aren’t journalists at all, but entertainers.
ACMA is supposed to regulate the commercial broadcasters. That it doesn’t do much of all is evident by the fact that you can go on the radio these days and make stuff up, call for party leaders to be dumped at sea, call the PM a liar to her face and incite riots and racial hatred.
As for all the pious bullshit about the sanctity of the Fourth Estate, commercial media is a business. Its first responsibility is to its shareholders. Journalism is there to fill the gaps between the ads.
Problem is adrian Fairfax and the ABC are also squealing. I’m not sure how an inquiry is going to deal with the secondary problem with the Australian media which is those odd circular movements where stories are created by reporters reporting on reporters.
I’m also cynical about relative vs real powers when it comes to people commenting online. My worry is that any legislation brought in to bring back into line hateful and defamatory speech by some of the ‘professional bloggers’ would in practice leave them untouched while creating a chilling effect amongst bloggers who aren’t backed up by a team of corporate lawyers.
Terry asked
Both are largely outside our jurisdiction, so the question is moot. Also, neither Apple nor Google are in the sense we usually understand the term “content providers”. News Limited, Fairfax and so forth, are.
The ABC is excluded because their usages can be amended by government, which has oversight through the minister.
In any event, there’s no attempt to control the media’s output implied here. What is being examined is in large part the commercial pressures underpinning the professional practices of news production and how changes in technology and consumer behaviour are affecting the quality of output. That seems a perfectly valid thing to want to know.
It also seems reasonable to wonder whether the Press Council, as it is currently configured, has the tools to do even the things that it is assumed to be doing, leave aside what the public at large would prefer.
Presenting that as an attempt at state control, as does the Murdochracy highlights why there is a need for an inquiry, for this response all but concedes that they think an inquiry will lead to an airing of their dirty laundry.
Terry, I agree with Holmes that regulation of the press is beside the point. They’re going the way of the dodo anyway.
The answer is proper application of competition law and protections against market dominance.
News Corp also has a case to answer on bad corporate governance. The shareholders would have expressed their judgement by now, but for the fact that Murdoch has engineered two classes of shares which enshrine his dominance without economic control.
A smarter government would make life very difficult for Murdoch by tightening up competition law…..and providing tax and other incentives for smaller and newer media players.
Essentially, though, the business model is busted. No inquiry will fix that. The immediate task is to do Murdoch over, unless of course he is done over first by his own board.
If the real intention of the inquiry was ‘to do Murdoch over’, then the Labor govermment were fools to sign on to it. Stephen Conroy has certainly said many times that he doesn’t see that as the point of the Inquiry.
If that’s not the intention, is the intention then to rein in the online media?
If the purpose is to discover a new business model for old newspapers, I can’t see why the resources of government are being committed to that.
Just to follow up on Fran’s point about the ABC, the other reason why the ABC would have nothing to worry about is that it was extensively reformed by the Howard government to eliminate anti-Liberal bias. And they’ve been most succesful with it. When Rudd gained power he didn’t do the traditional thing and sweep the board and the higher levels of the ABC clean. He kept the Howard appointees in place to depoliticise the ABC. I’m assuming the Julia Gillard has followed this lead.
Didn’t work out too well for the ALP but the idea behind it was genuine. I know some on the right love to complain about the ABC but really, if you were a Coalition supporter you’d have to be happy at how politics is reported on the ABC now.
Kerry O’Brien now longer chairs the 7.30 Report.
The ABC balances any government story by starting with the Opposition saying how hopeless it is, a quick sound bite from the appropriiate minister and then cut back to the Opposition restating how hopeless the ALP is and how great they are.
And the ABC uses News Ltd’s lines, stories and leads so often it’s amazing.
Anyone who complains about the ABC being biased can only be complaining about Dr Who screenings at this stage.
Try reading the Terms of Reference, Terry, then you can figure out for yourself what the intention of the enquiry may be, devoid of the spin to which you seem so assiduously devoted.
No, but I can imagine them saying it about One Nation, the Greens’ equivalent.
Adrian, do you honestly believe that the Labor government wanted to call a Media Inquiry focusing specifically on newspapers, on top of the Convergence Review that it commissioned at the end of last year?
It’s policy on the run, being made because they need the Senate votes of the party whose leader considers the Murdoch press to be “the hate media”. They also need to take his party’s mind off their push to amend the Migration Act to reaffirm offshore processing.
The whole exercise is shambolic, and is another reminder of the massive gulf in terms of focus and abilities between the Hawke/Keating governments, who did manage an effective reform of broadcasting and telecommunications laws, and the current outfit.
Craig Mc, except I don’t recall One Nation getting 13% of the primary vote, do you?
Terry, I didn’t say this inquiry’s intention is to do Murdoch over. I agree with you that it is a political quick fix. But I DO think Murdoch needs to be done over. Hopefully that will happen by way of the market.
Really? If the Age or the 7.30 Report said something like this
…as a professional editorial they’d be done. The Press Council would have been all over them.
I’m quite comfortable with News’s editors and execs getting a bloody nose. But there are some endemic problems with this whole exercise:
1) The focus on newspapers is anachronistic;
2) Measures of media influence today need to be cross-platform, not medium-specific, becaause far more people go to online news sites than read the print editions of newspapers;
3) One of the reasons why News has a high market share, to be perfectly frank, is the poor performance of Fairfax over the last decade;
4) I can’t see the point in setting up government enquiries to tell commercial businesses how to do their jobs better. And, gee, its not like we have a Cabinet of business geniuses;
5) This exercise could end up seeing a government-funded Press Council policing online media, which would be the ultimate case of a prgressive campaign – yes, I got the emails from Avaaz.com – backfiring massively.
Anyway, I’ll wait until there is a call for submissions to amke these points.
Have you read the ToR, Terry?
I have some simpler theories for Fairfax’s poorer market penetration.
1. Opening a new paper in any of the Australian cities that News Ltd ‘own’ would be economic madness.
2. Their paper layout is awful when trying to read it at lunch, on transport or anywhere that isn’t a large desk! Seriously!
3. Pretty much all of their best content is available free online. Perversely enough I stopped buying the paper version back in the 90′s, even the ’98 news site was really good. Perhaps too good. (I only buy it once a week for the TV guide.)
Yes, the focus on newspapers is anachronistic in economic terms, but institutionally and culturally newspapers still enjoy privileged access to newsmakers that bloggers and internet journalists don’t.
Crikey, for instance, had to fight for years to get access to the federal budget lock-up – because the mainstream media powers (which include the former News Ltd and Fairfax journalists turned ministerial minders) operate a closed shop.
As for News Ltd’s market share, that reflects more its sheer presence than any tactical brilliance. If you own the two big city tabloids, you’re going to dominate circulation by default. In the broadsheet markets, The Age and the SMH outsell The Australian.
As investments, News Corp AND Fairfax have been disasters in the past decade. The commercial television networks have been kept alive by private equity and artificial barriers to new players.
The media IS changing for good, but the political and institutional structures haven’t twigged yet. In the meantime, though, Murdoch and his editors are creating a great deal of mischief.
@savvy,
Not savvy enough to distinguish between the post and the subsequent comments though, are you? One, just one commentor, made the “around 70%” claim, so why aren’t you using that one commentor’s name instead of mendaciously implying that many people, including the post author, have said this?
Bear in mind also tssk that you have many more choices. Why read syndicated NYT and Guardian material in the SMH or Age when you can read it online in real time?
That is an excellent point Mr Denmore and one that I’d neglected. To add to that people who would have debated in the letters pages of the newspapers (if their letter was selected for that day’s press) have had for the past decade newsgroups, listservs forums and blogs which the newspapers ignored until recently.
There’s only so many hours in the day and before time that I might have used absorbing the paper from front to back has to be sliced up reading blogs, posting to forums and other distractions.
So not only can you read the best fragments from around the world, you can contribute and interact.
It’s true. The Greens are a much bigger national embarrassment than One Nation were at their peak.
CraigMc
Equivalent — how? Equivalent in the sense that they both have representatives in upper and lower houses across all levels of government, and they both from time to time have held balance of power in various houses? And they have both been steadily gaining votes for nigh-on three decades of contesting elections? And they both have formed workable minority governments? Or do you mean equivalent in the sense that they both flamed out spectacularly amid in-fighting, after influencing but one Federal election, and their founder did some porridge thanks to Tony Abbott…oh, wait….?
Sorry, I see what you mean. You mean, “equivalent” in the postreal, postfactual, postmodern Right’s sense of “falsely equivalent, but useful for rhetorical fog-making and talking points and anyway it beats thinking things through before I mouth off, because shut up OK!”??
Pauline Hanson was a real hit with Asian investors as I recall. The Greens? Well, international capital strike by comparison. Look at the Aussie bond yields and $A since the election last year. Oh, wait…
Craig Mc is a yet another good example of someone who just makes it up as he goes along if reality doesn’t happen to coincide with his ideological prejudices.
Is the world full of these sort of idiots or is it just that they happen to infest blogs?
Having read the ToR, I’d say that Brown has a point. The government may have been cleverer than the usual suspects give them credit for.
Re: savvy @ 31,
According to Robert Manne in the SMH earlier this month:
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/a-pressing-case-for-standing-up-to-rupert-murdochs-bullying-20110901-1jo2i.html
It turns out the inquiry is going to examine the ABC after all. That will be interesting.
savvy is part of the make it up as you go along brigade.
This is from a Parliamentary Enquiry in 2006. The concentration has undoubtedly increased since then, particularly in regional areas:
Thats interesting adrian@64
Would you agree that dislike for ALP/Greens is higher in the regional areas(18% market share) than in the cities(68% market share).
How does that equate to influence ?
@Adrian
“In terms of its share of circulation”
Do you think circulation percentage equals ownership percentage?
I’m so very happy that Mr Conroy wants a healthy, robust media in ‘Straya. After all I was a bit concerned because only last year he wanted to import an internet management system from Iran or China or someplace.
Let’s see, The Konvergence Kommittee will be looking at:
What does that mean? Well the first one looks like concern that there should be some more rules because there’s the internet so we need a ‘code of practice’. A ‘code of practice’? For whom? Bloggers? Good luck enforcing that one.
The second seems to be the business of consumers and producers of online media. By what standards do the government determine what is ‘quality’ journalism and contribute to business models that encourage such? Is there a need for this?
The third is clearing house at the APC probably putting in a buncha Labor hacks go figure. And the fourth is other.
I thought this was supposed to be about breaking Rupe’s balls. I guess they chickened out. Or did someone have a convo with Chris at The Oz that started with a lotta matey rubarbing? They didn’t chicken out, they sold out instead.
Measures of media influence today need to be cross-platform
Alas, nobody outside of Larvatus Prodeo gives a shit what is said inside Larvatus Prodeo (or any other blog).
Whereas the producers of AM appear to decide what is important each day by looking at what is written in the Australian. This then gets picked up on Sky News and the media cycle for the next 24 hours is set. The shock jocks have got their script and the evening news producers’ job is done.
It’s lamentable, but true.
68 per cent of the capital city and national newspaper market;
77 per cent of the Sunday newspaper market;
62 per cent of the suburban newspaper market;
18 per cent of the regional newspaper market.
Give that News are the papers taking a conservative position on most issues, its not surprising that their competitors aren’t competing successfully. The figures support my view that most Australians are conservative.
Don’t like the coverage? Buy Fairfax or start your own.
Given that more people turned up to the union strike than the convoy of no confidence the figures support my view that most Australians care more about their work rights than the carbon tax.
Oh hang on…I can’t use that logic like that can I.
Back on topic…News Ltds papers are also doing poorly.
But cheers. I’ll start me paper tomorrow. I’m sure I’ll be able to compete with News!
People in here still do not know the difference between sales percentage and ownership percentage.
@savvy, actually they do and are clarifying what that original “around 70%” meant, and why it’s circulation percentage that matters for this argument about market dominance. That’s 70% of the eyeballs in this country that read a daily newspaper, who are reading one from the Murdoch stable.
Err, that’s, ‘inherit your own’, like Rupe, and Kerry, and the Fairfaxes of old did. Still, keep up the smug complacency, it becomes you.
Actually, it seems like she’s running the US Federal Reserve these days, what with all the “just print more money” – oops I mean – “quantitative easing”.
One Nation received 22% of the primary in Qld in 1998. That’s more than the Liberals or Nationals, and ten times the number of people that voted Green. They peaked at 9% nationally. That’s not an unreasonable comparison to the Greens vote.
@Tigtog
“That’s 70% of the eyeballs in this country that read a daily newspaper, who are reading one from the Murdoch stable.”
Oh I see, you are actually suggesting that people having free choice to buy whichever paper they like is wrong?
I do like the idea of PeterTB’s simplification of dealing with monopoloy systems. Just think, you could streamline antitrust law to “if you are dealing with a monopoly…open your own business to deal with it.
Genius!
@savvy: No, I’m not suggesting that at all. You are putting words into people’s mouths, which is a despicable habit.
tigtog characterised savvy‘s conduct as follows:
It certainly is. See also verballing. This is an attempt to iterate a strawman/trope with which to argue.
Of course it’s also possible that savvy
a) has a receptive reading/cognitive processing difficulty
&/or
b) is simply repeating copy & paste style things published in the Murdochracy
Certainly, savvy‘s contribution comes under the heading of trolling noise.
@Fran
“Certainly, savvy‘s contribution comes under the heading of trolling noise.”
So News Ltd owns about 30% of the print papers in Australia yet the paper buying public chooses a News Ltd paper 70% of the time.
What exactly is the problem again?
@Tigtog
“No, I’m not suggesting that at all”
Well what are you suggesting? All I can see with the above figures are people exercising their freedom of choice in the marketplace.
And if ever there was an unwarranted moniker, savvy is it in this particular case.
“If the purpose is to discover a new business model for old newspapers, I can’t see why the resources of government are being committed to that.”
The gov. sets up inquiries and boards over a range of industries, car manufacturing, textiles, steel, the media. IIRC the LNP referred allegations of bias in the education system to a Senate committee which I personally found very annoying. So you may not like it but it’s not unprecedented and review is a perfectly natural function of gov. And we are probably due for a look at the distribution of ownership again.
So News Ltd owns about 30% of the print papers in Australia yet the paper buying public chooses a News Ltd paper 70% of the time.
That’s a misleading statement. How about you give us some more ownership statistics and this time exclude the ‘newspapers’ which are nothing but catalogues of real estate ads shoved in post boxes and chucked out immediately.
@76 Darin sets new ground for what constitutes “unreasonable”. A single election result spiking once before flaming out completely is somehow a “reasonable” comparison with a party that has scored upper and lower house seats in all levels of government across the country, and recorded a sloooow but steadily increasing share of the vote over some 3 decades.
The postreal Right’s war on reason continues…
…how can you have a conversation with a faction that rushes to defend a foolish and on-its-face nonsensical bit of rhetoric, as though it’s a fact that is even worthy of debate? How does that constitute a fruitful discussion about anything real?
These are not rhetorical questions. Fruitful debate and argument is only possible when opposing factions will entertain a common agreement about the premises (even admitting premises if only, and quite literally, “for the sake of argument”), even if they disagree about conclusions.
But when one faction treats every. single. data. point. as a bit of rhetorical grist to a relativistic mill, cogent argument and debate are rendered impossible.
I wonder whether the media inquiry will have any success in dispersing all the flim-flam and rhetorical overrearch that passes for political discussion now? The postmodern Right will rush to generate fog and noise about the premises on which the inquiry conducts its business, and thus head off any possibility that they will give any serious consideration to its findings.
We seriously need a return to some shared agreement and common understanding of facts. Only in high-school debates can we behave as though it’s all a rhetorical trick. The stakes here are a bit higher.
Patrickb, I’m not a big fan of throwing taxpayer’s dollars at the car industry or the steel industry either. I’m with the Whitlam-Hawke-Keating Labor tradtion on that one.
I also thought that Senate Committees checking the reading lists of first year Arts courses was ridiculous. I’m quite aware of parliamentary committees pursuing bizarre hobby horses. Your taxes at work, indeed.
At nay rate, if you can’t see why a government-dependent newpsaper industry may be a problem for Australia for reasons that are not so pertinent for a government-dependent car industry or steel industry, it may be a good time to go back and have a look at Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man again.
Adrian 84
I read my local newspaper assiduously – but to read the brothel ads, not the real estate. The local crime is quite entertaining too.
I’m a Liberal voter and couldn’t care less about this inquiry. Politically the timing is just plain bad for Labor. The so called professionals working for the ALP, are absolute rank amateurs, they continue to prove this time and time again.
It’s interesting that the ALP/Greens won’t have an inquiry about Australian manufacturing (a living for many ALP/swing voters), however they will have an inquiry about Australian media, an inquiry that directly relates to “their” job security. That’s a rolled in gold line just itching for the Liberals to pick and run with.
It’s getting close to end game for the Liberals. They really should be thinking beyond the next two years. How do they extend their term in government from say a decade to fifteen years? Having future ALP/Greens oppositions ripping each other to shreds over the legacy left by the present circus performers will go a long way to helping.
dear Rob b
whatever. i have no quibble with what you say, but, for the record, the greens support an inquiry into manufacturing.
http://greens.org.au/content/greens-move-manufacturing-jobs-inquiry
the greens do dissent from labor on many issues and this is one.
yours sincerely.
alfred venison
I do like the idea of PeterTB’s simplification of dealing with monopoloy systems
That’s because it really is that simple tssk. There are no particular barriers to entering the Newspaper business – get some capital together and go for it. Mind you, your investors will need to be blind to the way the print media are trending financially.
This is such a silly discussion anyway, because the cost of starting up an online presence is pretty small, so that there is plenty of diverse opinion out there already. And the ABC is there to give a hand to anyone of the left who styles themselves as a “commenter” like the Crikey people who get a free run down here in Canberra.
There are already layers of legal protections which media have to negotiate, and I find it astonishing that many here seem to see no danger in having more government control over the free press or its online offshoot.