Tag Archives: newspapers

Gresham’s Second Law

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by Media, politics • Tags: , , , ,

Rupert Murdoch’s dominance of the Australian media is usually spoken of in terms of the 70% share his newspapers have in the Australian market. That is almost three-quarters of the Australian public are exposed (often with no alternative) to the Gospel according to Rupert every day. Every day exposed to his neoconservative ideology and his absolute determination to destroy those left of centre parties Labor and The Greens.

But the problem is much worse than mere market share. Mr Murdoch, no fool whatever his other failings, realised very early on that, just like a large share holding in a company leads to control of the company, 70% media saturation can be turned into 100% control of political discourse.

Works like this. Murdoch or his editors (but I repeat myself) decide on the format for the latest government attack. Doesn’t matter what it is, some fabricated and dishonest attack on the PM’s integrity, or a policy proposal, some poll result, some disagreement between Labor Party members, some union “scandal”, the latest fake leadership challenge. Whatever. The very act of launching the attack, in 70% of Australia’s newspapers, makes the attack itself “news”. The truthfulness, accuracy, of the attack is irrelevant (Rupert understood), its mere existence becomes news and is consequently repeated by other media outlets. Not to repeat it (notably in the case of Fairfax and the ABC, there is no question of not repeating it in the other media) would be evidence of pro-government bias. And that failure to repeat would itself feed into the next News Ltd media cycle, and so on.

Conversely, and this is just as important, when 70% of the country’s newspapers decide simultaneously, by pure coincidence, to NOT cover an event that might impact badly on the political Right, then the rest of the media will ignore it too. Covering it, when News Ltd is not, would be another clear indication of bias of course. So it is left alone. If a Right Wing scandal falls in the forest and is not covered by Murdoch’s minions does it really fall? No, of course it doesn’t, are you not paying attention? Consequently while Labor and the PM (and her staff) were massively attacked for months throughout the media, following News Ltd’s lead, on AWU, Slipper, Thomson, Australia Day “Riot”, and so on, subsequent stories on Abbott’s history, Ashby, the HSU, Abbott’s staffers, etc, quickly became non-stories, barely mentioned, if at all, then dropped within hours.

Accentuating this power has been the recent cross-fertilisation of different media. Suddenly radio shock jocks began featuring in regular segments on tv breakfast shows. Suddenly News Ltd columnists began appearing regularly on tv current affairs shows. Suddenly tv breakfast shows began “reviewing” the morning newspapers, which meant reading out headlines from the News Ltd papers and the others who had copied them. Suddenly “Our Political Correspondent” became a regular part of news bulletins, again repeating (because it was of course now “news”) whatever hares the Murdoch Hunt Masters had set running that day.

To complete the cycle, Right Wing politicians, gratefully accepting the Murdoch talking points each day about the “bad government”, began doing press conferences in which they merely repeated them, thus strengthening the perception that they were actually “news”, and keeping them running through each news cycle.

Once upon a time our national broadcaster, the ABC, would have kept outside this Murdochian Circle. Had reporters who created news themselves, not just parroted the news agenda of News Ltd. Had programs that set the political agenda not copied someone else’s. Conducted interviews with questions they had researched, not simply repeating political spin from the Right. So it provided a circuit breaker, an alternative.

Now, not only does it not provide an alternative but it has been locked into the Murdoch circle, behaving in exactly the same way as other media outlets. But it is even worse than that. The ABC, retaining the air of authority, of credibility, of objectivity, built up carefully over decades by good people, is providing legitimacy in turn to News Ltd. The procession of News Ltd journalists, columnists, the reviewing of the papers, the breathless presentation of Murdoch Memes, all replace the original good journalism of the ABC with propaganda.

And similar processes seem to have happened in America and Britain. Everywhere Murdoch thrives, bad journalism drives out good.

A Lota Spam

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by Media, politics • Tags: , , , , ,

Every morning when I check my blog the first job is to delete the masses of spam “comments”, empty, meaningless phrases, that have accumulated in just a few hours and vastly outnumber genuine comments. The spammers are trying to sell me viagra, ugg boots, fake watches, handbags, and some are just full of inexplicable computer garbage aimed at damaging your computer. Hard to imagine anyone clicking on any of them even if they did get past the spam filter, but they are sent out in their millions by people unconcerned about the damage they could do to the lives of people fooled into clicking.

Same when checking my email inbox. Full of Nigerian bank accounts, United Nations’ lottery wins, unclaimed parcels, all promising untold riches if only I send my bank account details. Scattered in between are demands that I sort out problems with my bank, tax, web site, just click here and all your problems will disappear. Along with your money.

Different kind of spam spewing out of radios these days. Trash talk pretending to be entertainment. Same with newspapers hacking into the phones of people suffering some tragedy. No concern again for the damage done to the people treated badly. One a few days ago a couple of Australian radio presenters rang the London hospital where Kate Middleton was being treated.  The purpose, it has been forgotten in what followed, was to try to obtain confidential information about the patient, her treatment, and condition. To hell with her privacy.

They succeeded in getting through, fooling two nurses, being given the information. What a hoot eh? Except that one of the poor nurses concerned appears to have been so affected she committed she committed suicide. Uproar. Much defence of the radio presenters, who it was said, mainly by other media people, “couldn’t have predicted such a terrible outcome”. True enough, but the original intent was bad. And unintended consequences often flow from using people’s lives for entertainment.

Finally, as if influenced by the flood of spam all around them, political discourse has been turned into spam. Meaningless three word slogans, empty speeches, abusive descriptions of opponents, lies about policy, empty publicity stunts. Discourse full of sound and fury, signifying nothing (did Shakespeare anticipate the coming of an age of spam?). Discourse which must have Eisenhower and Kennedy, Churchill and Wilson, Menzies and Curtin, all spinning away in their graves.

And mindless as it is, this political spam also has consequences. Makes good policy development impossible. Forces good people out of politics. Gets rid of any thought about politics being about intellect and ideas. Intended consequences, for some, it seems.

We seem to be living in, drowning in, an age of spam. And unfortunately some of it can’t be just deleted with the click of a mouse button.

Fit to print

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by Media, politics • Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Much talk about the Australian media inquiry lately, and the inquiry into Murdoch’s activities in Britain. Calls for regulation on the one hand, outraged reaction about government control of a free press on the other. Fairfax Media chairman Roger Corbett said limits on media would be a ‘terrible mistake’. The Right emerged blinking from Think Tank bunkers and shock jock foxholes to announce that any limitations on, nay, any questions about, the media would lead to North Korea and Nazism and Green one world government.

Even the Left was a bit hesitant to be labelled as fascists who wanted to control the media for their own evil ends, and rushed about saying that they didn’t want media regulation oh my goodness gracious no, Rupert forbid. Even someone who has seen more than most of the media’s arseholery, Jonathan Holmes, exposing major and minor media transgressions every week, rushed online to say that of course we didn’t want regulation, oh my goodness etc, but if the Murdoch Press could find it in its heart to indulge in just a little bit of possible self-regulation we could all sleep soundly in our beds again.

The editor of The Guardian, the paper that broke the stories about phone hacking and the impenetrable Murdoch defences, chimed in to talk about some regulation but only to do with privacy and defamation.

But there were some who recognised that there was more rotten in the state of media than the occasional bit of privacy intrusion however unpalatable that might be. Glenn Greenwald, for example noted that “the media’s reaction to the “Occupy Wall Street” movement highlighted how mainstream media journalists had become part of the elite class … journalists had traditionally been people outside of power who acted as watchdogs to aid the powerless, but that mainstream journalists now identified with the powerful.”

But with all due respect to Scourge of the Right Greenwald, the situation seems to me much worse than that. Journalist have become not just servants, but collaborators with power. Indeed further they no longer carry out their role of reporting and illuminating the programs and policies of others, but are players in the political and social game themselves, pushing their own ideology and agenda. That has thrown our political system into imbalance, because the media are not only players but own the means of dissemination of information, control what they will permit other players to say to the public. The only comparable situation was the medieval christian church.

I am sure if you have paid any attention at all in the last few years you can identify many media policies. They are designed either to directly benefit their corporate friends or to create a culture in which those corporations can thrive. Here are just a few off the top of my head:

Media agendas -
Reduce taxes to a point at which you can drown govt in bath tub
Keep all criminals in jail forever
Hunt pedophiles constantly
Kill all sharks after privatising the protection
Dispute all judges decisions
Public schools are rubbish
Public hospitals are rubbish
Religion is good
All opinion polls favour conservative parties, one way or another
Dump speed cameras
Monarchy is good, royals are special
Miracles happen
Psychics are real, so are ghosts
Aust police never do anything wrong. Except occasional rotten apple
Demonstrations from the Right represent voice of the people.
Demonstrations by Left – scum, obstructing traffic, lock them up
No taxes, ever
Unionists are evil and should be sent to convict colony
All strikes are bad and should be banned
Billionaires are great people – hard work got them there.
Poker machines are good, alcohol too.
Refugees are really bad. Except very rich ones who come on private jets.
Left of centre parties must never be allowed to be elected.
If Left of centre party is elected in spite of media set out to destroy them quickly
The poor are scum
The Greens are scum
No conservation measure for environment is ever justified
Zoos are good
Spare the rod spoil the child
The last public servant should be strangled with entrails of last unionist
Police never use enough force on demonstrators
There can never be too many police. Or soldiers.
No measure of performance of a society is relevant except the stock market
Farmers know best.
Every group in society except corporations acts out of self-interest. Especially scientists
Feminists are such funny little girls. Feminism is so twentieth century.
If violence, humiliation and misery attract viewers let’s have more of it.
If it’s legal we advertise it.
Australia only fights Just Wars. Especially alongside America.
Anything that might reduce their advertising profits results in a Nanny State
Climate change certainly isn’t happening and here’s a shock jock to prove it
Balance? Of course we are balanced – on the Right. Left wing views so Twentieth Century

Feel free to add as many others as you like.

This agenda is the reason we need to try to return the media to its original role in society.

Heaven knows this won’t be easy. May be impossible. Normally I would call for regulation, strong regulation, and it may come to that. But like the rest of you I don’t want to see governments of any political colour controlling the press in their own interest, we know where that leads (well, no, not North Korea, but cover-ups of bad behaviour by governments). Nor do I want to see bureaucrats with no knowledge of media trying to direct activities of people who do. On the other hand wishy-washy “self-regulation” of the kind we have now allows the most egregious examples of bad media behaviour to thrive.

I think there needs to be an independent, truly independent (perhaps with a board nominated/elected by the major political parties and the major media outlets), “Press Council” style body but with the power (transparently) to make determinations, impose fines, publicise bad behaviour, demand redress or change, prevent concentration of ownership.

Fundamentally you need (1) an ownership diversity mechanism (2) a “fairness” and balance doctrine in some form, (3) a return to a clear distinction between news and “opinion”, (4) some measure of truth in reporting (and advertising), (5) clear labelling of vested interests and institutional homes of commentators, (6) some protection for privacy and against libel, and (7) a complaints mechanism with teeth. Then see how it goes and review at regular intervals.

Someone noted the other day that one of the commercial TV “current affairs” programs had become a cancerous growth on the media. I reckon the media as a whole has become a cancerous growth on our democracy, and some kind of therapy is needed to reduce its malignancy. Not pleasant, cancer therapy, but it will do them, and us, a lot of good.

Home on the ocean wave

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by Media, politics • Tags: , , , , , ,

The other day, as evidence of News International’s unconscionable behaviour towards ordinary people emerged, followed by growing public anger about the corruption of judicial processes, the links between journalists and police, and the involvement of Murdoch and friends and family in the political world, questions about possible similar activities in Australia were raised. It was noted, by the parties of the left, to provide context, that News Limited outlets had been systematically and viciously attacking them for decades. This didn’t come as shock to any sentient human being or sentient drover’s dog. So the critics suggested (emboldened by the sudden acquisition of backbones in British politicians, some of whom said they were as mad as hell and weren’t going to take it any more) that there might be a little bit of enquiry into the toxic effect of the media on Australian society and politics. Outrage!

No, sorry, not outrage from the public, but from the media owners and their employees the professional journalists, now apparently very sad as a result of these unfounded attacks on their integrity. So they trotted out John Howard (you remember, prime minister during the 100 year war on terror). The ghost of Xmas past, exasperated as always that people were asking questions about truths he held to be self-evident, performed as required.

The press biased against the Left? “Harumph” said Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells, quoting Teddy Roosevelt, “if you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen.”

So, end of discussion, good old John, always calls a spade a bloody shovel, no nonsense, tells it like it is. Politicians just don’t like it up em as Jonesy (no, not him, the other one) would say. Media just doing its job, fifth estate and all that, fair and balanced, turning the white hot heat of investigative journalism (just like whatsisname and whosimacallit) without fear or favour on Left and Right alike. The Left can’t take it, that’s all, bunch of ladymen and, um, ladies.

I hadn’t seen Mr Howard for a while. He had aged and bore the look, white hair and ruddy face, of the old seadog, now retired. The sort of chap who might have sailed with Magellan, or Cook, or taken a small boat to Dunkirk. His very appearance was a living metaphor. Politics, his red cheeks said, was like sailing the stormy seas. The storms were whipped up by the media and it took a steady hand at the wheel to drive the ship onwards and safely back into harbour. The Left, said his driven-snow locks, don’t have steady hands, whinge about the weather instead of steering a steady course.

Trouble is, to be seduced by the metaphor, convinced by the angry retort, you would have to have less sense of history than a goldfish. The good ship SS Neocon, Captain Howard, First Mate Costello, sailed calm seas with gentle following breezes. MV Social Democrat, with constant turnover of officers on the bridge, sailed a different route, where gale force winds blew in their face, reefs threatened their keel, icebergs threatened their bows, and tsunamis erupted at every turn.

Far from being the fifth estate the media acts as a fifth column whenever the ship of state is in the hands of commies. Call up the storms, pull out the bilge plug, drive holes in the sides, sabotage the pumps.

May just be my uncertain memory, but I can’t remember when it was decided that the Australian media got to determine who the government could be, and to correct any mistakes unaccountably made by the voting public. Perhaps an inquiry would help me remember.