Murdoch!
The one word that if someone has the nerve to utter, causes people to suddenly develop bouts of irrationality and paranoia.
Imagine if the wizarding world of Harry Potter was real and there was a game of Quidditch on. Suddenly either the commentator or someone in the crowd yelled out Murdoch. Next second you would have 14 players and a referee falling off their brooms forgetting about the game. Now I admit, that image is a little cruel and disrespectful to the wizarding world of Harry Potter but in my mind, it actually has entertainment value.
Anyway, here in Australia, we have a media diversity problem because ever since the Howard Government loosened media ownership laws, Rupert Murdoch and News Corp started buying up outlets to control the nation's media. According to Nikkei Asia Murdoch's hold over politics and the media is most extensive in Australia, where News Corp owns close to 60% of the country's newspapers; pay TV company Foxtel and a conservative 24-hour channel, Sky News Australia, which has amassed more than 3 million subscribers on YouTube alone
Now that is a damn sizeable amount whatever way you look at it and you could point to good business acumen or perhaps being in the right place at the right time.
There have been many pushes for reform of Australian Media Ownership laws with perhaps the greatest push of all being led by Kevin Rudd who in 2020 created a petition calling for a Royal Commission into News Corp. 500,000 Australians signed that petition and forced it to be debated in Federal Parliament.
I admit strongly right now that I WAS NOT one of those 500,000 who signed the petition. Do I believe there is an issue with our media? Most definitely! Do I believe that News Corp has far too much power and influence over our politics? Yes!
Do I believe that we need to look at our laws going forward? Yeah, I do!
So why exactly did I refuse to sign the petition?
Because I saw it for what it was...a continuation of one of the greatest dummy spits of all time from when Kevin Rudd lost the 2013 Federal Election to Tony Abbott. This is the same Rudd who forgot that some of News Corp actually endorsed him to win in 2007 against John Howard. Either way, I saw it as someone with an agenda and out for revenge and I have a policy never to sign up to that sort of rubbish.
Anyway, the push for an investigation into our media laws, specifically targeting News Corp made the news again this week following two interventions from Federal Politicians.
The first push came from Senator Sarah Hanson-Young who moved a bill in the Australian Senate on Tuesday calling for a Royal Commission into the Murdoch Media Empire and the State of Media Diversity in Australia You can read the media release from the Greens on this by clicking here.
The very next day, the Independent Member for Goldstein, Zoe Daniel put out a piece for The New Daily calling for "much-needed media reform."
You can read Zoe Daniel MP's piece for The New Daily by clicking here.
Let me be clear, I am not exactly opposed to these pushes for media reform, not at all. The problem I have however is that both of these pushes have hidden agendas/conflicts of interest behind them and it is those which trouble me greatly.
Looking at Senator Sarah Hanson-Young's Bill (read the explanatory memorandum here) it comes across as a reasonable bill and despite my initial fears that it would exclusively target Murdoch, surprisingly Hanson-Young has managed to wrangle bits of media diversity into it
Digging deeper into these references though and I become a little bit troubled. - Fear of retribution in the press hampering the creation of public policy (more like the Public Service not giving frank and fearless advice and the Government not being able to sell it properly) - Efficacy of current legal frameworks...managing misinformation and disinformation in the media (who the hell decides what's misinformation or disinformation? That's heading down a slippery slope) - Impact on democracy of "Foxification"...undermining trust in public institutions and public interest journalism (Public institutions such as governments do a good job of undermining themselves and public interest journalism - you can tell their bias straight away)
While a lot of this targets News Corp, this Royal Commission has the potential to become a very nasty witch hunt. How far do you go? Do you target the ABC and SBS? Or head further down the chain targeting the likes of online publications with more than 5 writers such as Crikey (left-wing), The Spectator (right-wing) and Independent Australia (left-wing making a mockery of the term Independent)? Where does that line get drawn? This also comes from the Greens who have been notoriously biased against Murdoch and News Corp because, in their eyes, they don't get given a fair go. While I can see that this comes from a claim of wanting to do good, I see this as the Greens looking to get revenge against Murdoch and settle scores.
Then turning to Zoe Daniel MP and her push. Zoe has been very consistent with her view that we need media reform and in some respects, she can speak on this with great authority. Having worked with the ABC for 27 years and seeing a lot of the ins and outs of how the media operate, you would say, yes, Zoe Daniel has credibility when speaking on this issue of media reform.
Not so I'm afraid.
The problem here with Zoe Daniel MP's push for genuine media reform, at no stage does she make reference to her former workplace as being part of that media reform. If she does mention the ABC as part of any media reform push, it almost comes across as adding them as an afterthought. I mean, let's be consistent here. You can't call for media reform on one hand and then go "Oh, I suppose we should add the ABC into the discussion as an afterthought."
That unfortunately is a bias in itself and while she can talk about the media issues with credibility, her refusal to acknowledge the ABC as being part of the problem with the media doesn't win her any supporters.
And what about those 500,000+ Australians who signed Kevin Rudd's petition calling for a Royal Commission into Murdoch?
Did they sign because they actually care about media diversity OR did they sign because they only want to have media that caters to their views and they're too afraid of alternative views?
These pushes based on reality at this point in time are going to go nowhere unless someone with no bias and credibility heads such a campaign.
No such person exists so this latest push is going to hit a dead end once again.
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