‘ Ditch toxic Tony!’ — and other headlines you’ll never read –

‘ Ditch toxic Tony!’ — and other headlines you’ll never read –

‘Ditch toxic Tony!’ — and other headlines you’ll never read

Bernard Keane
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Nov 07, 2014 1:12PM

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If a Labor government had performed as poorly as this one, the media coverage would be very different.

Let’s try a thought experiment: imagine the Rudd government
had, within a few short months of being elected, fallen significantly
behind Brendan Nelson’s opposition in the polls; imagine that it had
produced a budget universally panned as unfair, one that it struggled to
get through the Senate, that Cabinet was leaking like a sieve without
any wire mesh, that treasurer Wayne Swan had made repeated gaffes and
been forced to apologise and was widely regarded as a growing liability,
that corruption in the NSW Labor Party had forced a Labor minister to
stand aside within months of being sworn in, that Kevin Rudd had
consistently negative personal ratings and at times fell behind Nelson
as preferred PM, that Rudd was so unpopular, state Labor leaders
preferred he kept away from them during their election campaigns, that
Labor had announced it was doubling the budget deficit, and if it was
reliant on a political freak show of independent and minor party
senators to secure passage of its bills.



And imagine if the Rudd government had resorted to national
security in an effort to take the focus off its domestic woes, and it
had failed to restore its fortunes, leaving it still trailing the
Coalition?


Now imagine how all that would have been reported — and not
just by the Coalition cheerleaders at News Corp, but by the entire
media? You wouldn’t have been able to click on a news website without
seeing “debacle”, “crisis”, “fiasco” and “Whitlamesque” in every
political story.


It’s true that in some areas, Labor gets the benefit of the
doubt from the media — for example, journalists are hyper-sensitive to
any statement from Tony Abbott regarding gender issues, in a way that
they aren’t for Labor or other figures — witness the relatively mild
criticism Clive Palmer drew for his personal smear of Peta Credlin,
versus the likely reaction if Abbott had said something similar about an
opponent’s childlessness. But it’s impossible to imagine that, if Labor
were in a similar position a little over a year into its first term to
what the Coalition is in now, the media atmosphere would not be far more
febrile.


And it would be more febrile still if a minor party and key
swing-vote senator had gone rogue and declared she wouldn’t pass any
government legislation unless her demands were met, as Tasmanian PUP
Senator Jacqui Lambie threatened today (imagine if she’d been a Greens
senator!). “Labor hostage to rogue senator,” the headlines would have
screamed. Lambie has, right from her election,
looked the most likely PUP candidate to go off the
reservation — indeed, the PUP is now marked more by people leaving its
ranks than joining them, as Clive Palmer’s electoral popularity begins
to slide. Now she threatens the government’s legislative agenda just
when it has worked out a way to deal with Palmer himself.


This week continued the run of bad news for the government. Someone in cabinet leaked not once but twice — first on Monday to Phil Coorey
on how Joe Hockey and Andrew Robb had (correctly) argued in favour of
joining the Chinese-led development bank, only to be headed off by
Abbott and Bishop — and then to Dennis Shanahan
on Abbott telling his ministers to get their act together and stop
jockeying (geddit?) for position. Despite the government going full
kitchen sink on national security, Newspoll showed a worsening in its
position — indeed the result was so bad it was consigned to page 2 of The Australian.
Hockey produced another trademark howler, on tertiary education. The
issue of jailing journalists over revealing Special Intelligence
Operations continues to dog the government.


As has been the usual case this year, international matters
will be a welcome distraction for the government, with APEC in Beijing
next week, followed by the G20 meetings in Fortress Brisbane, allowing
Abbott to mingle with world leaders and keep the focus off his
government’s domestic woes — although hopefully without discussions
straying onto climate change. Even then, however, Abbott has made life
unnecessarily difficult for himself with his “shirt-front” rhetoric
about Vladimir Putin, which voters thoroughly enjoyed but which requires
some form of follow-through beyond a post-meeting “we had a robust
exchange of views”. What are the odds Abbott seeks to manufacture a
Lathamesque handshake with the Russian kleptocrat in front of the
cameras?


Then again, Kevin Rudd’s and Julia Gillard’s international
performances were subjected to similar microscopic examination by the
media, with every stumble, literal or otherwise, endlessly analysed.
Let’s see if Abbott’s performance over the next 10 days gets similar
scrutiny.

‘ Unmitigated disaster’? We fact-check News Corp’s Whitlam haters –

‘ Unmitigated disaster’? We fact-check News Corp’s Whitlam haters –

‘Unmitigated disaster’? We fact-check News Corp’s Whitlam haters

Tom Westland
|

Oct 24, 2014 1:00PM

| 

  

 

News Corp columnists have been tripping over themselves to slam Gough Whitlam’s economic legacy. But economist Tom Westland says in their haste they have overlooked quite a few salient details.

If you’re in the market for a new hobby, I find there is
nothing more enjoyable than speaking ill of the dead. To prick an
overinflated reputation, to throw an egg at a solemn and recently
deceased visage: these healthy pastimes are as rewarding as actual
blasphemy ever was.


When Gough Whitlam died a few days ago, it was all but
inevitable that the tone of the coverage would be rather sugary. So I
was pleased to see that there was in Australia a whole tabernacle choir
of lone voices, each prepared to hold up the process of beatification by
having a word or two about the economy under Whitlam. And to be fair,
they all have the sliver of a point.


The Whitlam years are unlikely ever to be remembered for
superlative macroeconomic management. Then again, there aren’t many
Western leaders of the mid-1970s who come off looking like geniuses in
this respect. And while I can full-throatedly endorse Greg Sheridan’s wish
that “a few more people would check the facts on the Whitlam
government”, and though some of Whitlam’s friends can be suspected of
remembering his accomplishments with advantages, the case for the
prosecution as it currently stands is decidedly clumsy.


The first person who might consider checking “the facts” is
Sheridan. He asserts rather confidently that under Whitlam, “inflation
got above 20% at one stage”. His confidence is misplaced. During
Whitlam’s government, inflation as measured by the consumer price index
peaked at 17.7% in the first quarter of 1975. Since the beginning of
Australian Bureau of Statistics records, inflation has only exceeded 20%
in three quarters, and in all three of them, it was Robert Menzies’
pyjamas that were tucked under the doona in the Lodge. (Perhaps Sheridan
could let us know if “ruinous” is the right adjective with which to
garland our longest-serving prime minister.)


Things don’t get much better when Sheridan turns to the
international scene, where he is apparently more of an expert. Here we
discover (and though Sheridan generously allows that there was a tiny
little oil shock to contend with) that on the question of inflation,
“the outcome in Australia was much worse than in comparable countries”.
This might have come as a surprise to Aldo Moro, the then-prime minister
of Italy, where inflation reached 24%, or to Harold Wilson, who
presided over a British inflation rate of 26.6%.


Other commentators trying their hand at sacrilege fared no
better. Thanks to Gough, Miranda Devine lamented, “half the ­nation is
now on welfare”. In 2012, the last year for which the Department of
Social Services has released data, only around a quarter of the
population over 15 was receiving some kind of income support payment. A
bit under half of these are old age pensioners. Presumably, sans
Gough, we would have adopted work-for-the-pension schemes or simply
euthanised the elderly to spare them the moral decay of Devine’s
“culture of entitlement”.


Meanwhile, Andrew Bolt, making the daring argument that
Kevin Rudd was merely Whitlam digested and reconstituted, credited the
former with “the same debt blowouts” as the latter. When Whitlam left
office, Australia had negative net debt. But did not Whitlam “lose
control” of the purse, as Alan Mitchell wrote? Of the three budgets
prepared by Whitlam’s government, two resulted in surplus; deficits
accounting therefore for a third of his budgets. That fiscally continent
duo Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, on the other hand, recorded 10 deficits
from 13 budgets (about three-quarters in the red).


For all of the ruin occasioned by Whitlam’s supposedly
disastrous programs, government spending has, as a proportion of
economic output, never retreated to the levels seen before 1972.
Whatever else the electorate might have thought or now thinks of the
government he led, they have never really shown much interest in
reversing the increase in the size of government he oversaw. In this
sense, budgetary history since 1975 has been a remarkable vindication of
Whitlam rather than an repudiation.


You don’t have to accept my assessment of his legacy, of
course. It doesn’t require a great deal of inventiveness to compile a
case for the prosecution in the trial of Gough Whitlam, economic
helmsman. But I think we might say that Whitlam — a man whose opening to
China gave breath to an economic relationship that is probably our most
important, and who unilaterally cut tariffs by 25% — deserves a better
class of critic.

Gough Whitlam and the Rupert Murdoch memory hole

Gough Whitlam and the Rupert Murdoch memory hole

Rodney E. Lever 24 October 2014, 8:30am 144

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With Gough Whitlam’s legacy now being reconsidered and
debated, one thing the Australian media are not prepared to discuss is
the role of Rupert Murdoch in his dismissal, writes Rodney E. Lever.



WITH THE SAD PASSING of former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam this
week, it is interesting to recall how his illustrious record has been
besmirched and distorted over the years – even in recent years – and how
certain elements involved in his dismissal have been removed from view —
and placed down the memory hole.



Last year, for instance, I saw the two episodes of the ABC’s documentary about the Whitlam era, called Whitlam: the Power and the Passion.



Having been closely involved at that time, I was amazed at
Australia’s national broadcaster’s either incompetence or deliberate
burying of the truth.



The ABC reeled out all the false allegations thrown at the Whitlam
Government by Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers at the time, with no evidence
whatsoever to back them up. It simply repeated ugly and untrue stories
from The Australian — stories that have been since been shown to be contrived, exaggerated and false.



Did they mention that John Howard was one of the busy bee Liberals who secretly brought Khemlani to
Australia and took him to a Canberra hotel with his two suitcases of
records of supposed dealings with the Whitlam Government. After long
days and nights sifting through the papers, Howard and his colleagues
found nothing – absolutely nothing – which could be held detrimentally
against Whitlam and his government?



No. There was no mention of that. Nor have I seen any mention of this
in the welter of articles about Whitlam and his dismissal this week.



This is just one part of the concerted misinformation campaign
carried out by the Murdoch press at the behest of a furious, jilted,
Rupert Murdoch in 1975.





In 1975, Rupert Murdoch came back from England, where he had just purchased The News of the World. He came expressly to destroy a government which, three years earlier, he had helped to elect.



Murdoch had hated Menzies. He also hated McMahon, who was in the pocket of the Packers.



He campaigned for Whitlam in 1972, with all the emerging power of his newspapers and expected rewards in return.



From Whitlam, he got nothing back, not even condescension, for
Whitlam certainly had at least the same level of personal ego as Rupert
Murdoch — perhaps even more.



Miffed by Whitlam’s failure to reward him for his support in the
election and Whitlam’s failure to accept the Murdoch view on how to run
the country, Rupert began his ugly, ruthless campaign to bring Whitlam
down. It was the most savage attack on an elected government in the
history of this country — with the possible exception of the attacks on
Julia Gillard and Labor’s reforms in the last term of Parliament.



Joan Evatt recalls this vicious propaganda campaign:

In the early stages of the campaign, there had been criticisms
from highly regarded journalists about their copy being so altered that
their stories bore no resemblance to articles that had been filed.
Placement was pushed back, headlines were deemed by them as scurrilous
and not reflective of the content, and so the outraged allegations of
not just media bias, but direct editorial interference, precipitated a strike of journalists.

Denis Cryle in a 2008 book outlined journalists’ complaints:

…the deliberate and careless slanting of headlines, seemingly
blatant imbalance in news presentation, political censorship and, more
occasionally, distortion of copy from senior specialist journalists, the
political management of news and features, the stifling of dissident
and even palatably impartial opinion in the papers’ columns…

In the Murdoch Papers,
Dr Martin Hirst detailed some firsthand accounts of the overt
anti-Whitlam pro-Liberal bias of the Murdoch press, including by former
Murdoch employee Alan Yates:

Alan Yates was a third-year cadet on the Daily Mirror and recalls
the dismissal ‘shocked the entire newsroom’. Yates was on the AJA House
Committee and says that while Murdoch was not necessarily in the
newsroom, ‘his editors and his chiefs of staff were certainly involved
in day-to-day selection of editorial content’. Alan Yates has said that
he felt powerless as a ‘junior reporter’, but remembered his copy being
altered to favour the Liberal Party’s viewpoint:



‘When questioning the chiefs of staff and chief sub-editor about
this I was clearly told that that was the editorial line, the editorial
people had thought that it was a stronger angle. Therefore I was left
not too many options to go.’

Murdoch’s journalists rebelled at the vicious campaign and many resigned from the company in disgust



Alas, I was not among them. I was the senior executive of News Corp
in Queensland and the lone breadwinner for my family and the father of
six children, all at a critical stage of their education. I felt unable
to walk away from my job so easily as some of the other journalists. But
the events of those days brought me to consider resignation at a more
appropriate time.



The mainstream media, by ignoring this sad episode, are touching up
historical events to make them more palatable to certain current actors —
specifically Rupert Murdoch. By doing so, they tarnish the Whitlam
legacy and mislead the Australian people.



In effect, the mainstream media are sending Rupert Murdoch’s – and
its own – role in the premature downfall of Gough Whitlam down
Australia's growing memory hole, thereby doing the Australian people a
manifest disservice.



You can follow Rodney on Twitter @RodneyELever. You can also purchase the original John Graham cartoon at the top of the piece from the IA store.





This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License

Terror hysteria: Herald Sun plays judge, jury and executioner –

Terror hysteria: Herald Sun plays judge, jury and executioner –

Terror hysteria: Herald Sun plays judge, jury and executioner

Irfan Yusuf
|

Sep 30, 2014 12:51PM

|  

 

 

 nS

What do you get when you cross a blatant disregard for facts and legal due process with a “feral Andrew Bolt column”? The Herald Sun, of course.

Regular Herald Sun readers can now breathe easy,
secure in the knowledge that an 18-year-old-man has been found guilty of
terrorism by the newspaper and is now buried six feet under the ground.
For the past week, the tabloid of choice for Victoria’s McDonald’s
patrons to spill their special sauce on has been running a campaign
against Numan Haider, his family, their friends and anyone deemed to
share their faith.


Haider did stab two police officers before being shot dead.
He likely had his passport cancelled and was suspected of being involved
in activities that, had he carried them out, might have been found by a
court to have breached the provisions of anti-terror laws.


In the real world, he had not been charged, let alone
convicted. No evidence against him was brought before a properly
constituted court. But as far as the Hun was concerned, all
this is legal mumbo jumbo. Haider was a terrorist who planned to
assassinate the Prime Minister, even if police denied there was ever
such a plot.


The coverage, the allegations, the group responsibility and the hysteria was relentless. The cover of the Hun
on Wednesday, September 24, carried the words “DEADLY THREAT TO
ABBOTT”, and the deceased was described on page 2 as “A TEEN terror
suspect under investigation for making threats against Prime Minister
Tony Abbott”. Following this allegation were 11 paragraphs citing a
midnight police press conference after Haider’s shooting, during which
no mention was made of a plot to kill the PM. One wonders how the five
reporters (Angus Thompson, Anthony Dowsley, Wes Hosking, David Hurley
and Simon Benson) could not cite a single source for their allegation.


The headline of Thursday, September 25 screamed “JIHAD
REVENGE FEARS” and spoke of “terror reprisals”. The following eight
pages ended with a feral Andrew Bolt column arguing that the fault for
terrorism inevitably is with the 1400-year-old set of religious
traditions shared by almost one-quarter of humanity.


The front page of Friday, September 26 featured a man
visiting the grieving Haider family holding what appeared to be prayer
beads and a cup of coffee in one hand while throwing a stone with the
other. “ANGER ERUPTS AS FAMILY PREPARE FOR FUNERAL” screamed the
headline. Sensitive choice of photo to match such delicate journalism.
More allegations were made including “DEAD TERRORIST GOOGLED PM’S
MELBOURNE TRIPS” and allegations the deceased and his friends planned to
ambush police at Hungry Jack’s.


On Saturday, September 27, on page 5, the headline read:
“Tears for teenage terrorist lost to hate”. The story commenced with the
words: “Numan Haider will be remembered as a teenage terrorist”. The
cover page showed a young man attending the funeral wearing a hoodie, a
black beanie and a black cloth to cover his face. The headline screamed
out “DEATH STARE” followed by “MOURNER WEARS PROVOCATIVE MASK TO
FUNERAL” and “RAW EMOTION AS FAMILY BURY DEAD TERRORIST”. Yep, they’re a
scary lot when they bury terrorists.


Provocative mask, you say? Given Fairfax newspapers
plastered the wrong kid on its front cover and described him as a
terrorist, and given the tabloid hysteria leading to hate crimes, who could blame the young man?


On Monday, Hun columnist Rita Panahi
argued that the actions of a fictitious uniform entity called “the
Muslim community” was behaving in a manner that “threatens to turn
inclusive Australians into frightened xenophobes”. Perhaps she imagines
all inclusive non-Muslim Australians read her newspaper.


She then says Muslim leaders need to “finally dissociate the
Muslim community from the extremist scourge”. As if they haven’t done
so already. But two can play that game. I’ll dissociate myself from
pseudo-religious nutcases whose actions I have no control over if you
dissociate yourself and your buddies from the disgusting criminal
actions of your colleagues that led to the closing of the News Of The World and the imprisonment of a number of its staff. Deal?


The Hun can count its lucky stars young Numan
Haider is no longer with us. Imagine if he survived the gunshot wounds.
Imagine if he were put on trial and convicted of a serious criminal
offence that was not terrorism-related. Defamation lawyers
would be queuing up to represent him. Andrew Bolt wouldn’t be able to
cry freedom of speech then. And he’d look like a right royal fool if he
blamed Islam.

Boycott Murdoch Week: 7 to 14 September 2014

Boycott Murdoch Week: 7 to 14 September 2014

Alfredo Navarro 3 September 2014, 1:30pm 25

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Next week, why not boycott all Murdoch holdings to send
the arch puppeteer a clear message that Australians have had enough of
his malign influence over Australian politics, writes Alfredo Navarro.



THERE'S NOTHING NEW about the influence Rupert Murdoch has over the Australian political landscape.



In 1972, Whitlam was in favour and the Murdoch press supported the Labor leader. Victory was the outcome.



However, when Mr Whitlam PM would not bend to the puppeteer’s whim, an assassination via the press was ordered.



"Kill Whitlam", Murdoch ordered his Australian editors.



And throughout the subsequent decades, Murdoch the master manipular
continued playing on the hopes and fears of the Australian public to
install and remove politicians and governments.





Murdoch’s News Corporation and his other media interests have gone
too far. Their savage attack propaganda prior to the 2013 Federal
election can only be described disgraceful.



With around 70 per cent of the mainstream newspaper market and an ill-informed public blindly accepting their about a fictitious "budget crisis", the levers of power were gifted to Abbott's Coalition last year.





And as Murdoch continues lying to further his own interests and insult Australians — our democracy is in dire peril.



The lying has to stop.



This style of manipulation is not only found in Australia — the USA and UK have also had their fair share of Murdoch's forked tongue.





The corruption and lying is not acceptable in any shape we as
Australians must unite and tell Murdoch that Australians are not for
sale.



I call on all Australians to boycott Murdoch’s News Corp and other interests.



On 7 September 2014, for one week, boycott all Murdoch
holdings to send the arch puppeteer a clear message Australians have had
enough.





You can find a list of Murdoch's major assets here and here.



Find out how to block Murdoch's on your computer here.







Don't let Murdoch steal more elections for his puppets and cronies.



Australians are NOT FOR SALE.



Read more by  Alfredo Navarro at alfredonavarro.com or follow him on Twitter @alfredocowper.







This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License

Is the age of the press baron over? - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Is the age of the press baron over? - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Is the age of the press baron over?

By

Ian Verrender

Posted
yesterday at 8:02amMon 25 Aug 2014, 8:02am

Photo:
Rupert Murdoch won't be around forever and the sentimental attachment to his news services could go with him. (Reuters)

Democracy needs a strong media, but the
leak of News Corp's financial statements last week reveal the age of the
press barons may be in its final phase, writes Ian Verrender.

Kim
Williams is a man of contrasts; erudite but explosive, a talented
classical musician who instead turned his hand to successfully running
huge organisations with brutal efficiency.

Almost a year to the day since his ignominious removal from News Corp, he again has been thrust into the limelight for two reasons.

The
first is his book, an eagerly awaited tome due for release this week,
that no doubt will document his life at the top of the News Corp
juggernaut.

And the second was last week's startling revelations on website Crikey
about the alarming erosion of cash from the media group's major
Australian titles, a coincidence that many at his former employer found
somewhat irritating.

It was tremendous fodder for rival Australian
media groups that for generations have routinely gone to war, with
proprietors occasionally even resorting to fisticuffs.

Having been
on the receiving end of an unrelenting torrent of negativity from News
for the past few years over its financial performance, Fairfax relished
the opportunity for retaliation.

But the documents - a set of
accounts that lay bare every painful detail of the Australian arm of
News Corporation - tell a bigger story about the demise of traditional
media, beg questions about whether the nation's biggest news group is
prepared for the financial onslaught and raise concerns about whether
democracy could be properly served in the absence of mainstream media.

The
immediate reaction from News chief executive Julian Clarke, broadcast
through the company's various outlets, (on top of threatened legal
action against anyone who used the data) was that the numbers were 14
months old and that things had since improved. Williams also copped his share of the blame for the results.

Odd
then that just a fortnight ago, the company's own accounts to the stock
exchange revealed a further 18 per cent deterioration in Australian newspaper revenues.

Although perfectly in character, the company's response reeked of delusion.

If
the raw numbers were shocking enough - The Australian lost $27 million
in 2012/13 - even more alarming was the extent to which News Corp
executives had miscalculated the speed of the decline.

Almost
every title missed budget by a country mile. The Australian, for
instance, had budgeted on a $7.56 million loss. On a group basis,
advertising revenue, while still substantial, was evaporating at a rate
of $1.8 million a week.

Until
the newspaper assets were hived off from entertainment last year, (News
Corp and 21st Century Fox are now separate companies), the decline in
the News Corp's traditional print business had been masked by the
ballooning income from cable television and movies.

That protection no longer applies.

As
a result, News is about to experience the same primal forces of change
that have swept through more exposed rivals such as Fairfax with
devastating force in recent years.

Fairfax insiders concede that
until a year ago, the company's future was touch and go. Its most recent
results - a $224 million profit after years of losses - was down to
improved income from its real estate website Domain.

There are some who argue that mainstream media already is dead,
that social media outlets like Twitter and specialist news sites with
tiny teams of reporters are filling the void. Maybe that's true.

Critics now lament with an air of disdain that the once
great Fairfax these days earns its money from events, dating services
and flogging whatever it can for a commission.

There's no denying that. But here's the rub. Journalism doesn't make money. In fact, you could argue it never did.

Every
Friday night, a long line of punters would line up at the loading docks
of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald to collect a first edition
paper. And while we smugly believed they were there to feast their eyes
on our erudite opinions and fabulous reportage, the truth was far less
edifying.

They were there get their hands on the weekend classifieds, to get a jump on other car buyers.

News
and advertising were always two discrete businesses. The newspaper
itself was simply a conduit, a distribution channel, a pipeline. And
since the internet severed the nexus between the two, news gathering has
been forced to rapidly transform itself into a standalone enterprise.

The
problem is, news gathering is hugely expensive. And no one wants to
pay, let alone pay enough for the news business to be a money spinner.

In a digital world, advertising inventory is unlimited. The barriers to entry are minimal.

Online
news services attract an audience and hence attract ads. But it is at a
vastly discounted rate, and it doesn't raise nearly enough to generate
the kind of returns stock investors demand.

In any other industry,
a rational businessperson would jettison their high cost, low revenue
operations and stick to the bits that make most money, just as BHP did a
decade and a half ago when it shut down or hived off its steel
operations.

Rupert Murdoch would never consider such an option.
The Fairfax board and its chief executive, Greg Hywood, wouldn't either,
as they continually look for ancillary businesses to support the
company's news gathering services.

But Murdoch won't be around
forever and the sentimental attachment will go with him. Make no
mistake, there are major shareholders of Fairfax who for years have been
advocating for a break-up, for the company to ditch journalism and
expand its online advertising sites.

Seek.com, Carsales and REA.
In just a decade, they have stolen Fairfax's rivers of gold and each of
them now outrank Fairfax in terms of market value.

The situation
is no less dire for free-to-air television networks. They have suffered
from the same drain of advertising dollars as print, although not the
same extent. And in an era when viewers can download programs at will,
direct from the production house, the future for free-to-air networks is
challenging to say the least.

This has all come about as public
broadcasters, such as the ABC, are under funding pressures. Governments
are reluctant to tip taxpayer cash into an industry in such a state of
flux and where commercial operators who still wield vast political
influence agitate for the elimination of any serious competition.

Democracy needs a healthy and free media but the age of the press barons already may be in its final phase.

There
are some who argue that mainstream media already is dead, that social
media outlets like Twitter and specialist news sites with tiny teams of
reporters are filling the void. Maybe that's true.

One thing is
certain. Any mainstream media group that believes it is above, or immune
to the crisis engulfing the industry is an organisation that is likely
to imperil its own future.

It is a message Kim Williams forcefully conveyed at News.

Ian Verrender is the ABC's business editor. View his full profile here.

Topics:
media,
business-economics-and-finance,
print-media,
information-and-communication

The last days of newspapers

The last days of newspapers

Rodney E. Lever 24 August 2014, 1:00am 1

Media

Whichever way you look at it, the domination of print newspapers as a daily reading ritual is coming to an end.



Only big spenders with super egos and nothing better to do with their
money are keeping the daily prints alive. Another generation ahead will
have forgotten entirely the weird and ancient habit of the daily
newspaper chucked on the lawn by the local newsagent, who now makes more
money from selling lottery tickets.



There was a time when the owners of newspapers were performing a
valuable public service. They were usually people who understood
journalism and its value to society.



Newspapers were so popular they attracted the interest of investors
and gradually mergers and buyouts took place and publishing became an
important national industry in which political power and massive wealth
became major elements.



The collapse is the result of a stock market that has seen, within
the current century, the value of newspaper shares slide to the point of
looming extinction. The end of the media dinosaurs, replaced by a feast
of far better alternatives and, hopefully, offering a new freedom of
personal choices. 



The gradual change was reinforced last week when the former head of News Corporation in Australia, Kim Williams, came under a vicious attack from the company. He had confirmed that New Corp’s financial structure was very shaky in his period there.



Williams, under instructions from Rupert Murdoch, was leading the
company when it was running outrageous headlines and manufactured news
articles clearly designed
to ensure that Tony Abbott would be the next prime minister of
Australia in the lead up to the 2012 September election. Despite this
success, Williams was fired because of a tiff with Murdoch’s son Lachlan over a totally separate issue.



News Corp’s new management, which maintains the lowest profile in the company’s history, has claimed
that the company’s financial position had improved since Williams left.
Williams released a statement saying he had been the recipient of a 'festival of vengeance'
from News Corp and accusations from the company that he had revealed
confidential information about the shaky state of News Corp’s finances.
He has denied this allegation.





The online news publication Crikey obtained internal company figures showing that News Corp was bleeding money. News Corp lawyers demanded the return of the documents and Crikey
returned them. Leaked documents have been a regular feature of New
Corp’s own financial reporting on other companies for many years.



The relationship between Kim Williams and News Corp seems likely to
remain unpleasant for some time because Williams says he writing a book
about his period within News Corp. 



Where there were once dozens of independent newspapers around
Australia, now there are only four left and cannot be seen as
independent. The two biggest remaining are Fairfax and News Corp — and
it was News Corp which swallowed the majority of what was left.



Bravado and bullshit are keeping Rupert Murdoch’s Australian
newspapers alive. There is no financial justification for their
continued existence, apart for Rupert Murdoch’s idealistic concept of
his own power — now rapidly declining, it seems.



There is a rationale for Fairfax.



Major shareholder Gina Rinehart
needs to underpin her lucrative mining companies. Fairfax papers at
least try to steer a reasonable pretence of fairness in reporting on the
two major political parties. This is in contrast to the uniform shrieks
of horror that appear in the Murdoch papers whatever the Labor Party
proposes.



Newspapers do lie when it suits them and they have been doing so since their very beginning.



The founder of The Times of London in 1788 (originally, from 1785, The Daily Register) was John Walter, who made a lot of money by not reporting the most sensational story of the era. He received three hundred pounds a year for not reporting that King George III was clinically insane. The British Government paid him for silence until the king died, in 1820, locked inside his palace.



Under Murdoch, who bought the paper in 1981, The Times – formerly seen as the
English paper of record –has lost all its famous prestige. It is now
seen in Britain as the crude plaything of a coarse intruder from the
antipodes.





Another British newspaper, The Guardian, whose investigative
reporting first exposed Murdoch’s criminal invasions of telephone
privacy, is still held in esteem and has accepted the internet as a
friend to expand its reporting worldwide.



The American newspaper industry is undergoing its own acceptance of
change. Three of the biggest newspaper operators in the U.S. – E.W. Scripps, the Tribune Company and Gannet
– have all shut down or sold off at fire sale prices their own massive
range of local newspapers across 50 states, plus Alaska. All three have
turned to television, buying up transmitters all over the nation.



The founder of the internet marketing company Amazon, Jeff Bezos, paid $250 million to buy one of America’s great newspapers, the Washington Post. He explained that he had confidence in the future of that newspaper for its “serious news”. 



Only Rupert Murdoch seems stuck on newspapers — about 200 of them
around the world. It was a way of building world recognition. For what
purpose is a mystery. Was he expecting to rule the world? He claims that
his papers bring in a quarter of the revenue of his whole empire, while the other three quarters come from movies and television.



His New York Post gives him political influence in New York State — the city where he lives, at the top of a massive tower. He has used the Post to win elections for various mayors who knew how to return favours. The Post is a serious money loser. 



His Wall Street Journal – once a highly respectable business
and financial source for big investors around the world – has been seen
as the paper to challenge The New York Times, which has
irritated Rupert by carrying prominent coverage of the hacking scandal
in England and the collapse of his marriages. The Wall Street Journal is essentially a mouthpiece for the Republican Party, though it has a wide international readership.





The Sulzberger family has owned the Times since 1896 and its present head, Arthur Jnr,
has firmly declared that the paper is not for sale. Arthur himself,
however, has been caught secretly selling off a large slice of his
family stock.



Murdoch could have picked up Time magazine, created by Henry Luce in 1923, as soon as it achieved a worldwide circulation. Murdoch’s bid for Time Warner,
formerly Hollywood’s Warner Bros movie producer, would have given him
the famous magazine as well as the opportunity to merge Warner with
Murdoch’s own 21st Century Fox. But Time Warner told him they didn’t want his offer and didn’t want to talk to him.



Murdoch will be 85 years old next March. He is looking worn and frail
— haunted by all the investigations that are silently continuing. 



He seems to want
his sons Lachlan and James to take over the company one day. Lachlan
spent a couple of years running the Australian companies, but he was
never comfortable. He had little interest in journalism and even less in
politics.



His younger brother James made a fool of himself in London and had to be shifted out of England to avoid further entanglement in the hacking trials.



Rupert has made a few short visits to Australia recently and massive
staff cuts have been quietly carried out by current executives, who keep
their profiles low.



Both Fairfax and News Corp have carried out staff cuts that were
unreported. Fairfax retrenched about 1,900 staff and News Corp paid out
nearly 1,000. The Australian lost 54 staff, Sydney’s Daily Telegraph lost 167, Brisbane’s Courier Mail 295 and the Melbourne Herald Sun 241.



Most of the retrenchments were of journalists and photographers.



In Melbourne, only the Herald Sun maintains a reasonable profit,
thanks to a combination of Australian Rules Football, some sordid local
political and police scandals and the lifetime habits of a rapidly
ageing readership. Last year the Herald Sun returned a meagre profit, about half of its earlier prime years.



Perhaps Murdoch and Rinehart can afford these failures.



Not many other business magnates would survive such losses if their power was slightly less.





You can follow Rodney E. Lever on Twitter @rodneyelever.





This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License

News Corp Australia leaked accounts show 1,000 jobs cut across mastheads | Media | theguardian.com

News Corp Australia leaked accounts show 1,000 jobs cut across mastheads | Media | theguardian.com

News Corp Australia leaked accounts show 1,000 jobs cut across mastheads

Major leak of confidential operating accounts reveal extent of losses with the Australian losing about $30m a year

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  Amanda Meade
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  theguardian.com,
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News Corp Australia’s Julian Clarke said the
‘illegally circulated’ accounts did not reflect the company’s current
performance. Photograph: Paul Miller/AAP

The financial health of News Corp Australia’s newspapers has been laid bare by a leak of its confidential operating accounts, which reveal the extent of the Australian losses and that the company has quietly shed more than 1,000 staff.


Earlier this month it was revealed that News Corporation’s full-year
profit was more than halved as revenue from its Australian newspapers
continued to slide.


But the leak gives far more detail about the picture across the mastheads.


The accounts also confirm the worst performing paper is the national
daily broadsheet the Australian, which is losing about $30m a year, and
the best performing publication is the Herald Sun in Melbourne.


The Herald Sun generated revenues of $250m in 2012-13, down 13.5% on the year before, and operating income of $35m, down 41%.


In contrast, the Australian’s revenues dropped 20% from $135m to
$108m in 2012-13 and the masthead’s operating loss fell to $30m.


The report was criticised by News Corp chief executive Julian Clarke, who assured staff the “illegally circulated” accounts published by Crikey did not reflect the company’s current performance.


But they do contain more detail than News has been willing to share
with staff or the market in recent years, including that advertising
revenue fell 33% from $87m to $58m.


In 2012 when Fairfax Media was upfront about shedding 1,900 staff,
News Corp, then under Kim Williams, refused to give the total numbers of
staff that would be made redundant when the company was restructured.


But the leaked documents show that the losses at News cut just as
deep, with one in eight jobs disappearing. Hundreds of journalists,
photographers and editors were laid off in 2012.


The Australian lost 54 staff, the Daily Telegraph 167, the Courier
Mail 295, the Herald Sun 241and the Adelaide Advertiser 195. It was not
clear what the breakdown was between journalists, photographers and
support staff.


The staff on the national broadsheet appear to be far better paid
than their colleagues on the tabloids despite the paper not pulling its
weight financially. The average wage per employee for the Australian was
$174,000, according to the documents, while the average Brisbane
employee, presumably from The Courier Mail, got $125,000.


Revenue for the Sunday Herald Sun paper fell 17% to $75m, while operating income fell 31% to $21m.


The Courier-Mail suffered dramatic losses, with revenue dropping 18%
to $158 million while operating income fell 68% to just $17 million. The
documents also show that the paper lost 295 staff, the highest number
of all the mastheads.


Revenue at the Daily Telegraph in Sydney fell 14% to $160m while operating income fell 65% to just $8 million.


The Sunday Telegraph revenues fell 15% to $94 million and operating income fell 53% to $7m.


Crikey’s business editor Paddy Manning said the accounts raised the
question of “how long the rest of the News Corp empire can carry the
under-performing Australian newspapers business”.


The figures were sourced from a copy of the last weekly financial
statements for 2012-13, which provide line-by-line, year-on-year
comparisons across the business, according to Crikey.